Hurvin Anderson invites you into the Black barbershop
Many of us move through life on an endless search for things that make us feel alive. We expect this feeling to be wrapped up in something monumental, an extraordinary person or place or thing that catapults us out of the banality of everyday life and into an ether of electrifying purpose. Something that roots us to the ground or sends our spirits soaring through the air and says ‘you are alive’. Something special that reminds us of the joy of living.
In Hurvin Anderson’s Peter’s series, these reminders of aliveness are provoked by an at first seemingly mundane space. Hung against white walls above the electric green carpet of the Our Aliveness room of the National Portrait Gallery’s The Time is Always Now exhibition, Anderson’s pieces invite the viewer in to the Black barbershop. The two pieces on display, Peter’s Series: Back, 2008 and Peter’s: Sitters II, 2009 both feature lone figures seated in the barber’s chair. A placard beside the pieces tells the viewer of two themes central to Anderson’s work: hostility and welcome.
I find the hostility in my first impression of the pieces. The space enveloping both figures is one of cold blue, of solitude. They are alone in their individual pieces, with their heads tilted downwards, their backs to the viewer. I was drawn back to my own memories of waiting in the barbershop as a child, watching my dad and brother converse with their barbers whilst getting their hair cut, kept company by the chatter of local farmers and school boys and the droning static of the waiting room TV. I wondered where the barber tending to Anderson’s figures was, where the others queued up for a haircut were waiting. I wondered why they were alone.
I kept looking for the welcome. I found it when my focus shifted to the colours enveloping the figures. The subject of Peter’s Series: Back, 2008 is enshrouded in a myriad of geometric designs of pink, orange and yellow, while the figure of Peter’s: Sitters II, 2009 sits underneath a horizontal tapestry of yellows, purples and oranges. The patterns are tribal like, their warmth surrounding the figures and removing them from their solitude. The colours not only welcomed me, the viewer, to the pieces, but welcomed a second presence to the room. They represent the sense of community and togetherness fostered in these Black barbershops. They made these pieces feel alive.
Although the figures sit in their pieces alone, they are part of of a bigger story. Anderson’s ongoing Peter’s series showcases the cultural significance of the barbershop to the Caribbean diasporic community. Born in Birmingham to Jamaican parents, these pieces pay homage to Anderson’s heritage. They highlight the barbershop as an important place of affirmation and community for many Windrush generation Afro-Caribbean migrants who were often excluded from other hair salons. The barbershop became a space where patrons could feel safe and supported in their identities, free to celebrate the things that make them uniquely alive.
In Anderson’s pieces, the traditionally public space of the barbershop becomes intimately private. We are invited to witness the solitude of the figures and unravel the wider community that they are representing. In the barbershop, the mundane becomes an expression of authenticity and aliveness. There are no grand gestures here. No thrill to send your spirit soaring through the air. But there is the hum of the clippers, a sweeping brush in the corner and bundles of hair scattered across the floor. There are haircuts that are not just haircuts but an intricate expression of identity that is, for a moment, unscathed by forces outside the door. There are young faces that look into mirrors and see the possibility of their futures reflected back at them. There are legs that swing in chairs and size four shoes that bounce off the metal, creating a feeling that echoes and whispers ‘you are alive’.
In the barbershop, Anderson’s Jamaican roots not only come to life again, but are sustained.
Hurvin Anderson’s Peter’s series is on display in the National Portrait Gallery’s The Time is Always Now exhibition until the 19th of May 2024.
