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The life and legacy of Donald Rodney at the Whitechapel Gallery
In conversation with Cameron Foote, curator at Whitechapel Gallery on Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker, on view till 4 May
By
Rhea Mathur
February 24, 2025
Can you share the vision behind this exhibition with us?
The exhibition was initially curated by Nicole Yip and Robert Leckie when they were directors of Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary, respectively (they have both since moved on to new roles). After the exhibition was in view in these previous venues in 2024, it was a real pleasure to collaborate with them further and bring the exhibition to London.
As they outline in the introduction to the exhibition publication Donald Rodney: A Reader, Nicole and Robert laid the groundwork for this project. They conducted detailed research to locate almost all of Rodney’s surviving works, either with his estate or in museum collections around the UK. While some of these works had been displayed recently, others required conservation treatment or – in the case of a synchronised slide-tape work Cataract (1991) – detailed conversations with Rodney’s friends and past collaborators to piece together the artist’s intentions.
For Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros, curatorial fellow Carolina Jozami, and myself, it felt very important for Donald Rodney’s work to be seen in London. Rodney lived in the city since studying at the Slade in 1985–87, where he held some of his most important exhibitions, including poignantly his final solo exhibition, 9 Night in Eldorado, at South London Gallery in 1997.
How does this exhibition communicate with previous Whitechapel Gallery exhibitions and the space it is in?
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker follows a recent exhibition of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–88, Brazil) paired with an exhibition titled An Awkward Relation from artist and educator Sonia Boyce (b.1962, London, UK), which were both on view from the 2nd of October 2024 to the 12th of January 2025. A happy echo of Boyce’s exhibition comes in the archival section of the Donald Rodney exhibition, where you can see photographs of Boyce and Rodney posing with a flag in Rodney’s studio at the Slade in 1987. The two artists were friends, and Rodney used silhouettes from this series of photographs in his compositions for a now-lost artwork, A Beginner’s Guide to Blak History (1987).
Where does the phrase ‘Visceral Canker’ come from?
The exhibition's title, ‘Visceral Canker,’ comes from one of Rodney’s 1990 works. He made the piece for a public art project organised by Television South West in a disused military battery overlooking Plymouth Sound. The work comprises two wooden plaques bearing the coats of arms of John Hawkins (1532–1595), the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, and of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who granted Hawkins the use of a ship for this purpose. Disturbingly, Hawkins’ insignia includes images of enslaved African people. Rodney overlays the two heraldic images with a system of pumps and tubes that circulate imitation blood, demonstrating his bodily connection to this history and its contemporary legacies.
Initially, Rodney even intended to use his own blood before Plymouth City Council intervened. The title of the piece exemplifies the visceral nature of Rodney’s work and politics and the ways in which he used his art to make powerful connections between the body, its representations, and the idea of the ‘canker’, or disease, in society.
Can you talk about In the House of My Father (1996–7), one of Rodney’s seminal works, and how he uses it to discuss his health, family, and identity? What did it mean to have this work as part of the exhibition?
Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia, and in this and other works, he drew on his experiences with the condition to create works with a broader resonance. In the House of My Father (1996–97), a close-up photograph of a tiny sculpture cradled in the artist’s hand is shown.
The sculpture, titled My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother (1997) is a miniature house made of the artist’s skin, taken from his body during one of his many operations, and held together with pins. Photographer Andra Nelki took the image while Rodney stayed at King’s College Hospital in South London. The publication contains a text about this work by Rodney’s life partner, Diane Symons, which discusses this work in relation to other photographs taken at the same time.
The image of the house appears in different ways throughout this exhibition – in Rodney’s sketchbooks, in a preparatory drawing for a now lost anti-apartheid work titled Soweto/Guernica (1988) and in a large-scale assemblage made of X-rays of Rodney’s own body titled The House that Jack Built. In the photograph, the tiny and fragile house seems to contain power beyond its physical scale, symbolising the bonds between family and the importance of domestic space. As you mention, this photograph is among Rodney’s most exhibited and best-known works, which attests to this power.
Rodney was part of the Blk Art Group, which included artists like Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson. Did being in the group impact his work or practice in any way? Is there a piece in the exhibition that reflects that influence from the works of his contemporaries?
Rodney studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham from 1981 to 1985. This was where he met the artist Keith Piper, a Fine Art student who became a lifelong friend. Their networks also included Claudette Johnson and other artists who became known as the Blk Art Group. All the initial members were children of Caribbean migrants raised in the West Midlands. They organised events such as ‘The First National Black Art Convention’ in 1982 – a four-week exhibition and seminar series ‘to discuss the form, functioning and future of black art’ – and, later, touring group exhibitions such as ‘Beyond the Pan-Afrikan Connection’. Rodney’s engagement with a group is discussed in detail in a display in Whitechapel Gallery’s archive gallery, brought together by curator Carolina Jozami.
In his brief career, can you speak about Rodney’s cross-disciplinary approach and constant experimentation with new materials and technologies? What do you think inspired him to experiment?
Rodney was in constant conversation with artistic peers and collaborators, examining international tendencies in contemporary art and drawing on references from popular culture and the news. One of the remarkable features of this exhibition is that it brings together work from only 15 years, from 1982 until 1997, shortly before Rodney died at 36. Everything on view was created while the artist was in his 20s or early 30s. While some of Rodney’s themes are consistent – addressing identity, race, history, technology and the personal and collective experiences of Black people in Britain – his material and visual strategies are continuously developing.
Can you share the vision behind this exhibition with us?
The exhibition was initially curated by Nicole Yip and Robert Leckie when they were directors of Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary, respectively (they have both since moved on to new roles). After the exhibition was in view in these previous venues in 2024, it was a real pleasure to collaborate with them further and bring the exhibition to London.
As they outline in the introduction to the exhibition publication Donald Rodney: A Reader, Nicole and Robert laid the groundwork for this project. They conducted detailed research to locate almost all of Rodney’s surviving works, either with his estate or in museum collections around the UK. While some of these works had been displayed recently, others required conservation treatment or – in the case of a synchronised slide-tape work Cataract (1991) – detailed conversations with Rodney’s friends and past collaborators to piece together the artist’s intentions.
For Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros, curatorial fellow Carolina Jozami, and myself, it felt very important for Donald Rodney’s work to be seen in London. Rodney lived in the city since studying at the Slade in 1985–87, where he held some of his most important exhibitions, including poignantly his final solo exhibition, 9 Night in Eldorado, at South London Gallery in 1997.
How does this exhibition communicate with previous Whitechapel Gallery exhibitions and the space it is in?
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker follows a recent exhibition of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–88, Brazil) paired with an exhibition titled An Awkward Relation from artist and educator Sonia Boyce (b.1962, London, UK), which were both on view from the 2nd of October 2024 to the 12th of January 2025. A happy echo of Boyce’s exhibition comes in the archival section of the Donald Rodney exhibition, where you can see photographs of Boyce and Rodney posing with a flag in Rodney’s studio at the Slade in 1987. The two artists were friends, and Rodney used silhouettes from this series of photographs in his compositions for a now-lost artwork, A Beginner’s Guide to Blak History (1987).
Where does the phrase ‘Visceral Canker’ come from?
