Rita Keegan, OBE (born 1949) is an American-born artist, lecturer and archivist, based in England since the late 1970s. She is a multi-media artist whose work uses video and digital technologies.[1] Keegan is best known for her involvement with in the UK's Black Arts Movement in the 1980s and her work documenting artists of colour in Britain.
Rita Keegan | |
|---|---|
| Born | Rita Morrison 1949 (age 74–75) |
| Education | High School of Art and Design, San Francisco Art Institute |
| Known for | Painting, digital art |
Biography
editBorn Rita Morrison[2] in the Bronx, New York City,[3] to a Dominican mother and Canadian father,[4] she described her upbringing in the Bronx as having "more in common with an English/Commonwealth background".[5] She graduated from the High School of Art and Design focusing on illustration and costume design, then obtained a fine arts degree at the San Francisco Art Institute,[6] where her teachers included the photographer Imogen Cunningham and the African-American artist Mary O'Neill.[5] Keegan moved to London, England, in the late 1970s.[1]
Keegan originally trained as a painter but in the 1980s begin to incorporate lens-based media, using the photocopier and computer in both 2D and installation work.[7] In 1984 she worked at "Community Copyart" in London. The GLC-funded organisation was an affordable resource centre for voluntary groups to create they own print material in addition to working with artists who wanted to use the photocopier as a form of printmaking.[8]
Keegan was a founding member of the artists' collectives Brixton Art Gallery in 1982, and later Women's Work and Black Women in View. She went on to co-curate Mirror Reflecting Darkly, Brixton Art Gallery's first exhibition by the Black Women Artists collective.[9] From 1985 Keegan was a staff member at the Women Artists Slide Library (WASL), where she established and managed the Women Artists of Colour Index.[10] She was Director of the African and Asian Visual Arts Archive from 1992 to 1994.[2] In 2021 she had a solo exhibition Somewhere Between There and Here at the South London Gallery[11]
Keegan taught New Media and Digital Diversity at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she also helped establish the digital-media undergraduate course in the Historical and Cultural Studies department.[2][9]
Selected exhibitions
edit- 1983: Women's Work, Brixton Art Gallery, London[12]
- 1985: Mirror Reflecting Darkly: Black Women's Art, Brixton Art Gallery, London[12][13]
- 1990: Let the Canvas Come to Life with Dark Faces, Bluecoat[14]
- 1991: Family Album: An exhibition by Brixton Black Women Artists, Copyart Resource Centre, London
- 1991: Four X 4 curated by Eddie Chambers, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton[4]
- 1992: Trophies of Empire, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol and Bluecoat, Liverpool curated by Keith Piper[12]
- 1992: White Noise: Artists Working with Sound, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham[15]
- 1993: Rites of Passage, ICA, London (solo)
- 1995: Time Machine: Ancient Egypt and Contemporary Art, InIVA and British Museum, London[16]
- 1997: Transforming the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean Artists in Britain, 1966–1996, Studio Museum in Harlem, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Caribbean Cultural Center (Manhattan), New York[2][17]
- 1998: Family Histories: Eating with Our Memories, Sleeping with the Ancestors, 198 Gallery, London (solo)[2]
- 2006: Transformations, Lewisham Arthouse and Horniman Museum, London (solo)[18]
- 2021: Somewhere Between There and Here solo exhibition at the South London Gallery[11][19]
References
edit- ^ a b Desire By Design: Body, Territories and New Technologies. By Cutting Edge (group). I.B. Tauris. 1999. p. 237. ISBN 9781860642807. OCLC 40834228 – via Google Books.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) - ^ a b c d e Cheddie, Janice (2002). "Keegan, Rita". In Donnell, Alison (ed.). Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture. Routledge. p. 167. ISBN 9781134700257. OCLC 51601660 – via Google Books.
- ^ Rita Keegan (Video). Sam Wheels. 9 August 2013. Retrieved 8 October 2024 – via YouTube.
