Well I just opened a wonderful exhibition entitled Sistahs on the Horizon: African Diaspora WOmen Emerging Artists that features the work of five remarkable Black women and I have to say the experience had me, once again, a little disturbed. Not because of the work, mind you, but because in 2008 it's still necessary to draw attention to the fact that Black women are out here producing marvelous work but still not getting the exhibition opportunities offered to men. As someone who has curated over 50 exhibitions, I know that the claim "we just can't seem to find the women" is a bunch of bullshit! I have never had a problem finding great art made by women in the 30+ years I've been curating. What I have had problems finding are enough curators that are willing to include women at the same ratio to men in their exhibitions. This reality keeps me crazy because you wonder when this situation is going to change. I mean how many "all women shows" have to happen before it's clear that there are enough women out there to include in all the group shows organized and there certainly are enough Black women to help diversify them by gender and race!
A while back, maybe 20 years ago, I was invited to speak on a panel as a part of the Women's Caucus for Art national conference. I found myself, as I often am, the only Black women in the room so I was highly amused when the moderator asked me if I thought progress had been made by Black women in the visual arts arena. I laughed and suggested she simply look around the room and answer her own question. I then proceeded to give the audience a lesson in why white women's version of feminism never resonated with me or most other Black women I knew since we always seemed to find ourselves outside looking in once "their access" into the mainstream art world was gained. Like their suffragette foremothers, these WCA members were no better at being inclusive than their male counterparts.
Unfortunately, not much has changed. we're still finding that only one or two Black women are accepted into the inner circle and usually these women are not the ones who have strong ties to the African American community. It seems that the only way you can gain acceptance is to engage in image making that does not create any difficulty for the white art elite to understand or at least be able to articulate some critical discourse around. Try using a vocabulary they are not familiar with and see how far you get! Equally annoying is the fact that so many of us are willing to push away from our community in order to distance ourselves from the "label" Black Artist, as if there is something wrong with being one. We fall for the okey doke because our ultimate gaol is acceptance into the mainstream art world, not that there's anything wrong with getting there. The problem I have is that the path there it never one we create but one that is paved for us as long as we can play the game.
Of course there's nothing wrong with making it in the mainstream since that's where the money is. And I have nothing but love for the ones that get there on their own terms because that's what we all want to do. But how many excellent Black women artists are ever even tapped to break into that world. We look at the major institutions like the Whitney or MOMA or Chicago Art Institute or the Philadelphia Museum and we can usually count on maybe 2 hands the number of Black women in their permanent collections. And how many of them are exhibited as opposed to in the vault somewhere? We still need books like Lisa Farrington's Creating Their Own Image: The History of African American Women Artists to remind us that we still have along way to go since most of the women in the book are far from household names in most art schools, unlike the Linda Beglises, Louise Nevelsons, Helen Frankenthalers, Judy Chicagos, Nancy Graves, or Cindy Shermans.
I thank God my parents had the presence of mind to show me the work of Augusta Savage and Elizabeth Catlett when I was a little girl and a self-proclaimed sculptor because I wonder, given the dearth of Black women role-models available to me, would I ever have made the decision to pursue sculpture in art school? Actually I wonder if I would ever had thought I should go to art school at all! For the young sisters attending arts schools or art programs across the country, I only hope they seek out the many Black women producing art today and not be afraid of seeing them as their role models. They should know that those of us who've been in this world for a few decades may have something to offer them; if nothing else, moral support! I am wounded by those that feel the need to keep us at arms length for fear of being labeled since in a racist society, that is almost inevitable. Just look at the current race for the presidency if you don't believe this. No matter how Obama tries to stay off the race superhighway, the media and Clinton camp keep forcing him back on and I am sure eventually the race factor will trump all other discussions of suitability. It's just the American Way... But I digress. My only point in this rant is that our work is hard enough without layering it with the added pressure of racism/sexism (we've always been victims of both!). So I guess I will continue to bend over backwards to include sisters in all the exhibitions I curate, recommend them to all other curators who ask me for artists, and keep writing about us because the need is still there. I hope I live to see the day when it isn't but for now....
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
ART & RACEnotes
After a lot of thought and back and forth, I finally decided to create this blog. As an artist working in the visual arts, I can't help but notice the way in which image has shaped the concept of race in this country. Because of this reality, I am moved to comment on some of the issues surrounding race and the art world. I am constantly observing ways in which Black artists are marginalized, both by the mainstream art world and by our own so-called Black Arts world.
Image is a powerful tool, always has been and probably will always continue to be. From the first image of Africans created by Europeans designed to introduce this "exotic" being to curiosity seekers, control of the image was critical. In pre-electronic media days, image was often introduced through art. Artists were one of the first recorders of the African image. Initially the image was fairly respectable, albeit a European interpretation of significant aspects of the subject. But as Europe moved from explorer to conqueror, that image by necessity had to be modified to support the justification for invasion and ultimately the subjugation of a people. It is this modification that intrigues me as this is what contemporary image making succeeds in doing best, creating images that modify one's understanding of race and racial politics.