The exhibition's title, ‘Visceral Canker,’ comes from one of Rodney’s 1990 works. He made the piece for a public art project organised by Television South West in a disused military battery overlooking Plymouth Sound. The work comprises two wooden plaques bearing the coats of arms of John Hawkins (1532–1595), the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, and of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who granted Hawkins the use of a ship for this purpose. Disturbingly, Hawkins’ insignia includes images of enslaved African people. Rodney overlays the two heraldic images with a system of pumps and tubes that circulate imitation blood, demonstrating his bodily connection to this history and its contemporary legacies.
Initially, Rodney even intended to use his own blood before Plymouth City Council intervened. The title of the piece exemplifies the visceral nature of Rodney’s work and politics and the ways in which he used his art to make powerful connections between the body, its representations, and the idea of the ‘canker’, or disease, in society.
Can you talk about In the House of My Father (1996–7), one of Rodney’s seminal works, and how he uses it to discuss his health, family, and identity? What did it mean to have this work as part of the exhibition?
Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia, and in this and other works, he drew on his experiences with the condition to create works with a broader resonance. In the House of My Father (1996–97), a close-up photograph of a tiny sculpture cradled in the artist’s hand is shown.
The sculpture, titled My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother (1997) is a miniature house made of the artist’s skin, taken from his body during one of his many operations, and held together with pins. Photographer Andra Nelki took the image while Rodney stayed at King’s College Hospital in South London. The publication contains a text about this work by Rodney’s life partner, Diane Symons, which discusses this work in relation to other photographs taken at the same time.
The image of the house appears in different ways throughout this exhibition – in Rodney’s sketchbooks, in a preparatory drawing for a now lost anti-apartheid work titled Soweto/Guernica (1988) and in a large-scale assemblage made of X-rays of Rodney’s own body titled The House that Jack Built. In the photograph, the tiny and fragile house seems to contain power beyond its physical scale, symbolising the bonds between family and the importance of domestic space. As you mention, this photograph is among Rodney’s most exhibited and best-known works, which attests to this power.
Rodney was part of the Blk Art Group, which included artists like Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson. Did being in the group impact his work or practice in any way? Is there a piece in the exhibition that reflects that influence from the works of his contemporaries?
Rodney studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham from 1981 to 1985. This was where he met the artist Keith Piper, a Fine Art student who became a lifelong friend. Their networks also included Claudette Johnson and other artists who became known as the Blk Art Group. All the initial members were children of Caribbean migrants raised in the West Midlands. They organised events such as ‘The First National Black Art Convention’ in 1982 – a four-week exhibition and seminar series ‘to discuss the form, functioning and future of black art’ – and, later, touring group exhibitions such as ‘Beyond the Pan-Afrikan Connection’. Rodney’s engagement with a group is discussed in detail in a display in Whitechapel Gallery’s archive gallery, brought together by curator Carolina Jozami.
In his brief career, can you speak about Rodney’s cross-disciplinary approach and constant experimentation with new materials and technologies? What do you think inspired him to experiment?
Rodney was in constant conversation with artistic peers and collaborators, examining international tendencies in contemporary art and drawing on references from popular culture and the news. One of the remarkable features of this exhibition is that it brings together work from only 15 years, from 1982 until 1997, shortly before Rodney died at 36. Everything on view was created while the artist was in his 20s or early 30s. While some of Rodney’s themes are consistent – addressing identity, race, history, technology and the personal and collective experiences of Black people in Britain – his material and visual strategies are continuously developing.
Can you share the vision behind this exhibition with us?
The exhibition was initially curated by Nicole Yip and Robert Leckie when they were directors of Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary, respectively (they have both since moved on to new roles). After the exhibition was in view in these previous venues in 2024, it was a real pleasure to collaborate with them further and bring the exhibition to London.
As they outline in the introduction to the exhibition publication Donald Rodney: A Reader, Nicole and Robert laid the groundwork for this project. They conducted detailed research to locate almost all of Rodney’s surviving works, either with his estate or in museum collections around the UK. While some of these works had been displayed recently, others required conservation treatment or – in the case of a synchronised slide-tape work Cataract (1991) – detailed conversations with Rodney’s friends and past collaborators to piece together the artist’s intentions.
For Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros, curatorial fellow Carolina Jozami, and myself, it felt very important for Donald Rodney’s work to be seen in London. Rodney lived in the city since studying at the Slade in 1985–87, where he held some of his most important exhibitions, including poignantly his final solo exhibition, 9 Night in Eldorado, at South London Gallery in 1997.
How does this exhibition communicate with previous Whitechapel Gallery exhibitions and the space it is in?
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker follows a recent exhibition of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–88, Brazil) paired with an exhibition titled An Awkward Relation from artist and educator Sonia Boyce (b.1962, London, UK), which were both on view from the 2nd of October 2024 to the 12th of January 2025. A happy echo of Boyce’s exhibition comes in the archival section of the Donald Rodney exhibition, where you can see photographs of Boyce and Rodney posing with a flag in Rodney’s studio at the Slade in 1987. The two artists were friends, and Rodney used silhouettes from this series of photographs in his compositions for a now-lost artwork, A Beginner’s Guide to Blak History (1987).
Where does the phrase ‘Visceral Canker’ come from?
The exhibition's title, ‘Visceral Canker,’ comes from one of Rodney’s 1990 works. He made the piece for a public art project organised by Television South West in a disused military battery overlooking Plymouth Sound. The work comprises two wooden plaques bearing the coats of arms of John Hawkins (1532–1595), the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, and of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who granted Hawkins the use of a ship for this purpose. Disturbingly, Hawkins’ insignia includes images of enslaved African people. Rodney overlays the two heraldic images with a system of pumps and tubes that circulate imitation blood, demonstrating his bodily connection to this history and its contemporary legacies.
Initially, Rodney even intended to use his own blood before Plymouth City Council intervened. The title of the piece exemplifies the visceral nature of Rodney’s work and politics and the ways in which he used his art to make powerful connections between the body, its representations, and the idea of the ‘canker’, or disease, in society.
Can you talk about In the House of My Father (1996–7), one of Rodney’s seminal works, and how he uses it to discuss his health, family, and identity? What did it mean to have this work as part of the exhibition?
Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia, and in this and other works, he drew on his experiences with the condition to create works with a broader resonance. In the House of My Father (1996–97), a close-up photograph of a tiny sculpture cradled in the artist’s hand is shown.
The sculpture, titled My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother (1997) is a miniature house made of the artist’s skin, taken from his body during one of his many operations, and held together with pins. Photographer Andra Nelki took the image while Rodney stayed at King’s College Hospital in South London. The publication contains a text about this work by Rodney’s life partner, Diane Symons, which discusses this work in relation to other photographs taken at the same time.
The image of the house appears in different ways throughout this exhibition – in Rodney’s sketchbooks, in a preparatory drawing for a now lost anti-apartheid work titled Soweto/Guernica (1988) and in a large-scale assemblage made of X-rays of Rodney’s own body titled The House that Jack Built. In the photograph, the tiny and fragile house seems to contain power beyond its physical scale, symbolising the bonds between family and the importance of domestic space. As you mention, this photograph is among Rodney’s most exhibited and best-known works, which attests to this power.
