September / October 1970
[PICTURE]
Boston Mural, top half by Gary Rickson, bottom half by Dana Chandler. Photo courtesy of Harvard Art Review.The past season has seen a spate of correspondence surrounding the nature of Black Art. The definition seems to have gained little clarity but the issues still rage: thus, the spoken utterances of artists [painters and sculptors] perpetually left a certain non-plussing, discouraging confusion often full of " ... I was aiming at" " I could have done" etc. perhaps it's a defense mechanism, in defense of this non-realized - but is it realizable? figment of "might have been." Be that as it may, the discouragement does appear to reside in retrospective, if inscrutable potential; not just during the experiencing of the utterances, but in one's own reverie of that past of potential - a sort of recapitulation in strictly elusive, non-definable terms: shapeless, formless. The chilling notion dawned on me on rereading specific utterances by black artists and writers on art, particularly those who relate themselves to "the street," sitting on the coffin of unspent possibilities. It's not just given to blacks: this is what I'm dealing with. It has been remarked that these artists are unwilling, unable, even afraid to deal with "dwellings," floors, walls, etc., but this is not our discussion. The algid, sad, resentful: "it's-like-this," "look-here" hairies who deal in "I could haves" yards from the possible; with much navel directed encouragement given to these shadow chasing, shadow boxing activities. The popular press has caught and frozen this. Though no mean thing, and unprecedented in itself. Its significance, surely, lies in terms of sheer journalistic weight; period pride can be the only explanation for the cautious but quite heady claims of a significant first. [1] Black Art, as an idea, is very much with us. Any age alert to evolutionary, revolutionary forces stretching its possibilities, brings with it painful scholarship: bracing in a "wind of chance" challenge; it is articulated in the undertones of delivered, evocative speech ... but alas, irritatingly dry, nail-bleeding and uncomfortable in its typing and scratching.
It is of signal importance to emphasize that the only positive thing to come out of the recent situation has been the loudly bellowed demand and published assertations for a criticism to accommodate, nay [for won't I be accused of condescension?] explicate, veritably the Black experience: it needs new structures of criticism. The demand? Indeed a new criticism! That the polemicists, artists and others want to be praised for their labors, ahs, I'm sure, not escaped these protagonists. If the revolution is right, praise I'm sure is forthcoming where praise is due. Meanwhile it is quite clear that the concept of Black Art has to be dealt with through criticism. So far there has been little evidence, "off the street," in the museum and gallery system, in fact revealing " ... through careful study ... of styles and salient points of contrast and similarity ..." anything significant. Between the eye, the wall and the floor there was little which was new. There was nothing signally original or surprising, as there are plenty of precedents for
" the social artist ... radically committed and involved with the living world ...": all those artists in the history of awkward genre and realistic allegorical painting in this country. It is in fact a home-grown phenomenon, the genius of which must reside in the American psyche itself. There was little that would support a rectifier, except quantity, numbers. For that matter, since we are on the subject, anything Black! Except the social phenomena. Essentially what was revealed was a certain conservative clinging to well tried, now creaking, now worn out [but by implication not necessarily " no longer valid"] pictorial devices. That most of the figuration of these social artists could be put to better use in say graphic designs is signalled by the fact that most of the works appear evidently better, more explicit, more accomplished in reproduction. This is because the qualities of paint, of collage etc., do not engage one - as here they are not meant to. The reproductive process's ability to neutralize things reduces everything to a bald graphic message totally devoid of material nuance. That this stuff is more about information is underlined by the comparative distinction afforded through catalogue, magazine and newspaper reproduction. For the "Black Experience" puts it all out of focus and into question [as for instance is this the right medium for X?]. Extremely literal in the worst sense these works seems designed to deny the subtlety of black experience, indeed experience of any sort: and black experience, at any rate the experience as given, is "subtle." The temptation to label this work "bad" to use the derogatory term "Bad Art" as an apellation for the products of these art endeavors, has to be resisted. [But it may well be to come, Bad Art, for who is the final arbitrator!] The question is: bad as compared to what? Alas! We still haven't come up with any secret cache of instructions which the African ancestors provided in their distinctive "written" style. Since this is not, I suggest, the case, we can't really disprove "Racist Lies" about Black impotence. Since on the evidence the summoning of art, i.e. painting and sculpture, to extirpate Black Art does prove recalcitrant and awfully tricky on the one hand by present claims then powerless? The answer here is an unqualified No! For what we can do and it's already happening [otherwise now the ongoing dialogue!] is question "The Assumptions" from the positive deductions of our experience. Since the problem of eliciting from painting and sculpture an adjudication redefining art [with the express intention of defining Black Art] proves rather like pulling strong teeth without anaesthetic. I would suggest two ways. One, as I said, through our experience: concrete equivalents which extend through determinants, measurements, yardsticks. Or total rejection of the immediate experience which will involve a boat back trip on the Garveyan precedent; that might, that does imply all kinds of potential discovery. The treasure hunt! Home!
