Art historian and curator Alayo Akinkugbe on reframing Blackness

London (CNN) — Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s 19th century painting, “The Beloved,” a bejeweled Black child offers a bouquet of roses to the pale, red-headed bride at the picture’s center. The child is tucked away in the bottom left-hand corner, but in the mind of curator and art historian Alayo Akinkugbe, his presence fills the entire frame. His story — how he caught Rossetti’s eye while traveling with his slave master, and how Rossetti later likened his complexion to that of jet stone — is laid out by Akinkugbe on her Instagram account @ablackhistoryofart, where her 65,400 followers eagerly await these rare shards of art history.

The roles of these Black figures on the canvases in which they appear might seem minor. They are often pushed to the peripheral, into the background, while some — such as the enslaved teenager Bélizaire from Jacques Amans’ 1837 group portrait — have been erased altogether. But Akinkugbe holds a magnifying glass over these slim fragments, off-cuts of the dominant whitewashed narrative of art history, and forces them to take up space.

At 24, Akinkugbe has already worked with some of the UK’s most prestigious art institutions, from the Tate to the National Gallery, interviewing artists and further contextualizing Black works in permanent collections on social media. Last year she was spotlighted on the Dazed100 list for art and photography. In February, she joined the Royal Academy of Arts as a researcher for the exhibition “Entangled Pasts,” which explored the far reaching effects of colonialism in art from 1768 to present day. This summer she curated her first solo exhibition, “The Whole World Smiles With You,” at Opera Gallery in London.

But growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, a career as an art historian seemed very far away. “My parents weren’t that keen,” Akinkugbe told CNN in a video interview. “I think a lot of it was down to the fact that (art history) is viewed as an elite, white field. They couldn’t see me, I guess, succeeding if I were to pursue a career in the arts.”

Akinkugbe lived in Nigeria until she was 11, and though she doesn’t remember visiting galleries (“the museums are poorly funded by the government… I didn’t know anyone who would go to any of the museums we have in Lagos,”) she was surrounded by art. Vendors on the street selling bright imitation modernist paintings or larger-than-life murals, such as the vivid blue and green painted pillars by Polly Alakija under Falomo Bridge, are early memories for Akinkugbe. “Art was everywhere,” she said. “But not in the formal Western sense.” In her own home, along with the homes of her grandparents and her friend’s parents, sculptures often lined the walls. “I distinctly remember everywhere people would have either bronze sculptures, similar to Benin bronzes,” she said. “Or a lot of mahogany carvings… Before colonialism, painting wasn’t a thing. Our visual culture has very much been sculptural.”

Her interest in Blackness and visibility — particularly who gets to make it onto the canvas and why — began early on, while Akinkugbe was at school. Her Nigerian private school taught a British curriculum (“it was very clearly trying to get people on the path of studying in the UK,”) which felt like a missed opportunity to connect with her heritage. “It’s a bit sad that happens here,” she said. “That people are so set on not even learning our own history, or about our own culture… I look back and I’m like why would children in Nigeria be studying Tudors before learning about our own history?”

It prepared her, in a way, for the feelings of displacement that came with a move to the UK — where she was the only Black history of art student in her year at the University of Cambridge. “I felt hyper visible,” she said. “I think the feeling followed me.” It wasn’t until Akinkugbe was halfway through her undergraduate degree that a Black artist — British painter Chris Ofili, to be exact — was introduced onto the curriculum. “It was the first time in my whole study that I learned about a Black artist at Cambridge… That was life changing. I really felt connected to what was being presented to me.”

Worried that her only opportunity to engage critically with Black art was over, Akinkugbe set up her Instagram account as a kind of research diary. It was soon recommended by the New York Times as one of five Instagram accounts to follow immediately. “I didn’t expect so many people to be interested in it,” she said. “I didn’t think that ideas about Black representation could gain such momentum, but the timing was probably the reason why.” A few months after launching @ablackhistoryofart, the death of George Floyd ignited the revival of the Black Lives Matter protest movement. The coincidence at times feels “sinister” for Akinkugbe, but she believes there is longevity in the increased interest in and support for Black art and artists.

“I’ve spoken a lot about how there was a wave,” she said. “And it feels like it’s peaked. And now there might be a trough… I don’t think the level of attention that (Black art) was given straight after the (resurgence) of Black Lives Matter will last,” she told CNN. “You can already see it beginning to dissipate.”

“But I do think that as long as the topic remains relevant, which it will be until things change, then it does have longevity.” It’s clear that whether Akinkugbe is curating art to be mounted on an institution’s wall, or posting a 1080 x 1080 pixel square online, Blackness will remain in frame.

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