Rodney was part of the Blk Art Group, which included artists like Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson. Did being in the group impact his work or practice in any way? Is there a piece in the exhibition that reflects that influence from the works of his contemporaries?
Rodney studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham from 1981 to 1985. This was where he met the artist Keith Piper, a Fine Art student who became a lifelong friend. Their networks also included Claudette Johnson and other artists who became known as the Blk Art Group. All the initial members were children of Caribbean migrants raised in the West Midlands. They organised events such as ‘The First National Black Art Convention’ in 1982 – a four-week exhibition and seminar series ‘to discuss the form, functioning and future of black art’ – and, later, touring group exhibitions such as ‘Beyond the Pan-Afrikan Connection’. Rodney’s engagement with a group is discussed in detail in a display in Whitechapel Gallery’s archive gallery, brought together by curator Carolina Jozami.
In his brief career, can you speak about Rodney’s cross-disciplinary approach and constant experimentation with new materials and technologies? What do you think inspired him to experiment?
Rodney was in constant conversation with artistic peers and collaborators, examining international tendencies in contemporary art and drawing on references from popular culture and the news. One of the remarkable features of this exhibition is that it brings together work from only 15 years, from 1982 until 1997, shortly before Rodney died at 36. Everything on view was created while the artist was in his 20s or early 30s. While some of Rodney’s themes are consistent – addressing identity, race, history, technology and the personal and collective experiences of Black people in Britain – his material and visual strategies are continuously developing.
Can you share the vision behind this exhibition with us?
The exhibition was initially curated by Nicole Yip and Robert Leckie when they were directors of Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary, respectively (they have both since moved on to new roles). After the exhibition was in view in these previous venues in 2024, it was a real pleasure to collaborate with them further and bring the exhibition to London.
As they outline in the introduction to the exhibition publication Donald Rodney: A Reader, Nicole and Robert laid the groundwork for this project. They conducted detailed research to locate almost all of Rodney’s surviving works, either with his estate or in museum collections around the UK. While some of these works had been displayed recently, others required conservation treatment or – in the case of a synchronised slide-tape work Cataract (1991) – detailed conversations with Rodney’s friends and past collaborators to piece together the artist’s intentions.
For Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros, curatorial fellow Carolina Jozami, and myself, it felt very important for Donald Rodney’s work to be seen in London. Rodney lived in the city since studying at the Slade in 1985–87, where he held some of his most important exhibitions, including poignantly his final solo exhibition, 9 Night in Eldorado, at South London Gallery in 1997.
How does this exhibition communicate with previous Whitechapel Gallery exhibitions and the space it is in?
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker follows a recent exhibition of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–88, Brazil) paired with an exhibition titled An Awkward Relation from artist and educator Sonia Boyce (b.1962, London, UK), which were both on view from the 2nd of October 2024 to the 12th of January 2025. A happy echo of Boyce’s exhibition comes in the archival section of the Donald Rodney exhibition, where you can see photographs of Boyce and Rodney posing with a flag in Rodney’s studio at the Slade in 1987. The two artists were friends, and Rodney used silhouettes from this series of photographs in his compositions for a now-lost artwork, A Beginner’s Guide to Blak History (1987).
Where does the phrase ‘Visceral Canker’ come from?
The exhibition's title, ‘Visceral Canker,’ comes from one of Rodney’s 1990 works. He made the piece for a public art project organised by Television South West in a disused military battery overlooking Plymouth Sound. The work comprises two wooden plaques bearing the coats of arms of John Hawkins (1532–1595), the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, and of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who granted Hawkins the use of a ship for this purpose. Disturbingly, Hawkins’ insignia includes images of enslaved African people. Rodney overlays the two heraldic images with a system of pumps and tubes that circulate imitation blood, demonstrating his bodily connection to this history and its contemporary legacies.
Initially, Rodney even intended to use his own blood before Plymouth City Council intervened. The title of the piece exemplifies the visceral nature of Rodney’s work and politics and the ways in which he used his art to make powerful connections between the body, its representations, and the idea of the ‘canker’, or disease, in society.
Can you talk about In the House of My Father (1996–7), one of Rodney’s seminal works, and how he uses it to discuss his health, family, and identity? What did it mean to have this work as part of the exhibition?
Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia, and in this and other works, he drew on his experiences with the condition to create works with a broader resonance. In the House of My Father (1996–97), a close-up photograph of a tiny sculpture cradled in the artist’s hand is shown.
The sculpture, titled My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother (1997) is a miniature house made of the artist’s skin, taken from his body during one of his many operations, and held together with pins. Photographer Andra Nelki took the image while Rodney stayed at King’s College Hospital in South London. The publication contains a text about this work by Rodney’s life partner, Diane Symons, which discusses this work in relation to other photographs taken at the same time.
The image of the house appears in different ways throughout this exhibition – in Rodney’s sketchbooks, in a preparatory drawing for a now lost anti-apartheid work titled Soweto/Guernica (1988) and in a large-scale assemblage made of X-rays of Rodney’s own body titled The House that Jack Built. In the photograph, the tiny and fragile house seems to contain power beyond its physical scale, symbolising the bonds between family and the importance of domestic space. As you mention, this photograph is among Rodney’s most exhibited and best-known works, which attests to this power.
Rodney was part of the Blk Art Group, which included artists like Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson. Did being in the group impact his work or practice in any way? Is there a piece in the exhibition that reflects that influence from the works of his contemporaries?
Rodney studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham from 1981 to 1985. This was where he met the artist Keith Piper, a Fine Art student who became a lifelong friend. Their networks also included Claudette Johnson and other artists who became known as the Blk Art Group. All the initial members were children of Caribbean migrants raised in the West Midlands. They organised events such as ‘The First National Black Art Convention’ in 1982 – a four-week exhibition and seminar series ‘to discuss the form, functioning and future of black art’ – and, later, touring group exhibitions such as ‘Beyond the Pan-Afrikan Connection’. Rodney’s engagement with a group is discussed in detail in a display in Whitechapel Gallery’s archive gallery, brought together by curator Carolina Jozami.
In his brief career, can you speak about Rodney’s cross-disciplinary approach and constant experimentation with new materials and technologies? What do you think inspired him to experiment?
Rodney was in constant conversation with artistic peers and collaborators, examining international tendencies in contemporary art and drawing on references from popular culture and the news. One of the remarkable features of this exhibition is that it brings together work from only 15 years, from 1982 until 1997, shortly before Rodney died at 36. Everything on view was created while the artist was in his 20s or early 30s. While some of Rodney’s themes are consistent – addressing identity, race, history, technology and the personal and collective experiences of Black people in Britain – his material and visual strategies are continuously developing.
Can you share the vision behind this exhibition with us?
The exhibition was initially curated by Nicole Yip and Robert Leckie when they were directors of Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary, respectively (they have both since moved on to new roles). After the exhibition was in view in these previous venues in 2024, it was a real pleasure to collaborate with them further and bring the exhibition to London.
As they outline in the introduction to the exhibition publication Donald Rodney: A Reader, Nicole and Robert laid the groundwork for this project. They conducted detailed research to locate almost all of Rodney’s surviving works, either with his estate or in museum collections around the UK. While some of these works had been displayed recently, others required conservation treatment or – in the case of a synchronised slide-tape work Cataract (1991) – detailed conversations with Rodney’s friends and past collaborators to piece together the artist’s intentions.
For Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros, curatorial fellow Carolina Jozami, and myself, it felt very important for Donald Rodney’s work to be seen in London. Rodney lived in the city since studying at the Slade in 1985–87, where he held some of his most important exhibitions, including poignantly his final solo exhibition, 9 Night in Eldorado, at South London Gallery in 1997.
How does this exhibition communicate with previous Whitechapel Gallery exhibitions and the space it is in?
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker follows a recent exhibition of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–88, Brazil) paired with an exhibition titled An Awkward Relation from artist and educator Sonia Boyce (b.1962, London, UK), which were both on view from the 2nd of October 2024 to the 12th of January 2025. A happy echo of Boyce’s exhibition comes in the archival section of the Donald Rodney exhibition, where you can see photographs of Boyce and Rodney posing with a flag in Rodney’s studio at the Slade in 1987. The two artists were friends, and Rodney used silhouettes from this series of photographs in his compositions for a now-lost artwork, A Beginner’s Guide to Blak History (1987).
Where does the phrase ‘Visceral Canker’ come from?
The exhibition's title, ‘Visceral Canker,’ comes from one of Rodney’s 1990 works. He made the piece for a public art project organised by Television South West in a disused military battery overlooking Plymouth Sound. The work comprises two wooden plaques bearing the coats of arms of John Hawkins (1532–1595), the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, and of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who granted Hawkins the use of a ship for this purpose. Disturbingly, Hawkins’ insignia includes images of enslaved African people. Rodney overlays the two heraldic images with a system of pumps and tubes that circulate imitation blood, demonstrating his bodily connection to this history and its contemporary legacies.
Initially, Rodney even intended to use his own blood before Plymouth City Council intervened. The title of the piece exemplifies the visceral nature of Rodney’s work and politics and the ways in which he used his art to make powerful connections between the body, its representations, and the idea of the ‘canker’, or disease, in society.
Can you talk about In the House of My Father (1996–7), one of Rodney’s seminal works, and how he uses it to discuss his health, family, and identity? What did it mean to have this work as part of the exhibition?
Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia, and in this and other works, he drew on his experiences with the condition to create works with a broader resonance. In the House of My Father (1996–97), a close-up photograph of a tiny sculpture cradled in the artist’s hand is shown.
The sculpture, titled My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother (1997) is a miniature house made of the artist’s skin, taken from his body during one of his many operations, and held together with pins. Photographer Andra Nelki took the image while Rodney stayed at King’s College Hospital in South London. The publication contains a text about this work by Rodney’s life partner, Diane Symons, which discusses this work in relation to other photographs taken at the same time.
The image of the house appears in different ways throughout this exhibition – in Rodney’s sketchbooks, in a preparatory drawing for a now lost anti-apartheid work titled Soweto/Guernica (1988) and in a large-scale assemblage made of X-rays of Rodney’s own body titled The House that Jack Built. In the photograph, the tiny and fragile house seems to contain power beyond its physical scale, symbolising the bonds between family and the importance of domestic space. As you mention, this photograph is among Rodney’s most exhibited and best-known works, which attests to this power.
Rodney was part of the Blk Art Group, which included artists like Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson. Did being in the group impact his work or practice in any way? Is there a piece in the exhibition that reflects that influence from the works of his contemporaries?
Rodney studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham from 1981 to 1985. This was where he met the artist Keith Piper, a Fine Art student who became a lifelong friend. Their networks also included Claudette Johnson and other artists who became known as the Blk Art Group. All the initial members were children of Caribbean migrants raised in the West Midlands. They organised events such as ‘The First National Black Art Convention’ in 1982 – a four-week exhibition and seminar series ‘to discuss the form, functioning and future of black art’ – and, later, touring group exhibitions such as ‘Beyond the Pan-Afrikan Connection’. Rodney’s engagement with a group is discussed in detail in a display in Whitechapel Gallery’s archive gallery, brought together by curator Carolina Jozami.
In his brief career, can you speak about Rodney’s cross-disciplinary approach and constant experimentation with new materials and technologies? What do you think inspired him to experiment?
Rodney was in constant conversation with artistic peers and collaborators, examining international tendencies in contemporary art and drawing on references from popular culture and the news. One of the remarkable features of this exhibition is that it brings together work from only 15 years, from 1982 until 1997, shortly before Rodney died at 36. Everything on view was created while the artist was in his 20s or early 30s. While some of Rodney’s themes are consistent – addressing identity, race, history, technology and the personal and collective experiences of Black people in Britain – his material and visual strategies are continuously developing.
Can you share the vision behind this exhibition with us?
The exhibition was initially curated by Nicole Yip and Robert Leckie when they were directors of Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary, respectively (they have both since moved on to new roles). After the exhibition was in view in these previous venues in 2024, it was a real pleasure to collaborate with them further and bring the exhibition to London.
As they outline in the introduction to the exhibition publication Donald Rodney: A Reader, Nicole and Robert laid the groundwork for this project. They conducted detailed research to locate almost all of Rodney’s surviving works, either with his estate or in museum collections around the UK. While some of these works had been displayed recently, others required conservation treatment or – in the case of a synchronised slide-tape work Cataract (1991) – detailed conversations with Rodney’s friends and past collaborators to piece together the artist’s intentions.
For Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros, curatorial fellow Carolina Jozami, and myself, it felt very important for Donald Rodney’s work to be seen in London. Rodney lived in the city since studying at the Slade in 1985–87, where he held some of his most important exhibitions, including poignantly his final solo exhibition, 9 Night in Eldorado, at South London Gallery in 1997.
How does this exhibition communicate with previous Whitechapel Gallery exhibitions and the space it is in?
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker follows a recent exhibition of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–88, Brazil) paired with an exhibition titled An Awkward Relation from artist and educator Sonia Boyce (b.1962, London, UK), which were both on view from the 2nd of October 2024 to the 12th of January 2025. A happy echo of Boyce’s exhibition comes in the archival section of the Donald Rodney exhibition, where you can see photographs of Boyce and Rodney posing with a flag in Rodney’s studio at the Slade in 1987. The two artists were friends, and Rodney used silhouettes from this series of photographs in his compositions for a now-lost artwork, A Beginner’s Guide to Blak History (1987).
Where does the phrase ‘Visceral Canker’ come from?
The exhibition's title, ‘Visceral Canker,’ comes from one of Rodney’s 1990 works. He made the piece for a public art project organised by Television South West in a disused military battery overlooking Plymouth Sound. The work comprises two wooden plaques bearing the coats of arms of John Hawkins (1532–1595), the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, and of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who granted Hawkins the use of a ship for this purpose. Disturbingly, Hawkins’ insignia includes images of enslaved African people. Rodney overlays the two heraldic images with a system of pumps and tubes that circulate imitation blood, demonstrating his bodily connection to this history and its contemporary legacies.
Initially, Rodney even intended to use his own blood before Plymouth City Council intervened. The title of the piece exemplifies the visceral nature of Rodney’s work and politics and the ways in which he used his art to make powerful connections between the body, its representations, and the idea of the ‘canker’, or disease, in society.
