... the other Black experience
New black material is blacker than black -
I just wondering if someone is wondering too about the link between, black as paint, color and signification.(codes, science...)
Playing with signification of "Black" and every things relatives to this word can be a great source of inspiration.
Playing with signification of "Black" and every things relatives to this word can be a great source of inspiration.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by LesYpersound on -
...like, kara walker... ? :] i like her work because the use of the color black is obvious but the use of it isn't necessarily race-bound...and then the black for my represents the flattening of history (absence of color or detail) and memory. i'unno...and then the silhouettes themselves are a historical reference that is rich with its own symbolism.
but i really like when folks (intentionally or unintentionally) throw the color symbolism on its ear like in Romero's Night of the Living dead--where the living dead got whiter and whiter and the living (anti?)hero was a black man surviving only to be killed by ignorant white guys.
what are your thoughts? how do you use color in your work?
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Permalink Reply by angie1340 on -
Kara's work is cool, but too "clean" for me, I love street art and Basquiat, when paint is very thick.
I also love black super heroes like black marvell, but also the black panthers graphics.
George Clinton is for me a great source of inspiration.
My first idea comes from anarchism, black flag. But, as I love astrophysics and funkedelic it's a kind of supernatural blending of values that now takes control, + too much cartoons... +too much anarchist literature.
I'm thinking about something, Black as a color always had been associated with evil, nothing, empty, null... Whatever negative stuff, it's historical, the reason those people called "black" instead of brown... came from colonialist brainwashing.
Boom!! astrophysics last recherches come to a point that now Black is a material, full, rich, moving, well, not empty, not nothing, not null or=0.
It's seem interesting to go deeper in working with this material.
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Permalink Reply by Rosenda on -
Angie, this theme of the many meanings of and connotations of the term "black" and also about Black American culture and history, was explored too by an artist named Renee Green, in a show here at MOCA in 1993 called "World Tour". That show was fascinating in a lot of ways, she had a few rooms of installations, each one a totally different environment.
This one had to do with her showing how German culture was fascinated with Black American history and music and culture, this room had all kinds of books (a lot of them I remember being in my house growing up, belonging to my parents or my older sister) and video interviews with some writer and djs from Germany about this.
Import Export Funk Office
This one had to do with how many of the products that were used in parts of France came out of the labor of the slave trade
Mise en Scene
And I also remember the artist in this room or the one next to it, had a large book with a pen, asking for visitors to write down what the word "black" meant or brought up in their minds. I wondered back then when I was down in the galleries how many people actually wrote in there honestly what was in their heads. Part of me then was curious but most of me was scared and uncomfortable to really want to go back and read what people wrote in that book by the end of the show. I think I just decided it was better not to know if anyone had the nerve to put some real ugliness that I know some foks feel in there.
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Permalink Reply by angie1340 on
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Yes but playing with all those connotations can be very constructive and a great source of inspiration.
If we keep on with our "people of color anarchism" as the first angle of view.
Well for me black is first the color of my flag.
I grew in the district of Paris where The Commune spirit where still alive.
Louise Michel, has first the idea of changing red flag in black, for the mourning of all the camarades who died in the Commune of Paris.
We can play with that words as much as we want because we are concern.
Rosenda said:Angie, this theme of the many meanings of and connotations of the term "black" and also about Black American culture and history, was explored too by an artist named Renee Green, in a show here at MOCA in 1993 called "World Tour". That show was fascinating in a lot of ways, she had a few rooms of installations, each one a totally different environment.
This one had to do with her showing how German culture was fascinated with Black American history and music and culture, this room had all kinds of books (a lot of them I remember being in my house growing up, belonging to my parents or my older sister) and video interviews with some writer and djs from Germany about this.
