When the Studio Museum in Harlem introduced a group of young African-American artists in the show called "Freestyle" a few years ago, the curator, Thelma Golden, called them post-black artists, and caused a ruckus. She was describing artists who didn't feel obliged to refer to ethnicity or racial history in their work or, if they did, were inclined to distance themselves from the references, put them in quotes -- "race," "power" � and so on.
Ms. Golden was making a suggestion, offering an opportunity, opening a door rather than closing one. But she hit a nerve and got a lot of people thinking about exactly what black art is and might be. Did blackness reside in subject matter? In style? Did the ethnic background of the artist justify, even require the use of the label, even if the art itself was, say, abstract? Other questions arose. In what way was African-American art African? And what does "American" mean, anyway, in a country whose demographics are all over the world map?
However you define it, there is a surprising amount of black and post-black art around at present. I say surprising because only a decade or so ago mainstream shows devoted to black artists were rare events, more often than not confined to the month of February. But last week, on a day trip from New York City to Baltimore, with stops in Newark and Wilmington, Del., I could take in four museum exhibitions of work by African-Americans, as well as some gallery shows and an unusual museum devoted to African-American cultural history. Each offered something different: black art by white artists, African-American art by African artists, examples of black power abstraction, and solid proof that post-black art has been part of the American picture for almost a century, and probably longer. [...]
| Continue Holland Cotter's New York Times review "Critic's Notebook: 'Black' Comes in Many Shades," which asks that "[a]rtists keep making art; we keep looking at what they make; and we all think together as hard as we can."
posted in reviews on August 13, 2004 2:25 AM | t (0)
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i do not respect SHM
1. if you ask residents of Harlem where it is 3/4 dont know
2. as a graffiti artist the white art world is doing the same thing they do with jazz
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