Can you talk about In the House of My Father (1996–7), one of Rodney’s seminal works, and how he uses it to discuss his health, family, and identity? What did it mean to have this work as part of the exhibition?
Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia, and in this and other works, he drew on his experiences with the condition to create works with a broader resonance. In the House of My Father (1996–97), a close-up photograph of a tiny sculpture cradled in the artist’s hand is shown.
The sculpture, titled My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother (1997) is a miniature house made of the artist’s skin, taken from his body during one of his many operations, and held together with pins. Photographer Andra Nelki took the image while Rodney stayed at King’s College Hospital in South London. The publication contains a text about this work by Rodney’s life partner, Diane Symons, which discusses this work in relation to other photographs taken at the same time.
The image of the house appears in different ways throughout this exhibition – in Rodney’s sketchbooks, in a preparatory drawing for a now lost anti-apartheid work titled Soweto/Guernica (1988) and in a large-scale assemblage made of X-rays of Rodney’s own body titled The House that Jack Built. In the photograph, the tiny and fragile house seems to contain power beyond its physical scale, symbolising the bonds between family and the importance of domestic space. As you mention, this photograph is among Rodney’s most exhibited and best-known works, which attests to this power.
Rodney was part of the Blk Art Group, which included artists like Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson. Did being in the group impact his work or practice in any way? Is there a piece in the exhibition that reflects that influence from the works of his contemporaries?
Rodney studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham from 1981 to 1985. This was where he met the artist Keith Piper, a Fine Art student who became a lifelong friend. Their networks also included Claudette Johnson and other artists who became known as the Blk Art Group. All the initial members were children of Caribbean migrants raised in the West Midlands. They organised events such as ‘The First National Black Art Convention’ in 1982 – a four-week exhibition and seminar series ‘to discuss the form, functioning and future of black art’ – and, later, touring group exhibitions such as ‘Beyond the Pan-Afrikan Connection’. Rodney’s engagement with a group is discussed in detail in a display in Whitechapel Gallery’s archive gallery, brought together by curator Carolina Jozami.
In his brief career, can you speak about Rodney’s cross-disciplinary approach and constant experimentation with new materials and technologies? What do you think inspired him to experiment?
Rodney was in constant conversation with artistic peers and collaborators, examining international tendencies in contemporary art and drawing on references from popular culture and the news. One of the remarkable features of this exhibition is that it brings together work from only 15 years, from 1982 until 1997, shortly before Rodney died at 36. Everything on view was created while the artist was in his 20s or early 30s. While some of Rodney’s themes are consistent – addressing identity, race, history, technology and the personal and collective experiences of Black people in Britain – his material and visual strategies are continuously developing.
Can you share the vision behind this exhibition with us?
The exhibition was initially curated by Nicole Yip and Robert Leckie when they were directors of Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary, respectively (they have both since moved on to new roles). After the exhibition was in view in these previous venues in 2024, it was a real pleasure to collaborate with them further and bring the exhibition to London.
As they outline in the introduction to the exhibition publication Donald Rodney: A Reader, Nicole and Robert laid the groundwork for this project. They conducted detailed research to locate almost all of Rodney’s surviving works, either with his estate or in museum collections around the UK. While some of these works had been displayed recently, others required conservation treatment or – in the case of a synchronised slide-tape work Cataract (1991) – detailed conversations with Rodney’s friends and past collaborators to piece together the artist’s intentions.
For Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros, curatorial fellow Carolina Jozami, and myself, it felt very important for Donald Rodney’s work to be seen in London. Rodney lived in the city since studying at the Slade in 1985–87, where he held some of his most important exhibitions, including poignantly his final solo exhibition, 9 Night in Eldorado, at South London Gallery in 1997.
How does this exhibition communicate with previous Whitechapel Gallery exhibitions and the space it is in?
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker follows a recent exhibition of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–88, Brazil) paired with an exhibition titled An Awkward Relation from artist and educator Sonia Boyce (b.1962, London, UK), which were both on view from the 2nd of October 2024 to the 12th of January 2025. A happy echo of Boyce’s exhibition comes in the archival section of the Donald Rodney exhibition, where you can see photographs of Boyce and Rodney posing with a flag in Rodney’s studio at the Slade in 1987. The two artists were friends, and Rodney used silhouettes from this series of photographs in his compositions for a now-lost artwork, A Beginner’s Guide to Blak History (1987).
Where does the phrase ‘Visceral Canker’ come from?
The exhibition's title, ‘Visceral Canker,’ comes from one of Rodney’s 1990 works. He made the piece for a public art project organised by Television South West in a disused military battery overlooking Plymouth Sound. The work comprises two wooden plaques bearing the coats of arms of John Hawkins (1532–1595), the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, and of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who granted Hawkins the use of a ship for this purpose. Disturbingly, Hawkins’ insignia includes images of enslaved African people. Rodney overlays the two heraldic images with a system of pumps and tubes that circulate imitation blood, demonstrating his bodily connection to this history and its contemporary legacies.
Initially, Rodney even intended to use his own blood before Plymouth City Council intervened. The title of the piece exemplifies the visceral nature of Rodney’s work and politics and the ways in which he used his art to make powerful connections between the body, its representations, and the idea of the ‘canker’, or disease, in society.
Can you talk about In the House of My Father (1996–7), one of Rodney’s seminal works, and how he uses it to discuss his health, family, and identity? What did it mean to have this work as part of the exhibition?
Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia, and in this and other works, he drew on his experiences with the condition to create works with a broader resonance. In the House of My Father (1996–97), a close-up photograph of a tiny sculpture cradled in the artist’s hand is shown.
The sculpture, titled My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother (1997) is a miniature house made of the artist’s skin, taken from his body during one of his many operations, and held together with pins. Photographer Andra Nelki took the image while Rodney stayed at King’s College Hospital in South London. The publication contains a text about this work by Rodney’s life partner, Diane Symons, which discusses this work in relation to other photographs taken at the same time.
The image of the house appears in different ways throughout this exhibition – in Rodney’s sketchbooks, in a preparatory drawing for a now lost anti-apartheid work titled Soweto/Guernica (1988) and in a large-scale assemblage made of X-rays of Rodney’s own body titled The House that Jack Built. In the photograph, the tiny and fragile house seems to contain power beyond its physical scale, symbolising the bonds between family and the importance of domestic space. As you mention, this photograph is among Rodney’s most exhibited and best-known works, which attests to this power.
Rodney was part of the Blk Art Group, which included artists like Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson. Did being in the group impact his work or practice in any way? Is there a piece in the exhibition that reflects that influence from the works of his contemporaries?
Rodney studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham from 1981 to 1985. This was where he met the artist Keith Piper, a Fine Art student who became a lifelong friend. Their networks also included Claudette Johnson and other artists who became known as the Blk Art Group. All the initial members were children of Caribbean migrants raised in the West Midlands. They organised events such as ‘The First National Black Art Convention’ in 1982 – a four-week exhibition and seminar series ‘to discuss the form, functioning and future of black art’ – and, later, touring group exhibitions such as ‘Beyond the Pan-Afrikan Connection’. Rodney’s engagement with a group is discussed in detail in a display in Whitechapel Gallery’s archive gallery, brought together by curator Carolina Jozami.
