April 1969
Critique
The art scene is full of things that everyone knows about; grapevine truths that people carry around [rather in the manner of beasts of burden] like guilty secrets. "Guilty" because, although everyone is free to air these general truths, they are only tempted to do so under duress or in instances of extreme passion – offensively or defensively. One of these guilty secrets is the neglect of the black artist. By a rare piece of luck [perhaps it's an historical imperative] we have had a spate of black shows: individual, collective, old, new. But it is neither possible nor desirable to separate this sudden appearance of black shows from the extant political mood. And since art and politics are, in this case, inseparable, there is no better time than now to create standards.
In this connection, one detects a number of things flashing about like quick-silver. For instance, there is the intense conflict going on between the older black artists and the younger ones. It is fugitive and unexplained, funny and sad; in short, like life itself. The survival of the older artists, which was in a large part dependent on their "keeping their place," is a demonstration of the stigma that affects everyone. But that code for survival has not deterred the young black artist. One would think that the "achievements" of the older artists would have been enough testimony to discourage the young ones. But no; the young ones do make the sort of demands for showing, criticism, and so on, that the older ones didn't. The present attitude reflects "a wind of change." Frequently these young black artists insist that they are not "painting black." In a sense, this is an escape from reality. Any black artist who does not want to be identified by the color of his skin could be indulging in a subtle new form of "passing." There is a paradox here and the inconsistency is partly the reason why certain questions must be asked: why have black artists, given their historical role in art, contributed so little to the great body of modern works? Is black art simply an eruption of passion [black] or a subtle turn-off [white?] One starts to mention a few names but one is stopped by another question: "Well! Who are these artists? Are they any good? Where do they show?" What one is really concerned with, when posing those latter questions, is not the relative merit of these people as artists [their work], but the curious fact that black artists exist – either isolated in pockets or in groups.
To forestall potential detractors who might throw up their hands I want at this point, to state that unless this publication gets bored with the idea, I am going to weave a broadly based explanation of why the black artist has contributed so little to the mainstream, or to the most relevant aspects of contemporary art. Let me say at once that a recognition of just how loaded the subject of black art is has got to be faced. Otherwise we are wasting time. I have questioned black Brazilians, black West Indians, recording their answers on tape. I always end up in a rage, frustrated by a general inability to separate the meanings or explanations from the fact. Even the most cantankerous black blowhard in the art bars will shift ground in the manner of an "uncle" on the topic of black art. I lay myself open to criticism writing about it, since such matters as accuracy of dates and the like are of cardinal importance. Such an undertaking takes time and I could be asked why am I rushing into print. In answer, I point to the urgency of the situation: it can't wait. Furthermore, there are ideas in print worth discussing.
First I would like to cite Encounter, an entire issue of which was devoted to Latin America [September, 1965]. It contains a moving piece called "The International Style," by Lawrence Alloway, who states: "When a block of artists from an area regarded as artistically underprivileged moves into wider recognition, a general problem is precipitated for both the movers and the witnesses." This is unlike the Negro Renaissance of the twenties in which there were problems for the "movers" but not for the "witnesses." Now there is a genuine black revolution which affects everyone. In this same issue of Encounter, Emanuel de Kadt writes: "The impasse in which Brazil is caught has its roots deep in structural and mental rigidities formed during a long experience of slavery and economic marginality..." It would be interesting to hear what Laurence Alloway would say in the face of the observations of Abdias de Nascimiento, a black Brazilian painter, writer and theatre man with whom I have been having long talks. We noted that none of the artists Alloway mentions has, or claims to have, a black heritage or influence. There is no use denying that Abdias de Nascimento is right when he argues that much of the work done by black people [in Brazil] cannot be completely understood in critical terms without careful attention being paid to the attitude which produced it. There can be no doubt that this is exactly what people like Frank O'hara did for a master like Jackson Pollock. And say what one likes about the recent book, "David Smith on David Smith," it seeks to define Smith's art as coming out of a deliberate, intelligent mind, conscious of socio-cultural philosophy. It is not just an autobiography.