- ^ a b Chambers, Eddie (1991). Four x 4: Installations by Sixteen Artists in Four Galleries. Bristol. pp. 21–22. ISBN 9780951329016. OCLC 24931119. Retrieved 8 October 2024 – via Internet Archive.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b Rendell, Clare (October–November 1987). "Actual lives of women artists--Rita Keegan 1987: painter Rita Keegan talks to Clare Rendell". Women Artists Slide Library Journal (19): 10–11. Retrieved 12 February 2024 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ Buckman, David, ed. (2006). Dictionary of Artists in Britain Since 1945. Vol. 1. A to L. Bristol: Art Dictionaries. ISBN 9780953260959. OCLC 77011785.
- ^ Taylor, Stuart (10 January 1997). "Rita Keegan on Digital Diversity and the Colour of Computers". Mute. Archived from the original on 27 January 2019. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
- ^ Baines, Jess (2015). "Nurturing Dissent? Community Printshops in 1970s London". In Uldam, Julie; Vestergaard, Anne (eds.). Civic Engagement and Social Media: Political Participation Beyond Protest. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 190. ISBN 9781137434166. OCLC 908190826 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b "TrAIN Conversation - Françoise Dupré and Rita Keegan in conversation with Deborah Cherry - BRIXTON CALLING!". University of the Arts London, Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation. 14 November 2011. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
- ^ Arya, Rina (2012). Chila Kumari Burman: Shakti, Sexuality and Bindi Girls. KT Press. ISBN 978-0953654130. OCLC 863042814 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b Morris, Kadish (11 September 2021). "Rita Keegan: the return of black British art's forgotten pioneer". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 3 June 2024. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
- ^ a b c "Keegan, Rita - Bibliography and Exhibitions". African American Visual Artists Database. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015.
- ^ "Mirror Reflecting Darkly – Black Womens Art – Womens Work 4". Brixton Art Gallery Archive. 15 June 1985. Archived from the original on 3 June 2024. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
- ^ "Let the Canvas Come to Life with Dark Faces". Bluecoat. 1990. Archived from the original on 3 March 2024. Retrieved 8 October 2024.
- ^ White Noise: Artists Working with Sound: Sonia Boyce, Seán Hillen, Richard Hylton, Rita Keegan, Pratibha Parmar (Exhibition catalog). Birmingham: Ikon Gallery. 1992. OCLC 1302870124.
- ^ Putnam, James; Davies, W. V., eds. (1994). Time Machine: Ancient Egypt and Contemporary Art. London: Iniva and British Museum. ISBN 0-86159-997-7. OCLC 42372882. Archived from the original on 12 February 2024. Retrieved 12 February 2024 – via Iniva.
- ^ Cotter, Holland (24 October 1997). "ART REVIEW; This Realm of Newcomers, This England". The New York Times. pp. E 33. ProQuest 2236700131. Archived from the original on 14 July 2012. Retrieved 8 October 2024.
- ^ "Exhibitions and Special Exhibits since 1948". Horniman Museum and Gardens. Archived from the original on 9 October 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
- ^ LaBarge, Emily (December 2021). "Rita Keegan". Artforum. 60 (4). ProQuest 2605262169. Archived from the original on 29 October 2023. Retrieved 8 October 2024.
Further reading
edit- Rita Keegan, "The Story So Far", Spare Rib, February 1990, Issue 209, p. 36.
- Rita Keegan, "Once Upon a Time", Spare Rib, December–January 1988, Issue 197, p. 44.
- Guy Burch; Françoise Dupré (2011). Brixton Calling!: Then & Now: Brixton Art Gallery & the Brixton Artists Collective. ISBN 978-1-902770-13-0.
External links
edit- "Rita Keegan" (YouTube video, posted 9 August 2013), SamtheWheels, 2008.
- Women of Colour Index archive record at The Women's Art Library at Goldsmiths College, London.