In his brief career, can you speak about Rodney’s cross-disciplinary approach and constant experimentation with new materials and technologies? What do you think inspired him to experiment?
Rodney was in constant conversation with artistic peers and collaborators, examining international tendencies in contemporary art and drawing on references from popular culture and the news. One of the remarkable features of this exhibition is that it brings together work from only 15 years, from 1982 until 1997, shortly before Rodney died at 36. Everything on view was created while the artist was in his 20s or early 30s. While some of Rodney’s themes are consistent – addressing identity, race, history, technology and the personal and collective experiences of Black people in Britain – his material and visual strategies are continuously developing.
Can you share the vision behind this exhibition with us?
The exhibition was initially curated by Nicole Yip and Robert Leckie when they were directors of Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary, respectively (they have both since moved on to new roles). After the exhibition was in view in these previous venues in 2024, it was a real pleasure to collaborate with them further and bring the exhibition to London.
As they outline in the introduction to the exhibition publication Donald Rodney: A Reader, Nicole and Robert laid the groundwork for this project. They conducted detailed research to locate almost all of Rodney’s surviving works, either with his estate or in museum collections around the UK. While some of these works had been displayed recently, others required conservation treatment or – in the case of a synchronised slide-tape work Cataract (1991) – detailed conversations with Rodney’s friends and past collaborators to piece together the artist’s intentions.
For Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros, curatorial fellow Carolina Jozami, and myself, it felt very important for Donald Rodney’s work to be seen in London. Rodney lived in the city since studying at the Slade in 1985–87, where he held some of his most important exhibitions, including poignantly his final solo exhibition, 9 Night in Eldorado, at South London Gallery in 1997.
How does this exhibition communicate with previous Whitechapel Gallery exhibitions and the space it is in?
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker follows a recent exhibition of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–88, Brazil) paired with an exhibition titled An Awkward Relation from artist and educator Sonia Boyce (b.1962, London, UK), which were both on view from the 2nd of October 2024 to the 12th of January 2025. A happy echo of Boyce’s exhibition comes in the archival section of the Donald Rodney exhibition, where you can see photographs of Boyce and Rodney posing with a flag in Rodney’s studio at the Slade in 1987. The two artists were friends, and Rodney used silhouettes from this series of photographs in his compositions for a now-lost artwork, A Beginner’s Guide to Blak History (1987).
Where does the phrase ‘Visceral Canker’ come from?
The exhibition's title, ‘Visceral Canker,’ comes from one of Rodney’s 1990 works. He made the piece for a public art project organised by Television South West in a disused military battery overlooking Plymouth Sound. The work comprises two wooden plaques bearing the coats of arms of John Hawkins (1532–1595), the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, and of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who granted Hawkins the use of a ship for this purpose. Disturbingly, Hawkins’ insignia includes images of enslaved African people. Rodney overlays the two heraldic images with a system of pumps and tubes that circulate imitation blood, demonstrating his bodily connection to this history and its contemporary legacies.
Initially, Rodney even intended to use his own blood before Plymouth City Council intervened. The title of the piece exemplifies the visceral nature of Rodney’s work and politics and the ways in which he used his art to make powerful connections between the body, its representations, and the idea of the ‘canker’, or disease, in society.
Can you talk about In the House of My Father (1996–7), one of Rodney’s seminal works, and how he uses it to discuss his health, family, and identity? What did it mean to have this work as part of the exhibition?
Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia, and in this and other works, he drew on his experiences with the condition to create works with a broader resonance. In the House of My Father (1996–97), a close-up photograph of a tiny sculpture cradled in the artist’s hand is shown.
The sculpture, titled My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother (1997) is a miniature house made of the artist’s skin, taken from his body during one of his many operations, and held together with pins. Photographer Andra Nelki took the image while Rodney stayed at King’s College Hospital in South London. The publication contains a text about this work by Rodney’s life partner, Diane Symons, which discusses this work in relation to other photographs taken at the same time.
The image of the house appears in different ways throughout this exhibition – in Rodney’s sketchbooks, in a preparatory drawing for a now lost anti-apartheid work titled Soweto/Guernica (1988) and in a large-scale assemblage made of X-rays of Rodney’s own body titled The House that Jack Built. In the photograph, the tiny and fragile house seems to contain power beyond its physical scale, symbolising the bonds between family and the importance of domestic space. As you mention, this photograph is among Rodney’s most exhibited and best-known works, which attests to this power.
Rodney was part of the Blk Art Group, which included artists like Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson. Did being in the group impact his work or practice in any way? Is there a piece in the exhibition that reflects that influence from the works of his contemporaries?
Rodney studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham from 1981 to 1985. This was where he met the artist Keith Piper, a Fine Art student who became a lifelong friend. Their networks also included Claudette Johnson and other artists who became known as the Blk Art Group. All the initial members were children of Caribbean migrants raised in the West Midlands. They organised events such as ‘The First National Black Art Convention’ in 1982 – a four-week exhibition and seminar series ‘to discuss the form, functioning and future of black art’ – and, later, touring group exhibitions such as ‘Beyond the Pan-Afrikan Connection’. Rodney’s engagement with a group is discussed in detail in a display in Whitechapel Gallery’s archive gallery, brought together by curator Carolina Jozami.
In his brief career, can you speak about Rodney’s cross-disciplinary approach and constant experimentation with new materials and technologies? What do you think inspired him to experiment?
Rodney was in constant conversation with artistic peers and collaborators, examining international tendencies in contemporary art and drawing on references from popular culture and the news. One of the remarkable features of this exhibition is that it brings together work from only 15 years, from 1982 until 1997, shortly before Rodney died at 36. Everything on view was created while the artist was in his 20s or early 30s. While some of Rodney’s themes are consistent – addressing identity, race, history, technology and the personal and collective experiences of Black people in Britain – his material and visual strategies are continuously developing.
Can you share the vision behind this exhibition with us?
The exhibition was initially curated by Nicole Yip and Robert Leckie when they were directors of Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary, respectively (they have both since moved on to new roles). After the exhibition was in view in these previous venues in 2024, it was a real pleasure to collaborate with them further and bring the exhibition to London.
As they outline in the introduction to the exhibition publication Donald Rodney: A Reader, Nicole and Robert laid the groundwork for this project. They conducted detailed research to locate almost all of Rodney’s surviving works, either with his estate or in museum collections around the UK. While some of these works had been displayed recently, others required conservation treatment or – in the case of a synchronised slide-tape work Cataract (1991) – detailed conversations with Rodney’s friends and past collaborators to piece together the artist’s intentions.
For Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros, curatorial fellow Carolina Jozami, and myself, it felt very important for Donald Rodney’s work to be seen in London. Rodney lived in the city since studying at the Slade in 1985–87, where he held some of his most important exhibitions, including poignantly his final solo exhibition, 9 Night in Eldorado, at South London Gallery in 1997.
How does this exhibition communicate with previous Whitechapel Gallery exhibitions and the space it is in?
