Eddie Chambers lecture on Donald Locke

Join Eddie Chambers art historian and curator for a lecture responding to Donald Locke’s exhibition, Resistant Forms.

During this lecture Chambers discusses key works of Locke’s, in relation to his research and writing on the African Diaspora. This lecture elaborates on why the largest opportunities for artists of colour are posthumous opportunities, how we as art and cultural workers are implicated and what strategies we can develop in order to disrupt this.

This exhibition is organised by Ikon in collaboration with Spike Island, Bristol and Camden Art Centre, London with support from the Estate of Donald Locke. The exhibition is generously supported by The Ampersand Foundation, Henry Moore Foundation, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art,  Alison Jacques and the Estate of Donald Locke.

About the speaker

Eddie Chambers is a Goldabelle McComb Finn Professor in Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was previously holder of the David Bruton, Jr. Centennial Professorship in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. He has been professionally involved in the visual arts for four decades first as an artist, then as a writer of art criticism and art curator. He earned his PhD at Goldsmiths College University of London which concerned itself with press and other responses to a new generation of Black British artists who emerged in the 1980s.

Chambers has written several books, namely Run Through the Jungle: Selected Writings by Eddie Chambers, London: inIVA – The institute of International Visual Arts, 1999; Things Done Change: The Cultural Politics of Recent Black Artists in Britain,Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi Editions, 2012; Black Artists in British Art: A History Since the 1950s, I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd, London and New York, Series: International Library of Visual Culture, 2014, reprinted, September 2015; Roots & Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain, I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd, London and New York, Series: International Library of Visual Culture, 2017; World is Africa: Writings on Diaspora Art, London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2021.

Chambers also has contributed to the catalogue, Donald Locke: Resistant Forms (Spike Island, Ikon Gallery and Camden Art Centre, 2025) which is available to buy here.