Black Art
Months ago it drove me crazy when Washington Post writer Jacqueline Trescott described Jacob Lawrence a great "African American" artist and now it drives me even crazier when her Washington Post's colleague and that paper's chief art critic writes (in reviewing current shows by American artists Aaron Douglas and Jacob Lawrence in the nation's capital) that:
The surprise isn't that Douglas couldn't overcome all the obstacles there were to making the first fully convincing black art. It's that the young Lawrence, in his "Migration of the Negro," did."Black Art"????? Is there really such a genre? If there is, then haven't Africans been making "Black Art" for milennia?
And yes, I do know that there are commercial art fairs that are focused to attract collectors of art about African American subjects, just like there are art fairs focused on Latin American artists, European artists, Australian artists, Asian, etc. They all create art, and their race and ethnicities are part of the processes and cultural contributions to the end commodity, but in the end, it is art.
But Gopnik really means "African-American art," doesn't he?
It's just American art; it happens to depict African American subjects and history, and its talented creators were African American, but the end result is no more "black art" than Andy Warhol's art is "white art" and Morris Louis' art is "Jewish Art" and so on.
It's just "American Art."
Makes my head hurt.
8 comments:
There are plenty of people that have to bid everything, and ethnicity is generally easy to bin for bad,and not so bad reasons. But if this makes your head hurt just wait a few months after you've heard for the billionth time that Sen. Obama is African American. If he has to be binned, how about "African-American and Caucasion ancestry". White people should be able to lay claim to him as much as African-Americans.
I glad you brought this up. The question of "black" art has been a pain in my ass for years! Almost invariably black people as me if I "do" black art. I respond that I'm black and I make art, yes. This answer prompts: "F'real? Can you do me a portait of (insert name of any icon of black pop culture here i.e. Tupac, Malcolm X, Bob Marley or, just yesterday, Obama)".
I could go on a rant but I'll save it for my own blog...
This is such a tough subject to handle, although it should be tackled.
We have just witnessed the first "black" American to receive a major party nomination to run for the office of president. Fantastic and historical! I use the term "black" in parenthesis becuase Obama is half white (something the press hardly ever mentions, like Halle Berry), and also becuase I don't normally refer to folks by race (I used it with this paragraph only becuase it's the topic at hand). Outside of this paragraph, he's just Obama to me and not "the black candidate". But, to not bring up his race would negate the historical greatness of this achievement.
I don't use the term African-American becuase I personally know some folks of color who have no African heritage. I usually just say, "American" if it's country centered (Virginian, Washingtonian, etc). Otherwise it's just "girls and guys", "folks" and such.
I have wondered if knowing gender and/or race makes some art easier for some to swallow or rather, to pigeon hole. It gives it a context to start from or, to limit it from. While I agree that art should be appreciated for what it is (Art for art's sake), knowing the artist's cultural background sometimes gives more appreciation for the work, and a healthy respect for their achievement.
For instance, I love Mark Bradford's work. When I read about him and found out he is black, I appreciated it all the more becuase I know that minorities are not represented very strongly in the "serious" art world (Pace, Gagosian, etc.). Ditto for Leonardo Drew.
This underrepresentation should not be ignored by critics. But critics should not focus on an artist's gender or race, etc. when judging work. It's just a facet of the whole, not a starting point from which all opinions should be based. Jacob Lawrence is a great, and important, American artist.
I'm glad you put up this post (and let me ramble a reply). The more it gets talked about, the less of a "big deal" it will be when an artist is not white and male.
Send me your rant and I'll publish it here as well...
Lenny you make a great point. A point that Tyler Green made on Monday.
http://www.artsjournal.com/man/2008/06/weekend_roundup_65.html
Tks... I see that now... it's an old point by now... I also made it last September...
I'm glad you brought it up again. I'm often disgusted with the editors at the WAPO but "BLACK ART"? They need a style guide.
I will stay that coverage of local shows has been much better lately. I saw Blake at an artist's lecture held by Transformer (well he showed up as it ended but point for effort).
Is it such a travesty to label art based on a person's cultural background as long as we don't leave it just at that? Why say "no" to labeling something as African American but "yes" to just American?
How does anyone judge art? From some sort of education, and most education teaches labeling and labels allure, whether it's "black", "modern" "conceptual" or "american" art, in the end they are all meaningless titles. If the art moves, teaches, or inspires you that is all that really matters.
Oh and Andy Warhol was about as "white" as they came! ;)
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