Import Export Funk Office
This one had to do with how many of the products that were used in parts of France came out of the labor of the slave trade
Mise en Scene
And I also remember the artist in this room or the one next to it, had a large book with a pen, asking for visitors to write down what the word "black" meant or brought up in their minds. I wondered back then when I was down in the galleries how many people actually wrote in there honestly what was in their heads. Part of me then was curious but most of me was scared and uncomfortable to really want to go back and read what people wrote in that book by the end of the show. I think I just decided it was better not to know if anyone had the nerve to put some real ugliness that I know some foks feel in there.
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Permalink Reply by angie1340 on
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Yes, I remember that...for cats.
It seems that sometimes this word was just a color, or a specified nuance of black, like shoes color, it remind me very old souvenirs. It will be funny to find some old or new labels, or in old catalogs, specifying negro or negre or nigger as a color reference. Collect them and create something out of it.The collection can be piece of art by itself like in Rosenda last replay. This discussion is a real brainstorm, thanks girls!!!
Wha ouuu this is work, I'll keep an eye on it.
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Permalink Reply by Rosenda on
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Yes, I also didnt get why another Black artist out here in the US Bettye Saar supposedly came out vocally putting down Kara Walker's art. I think it's because the themes in it are uncomfortable and very in your face about certain realities that Black slave women had to deal with generation after generation during that time in US history of the slave trade down South.
Chardine Taylor-Stone said:Thank you for informing me about Kara walker. :) just checked her out fantastic work. I was dissapointed to hear some people were pissed of because her art was more popular in the white community??? and.... as an artist myself i create what ever comes out of me at the time i don't to black art I do HUMAN art. jesus does it ever end *rolls eyes*
And another thing I just remembered. Also early on years and years ago when I started here at MOCA, there was this article in the LATimes weekend newspaper about the backlash about the Black Male art exhibit that was curated then by Thelma Golden, who was at the Whitney Museum and is now heading The Studio Museum in Harlem.
She was interviewed in this article and said that she was surprised at the negative reaction to the artwork in this exhibit that was given her by some local Black art collectors and artists in the Los Angeles area. She said in the article that she felt they were upset by certain images of Black men in the artwork that they thought were not "positive images" that were acceptable to them, like one she mentioned an artwork showing a tall black male drag queen dressed up. I think that speaks to the whole belief system of some Black Americans of a certain social class/upper class types that you only show "acceptable" images of Black people even in art or they don't want to recognize it at all..............I think that streches into ideas of sexism and what is "black enough" or not in some brothers and sisters eyes. There's a whole lot in that subject alone too.
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Permalink Reply by angie1340 on
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Sure as an artist, working with contemporary styles, it's very difficult to touch people, here in France the last "statistics" shown that only 4% of population are sensitive to modern stuff, most of them are university graduated and have intellectual professions. So as we know our people, we can imagine that they are not art buyers (or very few, like big money guys); I think that it's quite normal when an artist want to live of his art to touch those 4%. So to go on bankable stuff, choking with sexism is a common way to touch art buyers mostly white for the moment. So think about your mum buying modern art, what does she choose...I'm sure she'll preferred some Douanier rousseau style than Basquiat?...In this situation, as an artist you can be twisted between 2 options, do what you feel and not sell a lot or do bankable stuff (blaah), I think that all this problematic comes from art marketing "rules". Well In fact people who say that "not black enough...." are in a most racist value: "folklore", we have have the same problem in Basque Country, if the guy on the photo doesn't have beret and eat goat cheese, the ad doesn't work...Stereotypes are hard to break.
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Permalink Reply by ForestGlenn on -
Without darkness there is no light. Divine illumination.
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Permalink Reply by Golem_3 on -
hi,
I've been reading,... good stuff.
You've touched on stereotypes,... are you into graphic novels?
There's one that I've been put on to called "The Locals" (its inspired by Mexicans into punk).
I'm in the process of creating a children's story (sort of like that old Maurice book "Wild Things"), but with Black youth (ethnically-speaking).
I want to make a comic for adults, but I'm afraid that it'll be misunderstood.
The story is centered on various Black young adults, involving relationships, extra-terrestrials, spirituality, etc.
Dark-humor, but dry.
Lianne La Havas - Is Your Love...?
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