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker follows a recent exhibition of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–88, Brazil) paired with an exhibition titled An Awkward Relation from artist and educator Sonia Boyce (b.1962, London, UK), which were both on view from the 2nd of October 2024 to the 12th of January 2025. A happy echo of Boyce’s exhibition comes in the archival section of the Donald Rodney exhibition, where you can see photographs of Boyce and Rodney posing with a flag in Rodney’s studio at the Slade in 1987. The two artists were friends, and Rodney used silhouettes from this series of photographs in his compositions for a now-lost artwork, A Beginner’s Guide to Blak History (1987).
Where does the phrase ‘Visceral Canker’ come from?
The exhibition's title, ‘Visceral Canker,’ comes from one of Rodney’s 1990 works. He made the piece for a public art project organised by Television South West in a disused military battery overlooking Plymouth Sound. The work comprises two wooden plaques bearing the coats of arms of John Hawkins (1532–1595), the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, and of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who granted Hawkins the use of a ship for this purpose. Disturbingly, Hawkins’ insignia includes images of enslaved African people. Rodney overlays the two heraldic images with a system of pumps and tubes that circulate imitation blood, demonstrating his bodily connection to this history and its contemporary legacies.
Initially, Rodney even intended to use his own blood before Plymouth City Council intervened. The title of the piece exemplifies the visceral nature of Rodney’s work and politics and the ways in which he used his art to make powerful connections between the body, its representations, and the idea of the ‘canker’, or disease, in society.
Can you talk about In the House of My Father (1996–7), one of Rodney’s seminal works, and how he uses it to discuss his health, family, and identity? What did it mean to have this work as part of the exhibition?
Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia, and in this and other works, he drew on his experiences with the condition to create works with a broader resonance. In the House of My Father (1996–97), a close-up photograph of a tiny sculpture cradled in the artist’s hand is shown.
The sculpture, titled My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother (1997) is a miniature house made of the artist’s skin, taken from his body during one of his many operations, and held together with pins. Photographer Andra Nelki took the image while Rodney stayed at King’s College Hospital in South London. The publication contains a text about this work by Rodney’s life partner, Diane Symons, which discusses this work in relation to other photographs taken at the same time.
The image of the house appears in different ways throughout this exhibition – in Rodney’s sketchbooks, in a preparatory drawing for a now lost anti-apartheid work titled Soweto/Guernica (1988) and in a large-scale assemblage made of X-rays of Rodney’s own body titled The House that Jack Built. In the photograph, the tiny and fragile house seems to contain power beyond its physical scale, symbolising the bonds between family and the importance of domestic space. As you mention, this photograph is among Rodney’s most exhibited and best-known works, which attests to this power.
Rodney was part of the Blk Art Group, which included artists like Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson. Did being in the group impact his work or practice in any way? Is there a piece in the exhibition that reflects that influence from the works of his contemporaries?
Rodney studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham from 1981 to 1985. This was where he met the artist Keith Piper, a Fine Art student who became a lifelong friend. Their networks also included Claudette Johnson and other artists who became known as the Blk Art Group. All the initial members were children of Caribbean migrants raised in the West Midlands. They organised events such as ‘The First National Black Art Convention’ in 1982 – a four-week exhibition and seminar series ‘to discuss the form, functioning and future of black art’ – and, later, touring group exhibitions such as ‘Beyond the Pan-Afrikan Connection’. Rodney’s engagement with a group is discussed in detail in a display in Whitechapel Gallery’s archive gallery, brought together by curator Carolina Jozami.
In his brief career, can you speak about Rodney’s cross-disciplinary approach and constant experimentation with new materials and technologies? What do you think inspired him to experiment?
Rodney was in constant conversation with artistic peers and collaborators, examining international tendencies in contemporary art and drawing on references from popular culture and the news. One of the remarkable features of this exhibition is that it brings together work from only 15 years, from 1982 until 1997, shortly before Rodney died at 36. Everything on view was created while the artist was in his 20s or early 30s. While some of Rodney’s themes are consistent – addressing identity, race, history, technology and the personal and collective experiences of Black people in Britain – his material and visual strategies are continuously developing.
Can you share the vision behind this exhibition with us?
The exhibition was initially curated by Nicole Yip and Robert Leckie when they were directors of Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary, respectively (they have both since moved on to new roles). After the exhibition was in view in these previous venues in 2024, it was a real pleasure to collaborate with them further and bring the exhibition to London.
As they outline in the introduction to the exhibition publication Donald Rodney: A Reader, Nicole and Robert laid the groundwork for this project. They conducted detailed research to locate almost all of Rodney’s surviving works, either with his estate or in museum collections around the UK. While some of these works had been displayed recently, others required conservation treatment or – in the case of a synchronised slide-tape work Cataract (1991) – detailed conversations with Rodney’s friends and past collaborators to piece together the artist’s intentions.
For Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros, curatorial fellow Carolina Jozami, and myself, it felt very important for Donald Rodney’s work to be seen in London. Rodney lived in the city since studying at the Slade in 1985–87, where he held some of his most important exhibitions, including poignantly his final solo exhibition, 9 Night in Eldorado, at South London Gallery in 1997.
How does this exhibition communicate with previous Whitechapel Gallery exhibitions and the space it is in?
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker follows a recent exhibition of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–88, Brazil) paired with an exhibition titled An Awkward Relation from artist and educator Sonia Boyce (b.1962, London, UK), which were both on view from the 2nd of October 2024 to the 12th of January 2025. A happy echo of Boyce’s exhibition comes in the archival section of the Donald Rodney exhibition, where you can see photographs of Boyce and Rodney posing with a flag in Rodney’s studio at the Slade in 1987. The two artists were friends, and Rodney used silhouettes from this series of photographs in his compositions for a now-lost artwork, A Beginner’s Guide to Blak History (1987).
Where does the phrase ‘Visceral Canker’ come from?
The exhibition's title, ‘Visceral Canker,’ comes from one of Rodney’s 1990 works. He made the piece for a public art project organised by Television South West in a disused military battery overlooking Plymouth Sound. The work comprises two wooden plaques bearing the coats of arms of John Hawkins (1532–1595), the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, and of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who granted Hawkins the use of a ship for this purpose. Disturbingly, Hawkins’ insignia includes images of enslaved African people. Rodney overlays the two heraldic images with a system of pumps and tubes that circulate imitation blood, demonstrating his bodily connection to this history and its contemporary legacies.
Initially, Rodney even intended to use his own blood before Plymouth City Council intervened. The title of the piece exemplifies the visceral nature of Rodney’s work and politics and the ways in which he used his art to make powerful connections between the body, its representations, and the idea of the ‘canker’, or disease, in society.
Can you talk about In the House of My Father (1996–7), one of Rodney’s seminal works, and how he uses it to discuss his health, family, and identity? What did it mean to have this work as part of the exhibition?
Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia, and in this and other works, he drew on his experiences with the condition to create works with a broader resonance. In the House of My Father (1996–97), a close-up photograph of a tiny sculpture cradled in the artist’s hand is shown.
The sculpture, titled My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother (1997) is a miniature house made of the artist’s skin, taken from his body during one of his many operations, and held together with pins. Photographer Andra Nelki took the image while Rodney stayed at King’s College Hospital in South London. The publication contains a text about this work by Rodney’s life partner, Diane Symons, which discusses this work in relation to other photographs taken at the same time.
