A Tangled Mess

Shortlisted for the Independent Podcast Awards 2023. Subscribe to receive exclusive weekly content at www.thegallerycompanion.com

In this week’s episode I am talking about the new show at the Royal Academy in London. It’s called Entangled Pasts, and it looks at the relationship between Britain’s imperial histories and the visual arts, and how art shapes narratives of empire, slavery and resistance.

Almost every art critic reviewing this show has described it as groundbreaking, extraordinary, or radical. I didn’t think it was any of those things. In fact the subject matter was so tamed and contained, that it made me a little bit annoyed. I kept waiting to see the realities of the violence and cruelty of our colonial history, but it never came.

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The Gallery Companion is hosted by writer and historian Dr Victoria Powell. It's a thought-provoking dive into the interesting questions and messy stuff about our lives that art explores and represents.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.thegallerycompanion.com