African American art moves beyond black and white; collectors, curators and galleries are embracing a greater diversity of genres and styles in African American art while other artists move toward a `post-black’ art which cannot be defined in terms of race
Art Business News, Jan, 2003 by Laura Meyers
In this new century, art collectors and dealers have come to recognize that there isn’t one monolithic African American school of art. Artists of African descent, just as all artists do, choose creative expressions that reflect their individual artistic, social and intellectual concerns. African American artists today explore their heritage, their culture and art itself in a wide variety of art forms and media, as they always have.
“There is no such thing as Black Art,” declared Josh Wainwright, rather ironically, since he produces the annual National Black Fine Art Show, scheduled for Jan. 29 to Feb. 2 in New York. This expo, with 40-plus participating dealers exhibiting more than 400 artists, has become the primary showcase in the United States for African American art, as well as contemporary African and Caribbean art.
More and more, Wainwright observed, the art market “is focused on the quality of the work itself, not the style. Afro-centric imagery is becoming less important in African American art. But getting exposure is still what’s difficult for African American artists. By far, the majority collectors of art by African Americans are still African Americans, though that is beginning to change.”
Today, said Wainwright, there is heightened interest among art cognoscenti in several discreet, distinctive areas of African American art, including: African American photography; vernacular art with an untrained, Southern aesthetic; abstract, non-narrative, non-objective art by African American artists; and cutting-edge works that are defined by not being defined as African American art--in shorthand, Post-Black art. At the same time, greater attention is being paid now to works and artists of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s which advanced the idea that African American artists should affirm and take pride in their own cultural identity. Each of these categories recently have been marked by well-attended traveling art exhibitions, shows at commercial fine art galleries and increased collecting, according to art dealers and curators.
Posted By: October Gallery
Monday, April 12th 2010 at 8:39AM
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