The image of the house appears in different ways throughout this exhibition – in Rodney’s sketchbooks, in a preparatory drawing for a now lost anti-apartheid work titled Soweto/Guernica (1988) and in a large-scale assemblage made of X-rays of Rodney’s own body titled The House that Jack Built. In the photograph, the tiny and fragile house seems to contain power beyond its physical scale, symbolising the bonds between family and the importance of domestic space. As you mention, this photograph is among Rodney’s most exhibited and best-known works, which attests to this power.
Rodney was part of the Blk Art Group, which included artists like Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson. Did being in the group impact his work or practice in any way? Is there a piece in the exhibition that reflects that influence from the works of his contemporaries?
Rodney studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham from 1981 to 1985. This was where he met the artist Keith Piper, a Fine Art student who became a lifelong friend. Their networks also included Claudette Johnson and other artists who became known as the Blk Art Group. All the initial members were children of Caribbean migrants raised in the West Midlands. They organised events such as ‘The First National Black Art Convention’ in 1982 – a four-week exhibition and seminar series ‘to discuss the form, functioning and future of black art’ – and, later, touring group exhibitions such as ‘Beyond the Pan-Afrikan Connection’. Rodney’s engagement with a group is discussed in detail in a display in Whitechapel Gallery’s archive gallery, brought together by curator Carolina Jozami.
In his brief career, can you speak about Rodney’s cross-disciplinary approach and constant experimentation with new materials and technologies? What do you think inspired him to experiment?
Rodney was in constant conversation with artistic peers and collaborators, examining international tendencies in contemporary art and drawing on references from popular culture and the news. One of the remarkable features of this exhibition is that it brings together work from only 15 years, from 1982 until 1997, shortly before Rodney died at 36. Everything on view was created while the artist was in his 20s or early 30s. While some of Rodney’s themes are consistent – addressing identity, race, history, technology and the personal and collective experiences of Black people in Britain – his material and visual strategies are continuously developing.
Can you share the vision behind this exhibition with us?
The exhibition was initially curated by Nicole Yip and Robert Leckie when they were directors of Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary, respectively (they have both since moved on to new roles). After the exhibition was in view in these previous venues in 2024, it was a real pleasure to collaborate with them further and bring the exhibition to London.
As they outline in the introduction to the exhibition publication Donald Rodney: A Reader, Nicole and Robert laid the groundwork for this project. They conducted detailed research to locate almost all of Rodney’s surviving works, either with his estate or in museum collections around the UK. While some of these works had been displayed recently, others required conservation treatment or – in the case of a synchronised slide-tape work Cataract (1991) – detailed conversations with Rodney’s friends and past collaborators to piece together the artist’s intentions.
For Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros, curatorial fellow Carolina Jozami, and myself, it felt very important for Donald Rodney’s work to be seen in London. Rodney lived in the city since studying at the Slade in 1985–87, where he held some of his most important exhibitions, including poignantly his final solo exhibition, 9 Night in Eldorado, at South London Gallery in 1997.
How does this exhibition communicate with previous Whitechapel Gallery exhibitions and the space it is in?
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker follows a recent exhibition of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–88, Brazil) paired with an exhibition titled An Awkward Relation from artist and educator Sonia Boyce (b.1962, London, UK), which were both on view from the 2nd of October 2024 to the 12th of January 2025. A happy echo of Boyce’s exhibition comes in the archival section of the Donald Rodney exhibition, where you can see photographs of Boyce and Rodney posing with a flag in Rodney’s studio at the Slade in 1987. The two artists were friends, and Rodney used silhouettes from this series of photographs in his compositions for a now-lost artwork, A Beginner’s Guide to Blak History (1987).
Where does the phrase ‘Visceral Canker’ come from?
The exhibition's title, ‘Visceral Canker,’ comes from one of Rodney’s 1990 works. He made the piece for a public art project organised by Television South West in a disused military battery overlooking Plymouth Sound. The work comprises two wooden plaques bearing the coats of arms of John Hawkins (1532–1595), the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, and of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who granted Hawkins the use of a ship for this purpose. Disturbingly, Hawkins’ insignia includes images of enslaved African people. Rodney overlays the two heraldic images with a system of pumps and tubes that circulate imitation blood, demonstrating his bodily connection to this history and its contemporary legacies.
Initially, Rodney even intended to use his own blood before Plymouth City Council intervened. The title of the piece exemplifies the visceral nature of Rodney’s work and politics and the ways in which he used his art to make powerful connections between the body, its representations, and the idea of the ‘canker’, or disease, in society.
Can you talk about In the House of My Father (1996–7), one of Rodney’s seminal works, and how he uses it to discuss his health, family, and identity? What did it mean to have this work as part of the exhibition?
Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia, and in this and other works, he drew on his experiences with the condition to create works with a broader resonance. In the House of My Father (1996–97), a close-up photograph of a tiny sculpture cradled in the artist’s hand is shown.
The sculpture, titled My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother (1997) is a miniature house made of the artist’s skin, taken from his body during one of his many operations, and held together with pins. Photographer Andra Nelki took the image while Rodney stayed at King’s College Hospital in South London. The publication contains a text about this work by Rodney’s life partner, Diane Symons, which discusses this work in relation to other photographs taken at the same time.
The image of the house appears in different ways throughout this exhibition – in Rodney’s sketchbooks, in a preparatory drawing for a now lost anti-apartheid work titled Soweto/Guernica (1988) and in a large-scale assemblage made of X-rays of Rodney’s own body titled The House that Jack Built. In the photograph, the tiny and fragile house seems to contain power beyond its physical scale, symbolising the bonds between family and the importance of domestic space. As you mention, this photograph is among Rodney’s most exhibited and best-known works, which attests to this power.
Rodney was part of the Blk Art Group, which included artists like Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson. Did being in the group impact his work or practice in any way? Is there a piece in the exhibition that reflects that influence from the works of his contemporaries?
Rodney studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham from 1981 to 1985. This was where he met the artist Keith Piper, a Fine Art student who became a lifelong friend. Their networks also included Claudette Johnson and other artists who became known as the Blk Art Group. All the initial members were children of Caribbean migrants raised in the West Midlands. They organised events such as ‘The First National Black Art Convention’ in 1982 – a four-week exhibition and seminar series ‘to discuss the form, functioning and future of black art’ – and, later, touring group exhibitions such as ‘Beyond the Pan-Afrikan Connection’. Rodney’s engagement with a group is discussed in detail in a display in Whitechapel Gallery’s archive gallery, brought together by curator Carolina Jozami.
In his brief career, can you speak about Rodney’s cross-disciplinary approach and constant experimentation with new materials and technologies? What do you think inspired him to experiment?
Rodney was in constant conversation with artistic peers and collaborators, examining international tendencies in contemporary art and drawing on references from popular culture and the news. One of the remarkable features of this exhibition is that it brings together work from only 15 years, from 1982 until 1997, shortly before Rodney died at 36. Everything on view was created while the artist was in his 20s or early 30s. While some of Rodney’s themes are consistent – addressing identity, race, history, technology and the personal and collective experiences of Black people in Britain – his material and visual strategies are continuously developing.
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