Hannah Black

[Scroll down for French version / Veuillez trouver ci-dessous la version française]

The reactions to the protest movements in France in the weeks following the racist murder of a young teenager by a white police officer in June 2023 were apt proof of the only contempt that oppressed classes could receive when presenting themselves as their own political entity. What had largely been characterized as a set of vital demonstrations, had been transcribed as a global ensauvlement of those who were set out to silence. At the same time as an obviously racist murder, part of the police's colonial history, was taking effect, the furious reactions of those who could also have been shot - and who symbolically smashed cars, shop windows, or burned the flag of the country that had colonized and impoverished their parents' - were solemnly judged as barbarians, thieves, murderers and looters. I remember precisely the moment when, watching television with my friends, the dissociation was made, as if obvious, between a demonstration - led by white activists - and a riot - led by non-whites.

They speak of a 'new cartography of riots' in neighborhoods they call 'sensitive', 'popular'. They speak of 'urban violences even more intense than that of 2005', referring to the movements that followed the deaths of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, who were electrocuted in an electrical substation while trying to escape from the police. They speak of a mob of looters for a few stolen Lacoste sweaters, a few bags taken from broken windows. Yet this looting carries its meaning in its reverse; it manifests the direct abolition of the commodity form, the suspension of exchange structures from the rules of the Capital, the rupture of the social contract in its identity of class, gender and race.

I still wonder how it is possible to let people believe that a social contract exists, and that responses to the systematic killing of a targeted population are still feasible without fury. I remember feeling powerless, totally powerless, but ecstatic in the middle of a burning city.

—Hugo Bausch Belbachir

Hannah Black (b. Manchester, UK) is an artist, writer, and editor based in Marseille, France. Her work functions conceptually through a co-dependence between thinking and feeling, using conversations and collaborations featuring texts, voices, prints, videos, sculptural interventions, and performances. Her work has been presented as solo exhibitions at The Art Gallery of York University (Toronto); Luma Westbau (Zürich); Arcadia Missa (London); Kunstverein Braunschweig (Braunschweig); Performance Space (New York); Isabella Bortolozzi (Berlin); CAC - Centre d’Art Contemporain (Geneva); Chisenhale Gallery (London); Bodega (New York); New Museum Theater (New York); Transmission (Glasgow), as well as within group exhibitions at ICA - Institute of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles); Kunstverein Freiburg (Freiburg); Busan Biennale (Busan); Manifesta 13 (Marseille); Swiss Institute (New York); Sharjah Biennial (Sharjah); Tate St Ives (Cornwall); Arsenal Contemporary (New York); Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna); The High Line (New York); Julia Stoschek Collection (Berlin); The Kitchen (New York); Chateau Shatto (Los Angeles), amongst others. Black’s critical writing encompasses various contributions to The New Inquiry, Artforum, and Bookforum. Her previous books include ‘Tuesday or September of The End’ (2021), ‘Dark Pool Party’ (2016), and ‘Life’ (2017, with Juliana Huxtable).

2020 is curated by Hugo Bausch Belbachir as part of Condition, a series of exhibitions focusing on moving images and artists’ films.