There are moments in history when the time seems ripe for an attempt at defining terms. One such moment is now. The weight of exposure being given black people in all walks of life is second to none in Western history of which they are now firmly a part, the Third World notwithstanding. We recall James Baldwin's remark about being "born about the time of the so-called Negro Renaissance." Despite this kind of observation, we are witnessing a revolution, a black revolution of unmanageable scale and what is imperative is that out of it, some standards must emerge. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in a situation similar to that which Mr. Baldwin describes. The one area being significantly ignored in discussions is art. So the question comes up again. "Is there a separate black art, as opposed to white art?" The fact that the question is asked puts in doubt the existence of black art. Yet, on a universal level the answer has got to be yes. If Leroi Jones can claim in his book, Black Music, that white jazz is different from black jazz and if one can make a distinction between black and white writing on the basis of the completely different, yet related, experiences of these two sets of people, then the claim can certainly be extended to art by stating the simple fact: what distinguishes or creates the uniqueness of the black artist is not only the color of his skin, but the experience he brings to his art that forge, inform, and feed it and link him essentially to the rest of the black people. It is astonishing, ironic, but, on reflection, very predictable that black artists everywhere are making the same observations about their relationship to the world. Say what one likes about Leroi Jones, he talks quite clearly about the socio-cultural philosophy of the Negro.
Let me clarify this by an example: Bob Thompson's work.
[PICTURE]
Bob Thompson, Homage to Nina Simone [1965], oil on canvas, 48" x 72".
I had been waiting for his exhibition for some time. I had heard rumours – was told it was on. I called the sort of people whom I thought would know only to find that they didn't. I rang the New School and was told by the switchboard that there was no such exhibition. Finally I went to the Martha Jackson Gallery. The girl at the front desk had never heard of Bob Thompson. She referred me to someone in the back – another girl. We joked about it: was it or wasn't it there? I left. The whole thing was inconclusive and disturbing. A short time after I came back from England, I ran into Jack Whitten who asked: "Are you going to the Bob Thompson show?"
When I saw the exhibition I was overwhelmed. I desperately wanted to write about this artist, I was given the go ahead to review the show. It occurred to me that objectivity was imperative. Toward that end. I took the people I teach at Columbia to see the exhibition and afterwards assigned them a paper. My class at Columbia consists of about 25 people, only one of whom could answer to the current description of Black. Now the point I'm trying to make is that even considering that Thompson was born a year or so after I was, as a figure he was a legend – a hero, a tragedy, an artist by the standards of the people I admire. It quickly became evident that the assignment I made to the students was not going to help. One had to be initiated in order to understand this work. A confrontation on purely aesthetic terms could not be avoided.
The Jewishness of a Jewish novel can be controversial, polemical, attractive, and embraced. However, it remains valid and establishes itself as such. So with Chinese-ness or Japanese-ness. In art, this is not so. In the hierarchy, we are led by, art doesn't allow the color or ethnic lines – except at its peril. This is clearly a questionable position in the changing, fermenting world in which we live.
Black art is done by black people and Thompson's work is not only idiosyncratic and personal, but black. The structures in Bob Thompson's work are explainable within the framework of an historical context which includes a psychological release which is traceable to Eastern Europe before Hitler's war in much the same way as the complete shift in Modernism. [The New American Painting: Pollock, Motherwell, Kline, de Kooning et al can be traced via Andre Masson and the Surrealist to what, for want of a more precise description, I must term Western Europe] Thompson's work comes out of influences from German Romanticisms [David Casper Friedrich], Die Bruecke and painters, writers, and intellectuals who gathered in art colonies [ Worpswede] and cities [Berlin and Munich] and spread to painters now scattered all over the globe. What removes Thompson completely, yet entrenches him deeply is his experience as a Black.
