Kobena Mercer was born into a Ghanaian-British family in London, England on 2 September 1960. His received his education both in Ghana and England, earning a degree in Fine Art at Saint Martins School of Art and his PhD at Goldsmiths College in 1990. The primary focus of Mercer's research is modern and contemporary art of the Black diaspora. Using methodologies rooted in cultural studies, his process critically assesses the creative output of African American, Caribbean, and Black British artists, exploring subjects of race, sexuality, and identity, specifically within the context of transnational environments.
Art historian and academic, Kobena Mercer was born into a Ghanaian-British family in London, England on 2 September 1960. Initially educated in Ghana, he relocated to England after his family left in the wake of the 1966 military coup that overthrew the government of Kwame Nkrumah. Mercer continued his studies in London, eventually earning a degree in Fine Art at Saint Martins School of Art and a PhD at Goldsmiths College in 1990.
The primary focus of Mercer's research lies in modern and contemporary art of the Black diaspora, and his work has notably reshaped contemporary viewpoints on art and identity. Using methodologies rooted in cultural studies, his analytical process critically assesses the creative output of African American, Caribbean, and Black British artists. Mercer explores subjects of race, sexuality, and identity, specifically within the context of transnational environments. In 1994, he published Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies. This groundbreaking book presented a Black British perspective to the critical analysis of an array of cultural narratives, events, and experiences rooted in the intersection of Asian, African, and Caribbean cultures – a combination that defines Black Britain. Mercer scrutinised new modes of cultural expression in Black film, photography, and visual art, exploring themes such as black hair, racism, homophobia, identities, and postmodernity. He proposed that the turbulent shifts of the 1980s led to the emergence of new hybrid identities from the periphery, while others were gradually pushed towards marginality. Examining both the United States and Britain as societies representing the Black diaspora, Mercer critically evaluated ambiguous displays of this dynamism, from Michael Jackson's ethnic androgyny to the eclectic expression found in black hairstyles.
In his 2016 collection of essays titled Travel & See: Black Diaspora Art Practices since the 1980s, Mercer offered an interpretive framework to place in context the unique creative contributions of African American, Black British, and Caribbean artists to contemporary art, particularly their critique of race and representation at the close of the 20th century. Mercer's examination of artists such as John Akomfrah, Renée Green, Yinka Shonibare, and Kerry James Marshall shed light on how Black artists facilitated transformations in the art world during an era of globalisation, from 1992 to 2012. He began the book with the assertion that these artists ‘led the way in shaping the critical terrain on which contemporary art was redefined’ (Mercer 2016, p. 1). The first section included two catalogue essays Mercer wrote in the early 1990s for group exhibitions featuring works by African-American, Black British, and Caribbean artists. These artists demonstrated 'excavationary' practices aimed at deconstructing oversimplified depictions of race (Mercer 2016, p. 38). Mercer analysed how installations by artists such as Fred Wilson and Renée Green exposed the predominance of white European intersections of racial and spatial discourse in museums, while concurrently re-envisioning their potential societal roles. The second section showcased Mercer's individual artist studies from the late 1990s and early 2000s, investigating how figures like Keith Piper, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Isaac Julien, and Shonibare interacted with traditional Western visual representations of race and sexuality to transform real-world perceptions of the Black male subject. Furthermore, the book delivered a sharp critique of race reference models, representational art practice approaches, and the assumption that artworks by artists of colour should consistently address specific concepts of identity. Mercer's most recent book, Alain Locke and the Visual Arts (Yale University Press, 2022), centres on the seminal Harlem Renaissance theorist, Alain Locke, presenting a comprehensive examination of his works and influential role in the world of art, with Mercer highlighting the significance of cross-cultural interweaving.
Mercer has also written New Practices, New Identities: Hybridity and Globalisation, the concluding chapter of the monumental series The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume V, The Twentieth Century (Harvard University Press, 2014). His essays and texts have appeared in various anthologies and journals, including Third Text, Frieze, and Art Journal. Mercer has also completed scholarly studies on artists including Romare Bearden, Adrian Piper, Isaac Julien, James Van Der Zee, and Rotimi Fani-Kayode. Mercer has contributed to exhibition catalogues for artists such as Wilfredo Lam at the Centre Pompidou, Frank Bowling at Haus der Kunst, and Adrian Piper at MoMA, New York, among others. In 2006, he was the first recipient of the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing, presented by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA. Mercer's teaching career spans several institutions, including Goldsmiths College, University of London; University of York; University of California Santa Cruz; and Yale University. In 2021, he was appointed to the Charles P. Stevenson Chair in Art History and the Humanities at Bard College, New York, USA.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Kobena Mercer ]
Publications related to [Kobena Mercer ] in the Ben Uri Library