{"id":987615,"date":"2026-05-27T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T08:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/987615\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T08:00:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T08:00:28","slug":"hurvin-andersons-country-club-chicken-wire-and-colonial-histories-at-tate-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/987615\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurvin Anderson\u2019s Country Club: Chicken Wire and Colonial Histories at Tate Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Hurvin Anderson<\/strong>: Country Club: Chicken Wire, 2008 \u2013 oil on canvas, 240 x 347 cm<\/p>\n

Hurvin Anderson\u2019s superb 80-work retrospective at Tate Britain (to 23rd August) reveals a wider range of subjects than one might expect, given that his long-running depiction of barber shops has been centre stage in recent UK shows \u2013 only three of them are included here. He often works in such series, but \u2018Country Club: Chicken Wire\u2019 is more a one-off. It depicts an empty tennis court in Port of Spain, Trinidad, viewed through a chain-link fence. The highly detailed geometric pattern of the wire suggests constraint and exclusion, as well as acting as a visual barrier. As such, it explores both Anderson\u2019s typical themes of colonial history and social segregation and the tension between representation and abstraction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Roshini Kempadoo observes in the show catalogue, the intensity of light is such that we \u2018can almost imagine heat bouncing off the asphalt of the courts\u2019 \u2013 courts which are \u2018persistent symbols of the pleasurable leisure activities of the colonial elite \u2013 the crisp white dress code, the omnipotent status of the umpire meting out the rules of the game, the clear painted lines that denote when you are in or out\u2019.\u00a0 And tennis, likely to have been played here by the colonial population, remains a middle-class sport. The scene also fits with how land was parcelled up to be owned, fenced off and occupied on the back of the slave trade \u2013 we as viewers are positioned as witnesses to that history. And in 2023, as it turned out, the Trinidad Country Club was acquired by the US government as the site of its new embassy, so the power issues behind the use of this land remain firmly in play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The court is empty \u2013 though the somewhat unusual presence of two chairs at the net (centre top in my detailed shots) initially appeared to me as ghostly presences, and that feels appropriate. The absence of obvious figures serves to concentrate the eye on the obstructions of the mostly-grey-to-white overlay of fencing, spiky fence posts and foreground wall, contrasting with the vibrant red and green of the court surface. Tennis court surrounds are normally referred to as netting, and are more substantial than the titular chicken wire: that term, I assume, is introduced as a link to the confinement of fowl in the typical Caribbean backyard, using that cheap and utilitarian material. And the overlay operates \u2013 with surprising local variety \u2013 to set up abstract effects, drawing us in to the detail across the whole surface.\u00a0 That\u2019s the key to why this painting operates so successfully in formal, as well as thematic, terms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paul Carey-Kent selects a \u2018Gallery of the Month\u2019, a \u2018Show of the Month\u2019, a \u2018Work of the Month\u2019 and a \u2018Book of the Month\u2019 for his weekly column in FAD. A collection of previous gallery columns \u2018Paul\u2019s Galleries To Go\u2019, is available from FAD<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Categories Tags <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hurvin Anderson: Country Club: Chicken Wire, 2008 \u2013 oil on canvas, 240 x 347 cm Hurvin Anderson\u2019s superb…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":987616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,242341,105391,8271,274593,393,4884,166253,257,4065,274594,56004,7586,75443,16,15],"class_list":["post-987615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-britain","tag-british-art","tag-colonial-history","tag-contemporary-art","tag-country-club-chicken-wire","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-hurvin-anderson","tag-london","tag-painting","tag-pauls-work-of-the-month","tag-retrospective","tag-tate-britain","tag-trinidad","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116645490439081032","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=987615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/987616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=987615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=987615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=987615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}