Thompson's is a stunning and revealing exhibition: the genesis of black art. He has used European masters in much the same way as, during the ferment and rumblings after Cezanne and Monet, artists used everything from Japanese prints to African sculpture. The works have a sneaky look, a feel, stamp, and finally, a quality about them. One might say "This painting reminds me of that Piero – God! Which one is it? "The Nativity?" But then one looks hard and it doesn't at all. What we thought was Piero disappears and we have a Thompson. A rich, sumptuous, and undeniably complex painting generating its own personal heat, comparable only to a Picasso's use of tribal sculpture or a Van Gogh's use of Japanese prints. We had to wait for a Bob Thompson to understand more clearly.
Consider further. The Museum of Modern Art puts on a show called "Homage to Martin Luther King." Danny Johnson has a piece of sculpture in this exhibition called Homage to Rene d'Harnoncourt. Mr. d'Harnoncourt was not only an admirer of Johnson's but an important curatorial official at the museum and had recently been tragically killed, rather in the manner of Frank O'Hara. Johnson, I would venture to say, was not just indulging in subtle counterpoint, nor for that matter really playing art politics. [It is sheer cant to deny that politics play an important part in the lives of all members in all communities. Art, even in its grand estate, does not escape this.]
The advent of Martin Luther King as a cultural, not folk, hero, parallels artists having become very much part of the scene –intertwined irrevocably in the socio-cultural fabric. But, while in this country Martin Luther King is a public figure and black artists are called upon to pay homage to him, the situation is entirely different for black artists elsewhere. The disappearance of Dennis Williams from the London scene came shortly after the "This Is Tomorrow" exhibition in the late fifties'. His most ambitious picture publicly seen for the first time at this exhibition, was described by a fellow artist as "Mau Mau Mondrian." Along with Patrick Bethudier, there were several West African and Indian painters who were forced to emigrate. The token appreciation that these painters received before they emigrated is similar to Tanner's reception before he emigrated to Europe.
In summation, black art is being done by black people. It is too simplistic to say that it is solely pigment oriented. Some of the people jiving around with their Afros are on the "side of a whiter shade of pale." What informs black artist's works is the black experience, which is global.
The dilemma of the black artist reaches into every sphere. Since the public is unfamiliar with his work, he is at a disadvantage from the outset. With known artists, through reproductions and photographs, one can quickly grasp the essence of what an artist is getting at. Consider the Francis Bacon painting called Man Getting Up From A Chair, reproduced in the catalogue of the recent New York showing of his work. The thing hits you with such rapidity and power you know what the meant. Or a Jackson Pollock in one of his overall paintings. But the work of an artist like Jack Whitten, for instance, has to be experienced directly. No black and white photo or color reproduction is going to give his "feeling" [from seeing] that this is a world of demanding urgency. There is no separation between abstraction and figuration for Whitten. As with Pollock, the artist whose work Whitten's most resembles, the molecular structure of the canvas material, the way it accommodates paint, holds it, sucks it, bleeds, rejects, moves on, builds, stops at the boundaries of the supports, creates newer more surprising areas, is much the same. Different from Pollock is what informs this activity. What coalesces in Whitten's gripping, varied, and rich paintings is an individual experience. The time is different; the tempo is different. We had to wait for an artist like Whitten to make us understand that remark about Pollock painting the way Ornette Coleman plays the saxophone.
Incidentally, Jack Whitten had a beautiful painting in his New York show entitled Martin Luther King's Dream. Yet the show was almost completely ignored. Whitten's exuberant handling of an "all over the spectrum" colouring produces an enigmatic, quiet and almost impersonal quality. Although I doubt whether Whitten had anything of the sort in mind, there was the remarkable counterpoint to King himself. If Whitten was trying to present the one-of-us-ness" and at the same time the "public property" aspect of Dr. King, he was successful.
Whitten's style is not mysterious except in the sense that a magic man and paint have come together to create a real world, a black world. It's just that no one [except a chosen few] seeks to know about the world.