When I look at the art produced by African people that is most frequently heralded as exceptional by the mainstream (translation: white male) art world, it usually engages racial stereotypes created by the white imagemakers. Whether those stereotypes are used in a denigrating manner or not is not really at issue. They simply need to be present for the image to have an air of "sophistication" and "political edginess". That they speak only to the mainstream makes them all the more acceptable since anything that doesn't is automatically seen as irrelevant or "outside" the mainstream. What I find even more intriguing is how difficult it is for those of us who have been in the art world for some time now, to understand this dynamic. Why is it that we continue to make art that we feel has some relevance to our community and yet want it to be accepted by the mainstream? Why do we fail to understand that art, like every other facet of life cannot be separated from racial realities. As long as the work you produce is grounded in an African aesthetic, even if that aesthetic is used to express universal topics, you will be codified as doing "ethnic art" not simply art. Of course this is not simply a fact of the visual art world. One can see this same trend in film, music, dance, and literature. My son is an aspiring filmmaker and he and I talk all the time about our image on screen, or perhaps I should say we talk about the absence of our true image on screen. I stopped going to commercial movies long ago because I just got tired of never seeing my story on the big screen. I wearied of only seeing shallow versions of my people depicted in thinly developed scripts that left me wanting every time I left the theater. Because I am a visual artist, I know how important it is to present a well formed, three dimensional image in order to get your point across. So I limit my viewing to independent black films, made far away from Hollywood, usually by filmmakers who are more artist than filmmaker. I seek out only those Hollywood films that have some substance or a story that hasn't been told before like the Great Debaters, being careful not to look to hard at them because if I do, I'll find fault and possibly become jaded enough not to try again.
Ultimately I worry that our image has become so convoluted that even we no longer know who our true selves are. Once upon a time artists used to be the keepers of truth in a community, the agents of change, the mirrors to the ugly as well as the beauty of a community. I fear that day is gone as more and more Black artists seek to fit into the mainstream art world, compromising our image for a little recognition and a lot of financial success. I wonder is it too late to talk about taking back our image? Is it too late because we no longer know what that true image is? There's a reason why the visual arts remain the last true bastion of racism in this society. After all, it's through the arts that we know most ancient civilizations. More than any other art discipline, the visual arts of those long ago societies give us an understanding of life and culture as experienced by their citizens. What will we leave the world to understand our place in it? The images created to satisfy a need to belong to an alien culture or those that tell the truth of who we were, are and hope to be?
Image is a powerful tool, always has been and probably will always continue to be. From the first image of Africans created by Europeans designed to introduce this "exotic" being to curiosity seekers, control of the image was critical. In pre-electronic media days, image was often introduced through art. Artists were one of the first recorders of the African image. Initially the image was fairly respectable, albeit a European interpretation of significant aspects of the subject. But as Europe moved from explorer to conqueror, that image by necessity had to be modified to support the justification for invasion and ultimately the subjugation of a people. It is this modification that intrigues me as this is what contemporary image making succeeds in doing best, creating images that modify one's understanding of race and racial politics.
When I look at the art produced by African people that is most frequently heralded as exceptional by the mainstream (translation: white male) art world, it usually engages racial stereotypes created by the white imagemakers. Whether those stereotypes are used in a denigrating manner or not is not really at issue. They simply need to be present for the image to have an air of "sophistication" and "political edginess". That they speak only to the mainstream makes them all the more acceptable since anything that doesn't is automatically seen as irrelevant or "outside" the mainstream. What I find even more intriguing is how difficult it is for those of us who have been in the art world for some time now, to understand this dynamic. Why is it that we continue to make art that we feel has some relevance to our community and yet want it to be accepted by the mainstream? Why do we fail to understand that art, like every other facet of life cannot be separated from racial realities. As long as the work you produce is grounded in an African aesthetic, even if that aesthetic is used to express universal topics, you will be codified as doing "ethnic art" not simply art. Of course this is not simply a fact of the visual art world. One can see this same trend in film, music, dance, and literature. My son is an aspiring filmmaker and he and I talk all the time about our image on screen, or perhaps I should say we talk about the absence of our true image on screen. I stopped going to commercial movies long ago because I just got tired of never seeing my story on the big screen. I wearied of only seeing shallow versions of my people depicted in thinly developed scripts that left me wanting every time I left the theater. Because I am a visual artist, I know how important it is to present a well formed, three dimensional image in order to get your point across. So I limit my viewing to independent black films, made far away from Hollywood, usually by filmmakers who are more artist than filmmaker. I seek out only those Hollywood films that have some substance or a story that hasn't been told before like the Great Debaters, being careful not to look to hard at them because if I do, I'll find fault and possibly become jaded enough not to try again.
Ultimately I worry that our image has become so convoluted that even we no longer know who our true selves are. Once upon a time artists used to be the keepers of truth in a community, the agents of change, the mirrors to the ugly as well as the beauty of a community. I fear that day is gone as more and more Black artists seek to fit into the mainstream art world, compromising our image for a little recognition and a lot of financial success. I wonder is it too late to talk about taking back our image? Is it too late because we no longer know what that true image is? There's a reason why the visual arts remain the last true bastion of racism in this society. After all, it's through the arts that we know most ancient civilizations. More than any other art discipline, the visual arts of those long ago societies give us an understanding of life and culture as experienced by their citizens. What will we leave the world to understand our place in it? The images created to satisfy a need to belong to an alien culture or those that tell the truth of who we were, are and hope to be?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