In trying to make sense of the former, my endeavors led me far afield. [more about this] to talking and reading finally several books where I lingered: one might say I put out to sea with some books! In the summer 1964 issue of Art and Literature I found Richard Wolheim's essay "On Expression and Expressionism" a discussion of Marion Milner's book On Not Being Able to Paint. Page 178, "At one point Wittgenstein asks us if we can imagine ourselves using one phrase and meaning another by it [e.g. saying "It's cold here" meaning "It's warm here"] ... our explanation would probably take the form of alleging that we say a word cold out loud, we say warm to ourselves: [not even that I venture!] or that we treat our utterances as though it were a slip of the tongue..." My travels lead me to believe that every dweller in the black ghetto [community?] from Junkie to Jack-of-all-trades knows about those changes. Thaat!! that is their life style. Yes! I am suggesting that the people on the streets [the oft re-flashed "guy off the street"] is tuned-in-to Wittgenstein through Wollheim as revealed in Art and Literature or [more pertinently] the other way round.
Addressing oneself, upfront or otherwise, through the auspices of an art magazine, is not necessarily dealing with and reflecting the literal situation in the ghetto or community. My point, however, is that the energy is located in the subtility of "experience," shared experience. And this is why literalness, though precisely such in every measurable dimension, fails to express: fails, that is, at "expression." Wollheim further [same page] says "...we might find here a suggestion as to how the present question about the limits of expression is to be answered. For it might seem that a man can express y-ness by x-ing, only if x-ing stands to y-ness in a relation which is, or analogus to, that of meaning..." Experience has no literal meaning, only "subtle" meaning [idiosyncraticatic, personal, etc.,] Though it accommodates literalness, this is only part of the whole story. Literal shape for instance has no meaning, it's just shape, but it can in one sense stand [has stood, does stand] for painting through being "depicted" [painted. I-was-aiming at often turns out not to be I-did, after literal action, except in the limited sense. Blackness is therefore no more expressed in the literal sense by painting a black face than by painting a black line, for it is the depiction of a face or a line that we are witnessing; hence, the experience a painting "carries" through literal and depicted shape is generally a painting experience [time, color surface/area, perimetric demarcation points etc.]
The black experience must therefore be operating on a different, more subtle, level, or not at all. But there is a missing link. If we may turn again to Wollheim's essay, on page 190: " ...I now want to suggest an association between ... two aspects of expression in art: the existence of a physignomic link between emotion that is expressed and the expression of it, and the privileged character of the spectator's verdict. Now on to the face of it ... the spectator will be expected to recognize this link, but his verdict has no special authority to it: his opinion is relevant only as so far as it is true of the link..."
All the works discussed [perhaps not discussed but mentioned in this respect videlicit Black Art] last season had their merits and usefulness, but as painting and sculpture few if any could or did carry those disciplines and the black experience.
Benny Andrews in a very longer letter included this : " ...the gallery tour came to a halt ... ” [ the scene was the exhibition Afro-American Artists, New York and Boston, mounted at the Boston Museum of Fine Art] “…in front of my painting titled The Champion and a black person asked me to comment…. I wanted to show the strength of the black man …” Mr. Andrews says, “… the ability to persevere in the face of overwhelming odds, and I have used the symbol of the prize fighter … I cannot fail to relate my sense of indignation over the fate that has befallen the black man’s Thors and in this sense on indignation I tried to paint my heart out in The Champion … I finished talking about my feelings and my reason for painting. I looked into the crowd, and as I looked from one black face to another, I knew that they felt in their way the way I felt in mine and it was no longer a question …I had those beautiful and soulful faces nodding and silently saying, “Yes, yes, indeed we understand…” It occurred to me that the “silence” was due to some museum bylaw about noise, but never mind, I could be wrong. The above quoted not the half of it, it’s very strong stuff, very heady and moving, reminding me considerably of going to church on a Sunday morning in Alabama. I wish I had been there. However, I strongly recommend to my readers Wollheim’s essay when next confronted with this work The Champion.
Finally, could it be that on this evidence we must assume that the "Black Experience," since neither painting nor sculpture is mentioned or rather when referred to, totally without the context of the discipline as such; nor could they be mentioned, I dare say, for from that sermon, apparently they would get actually in the way!] leaves no room for either; or, put another way, leaves painting and sculpture free and intact? Wollheim says, page 191 "...Given a man cannot express his feelings in a painting simply by standing in front of the canvas with these feelings and then trying to put them into the painting, what is the difference between the man who is in this position and the man who has rules to aid him..." Wollheim splits this question in two parts but for our purpose let us skip to the observation "...whether there is any specific kind of painting that unmistakable shows signs of having been painted to a rule: or whether since any kind of painting can be brought under a rule, we must always take the painter's word for the fact that he was following a rule. In which case what is left of 'spectator supremacy?' ..." Concluding with Wollheim, in a mutual admitting of the difficulty, I nevertheless cannot accept the inconclusive saying " This one musn't rule directed, therefore it isn't supposed to be." For quality to be discernable and therefore success, rule-directed or otherwise. The trouble with rules are that in a situation like trying to define Black Art the confusion is deepened by the polarized stands taken about which are the rules to follow. That "experience" forges the content of works is an assertion, one I intend to deal with more thoroughly next time.
[1] TIME magazine, April 6, 1970. [Although the Black Art Color section was considerable reduced for TIME international!]--- Art Gallery, April 1970.
[2] The New York Times, June 21, 1970
