Category Archives: Black Panthers

Audience, Accessibility, and African-American Art

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A brief summation of works read this week:

A) Raiford: The Black Panther movement used photography to both deconstruct and reconstruct the meaning of the African-American body in order to tailor their public image.

B) Jones: Artists of African descent in Southern California, even with virtually no help from the (white) art establishment, created a flourishing community that translated their lived experiences into art that challenged social injustices.

C) Johnson: African-American artists risk alienating with a single-minded focus on “black solidarity”, something that can prove divisive for the viewers.

Art critic Ken Johnson’s piece on “Now Dig This! Art & Black Los Angeles 1960-1980” is now infamous for the bizarre analysis of the “divisive” nature of African-American art that it contains. Johnson seems to be unable to critique any form of art without comparing it to the work of white male artists. African-American art, it seems, has no intrinsic value – it only has value by its relationship to the art of white men. This de-legitimizes not only African-American art but the artists themselves, people who contribute more than simply race to their work (though race and ethnicity are obviously important parts of their work). Johnson refuses to see “Now Dig This!” as a varied collection of the works of many different artists, stunningly different in their backgrounds and their work alike. For lack of a better phrase, these artists are literally colored by their collective blackness, and Johnson is rendered blind to all else. Furthermore, the incredibly diverse artistic makeup of “Now Dig This!” appears to be ranked by supposed accessibility. Ken Johnson, a white man, feels alienated by the work of these artists (not all of whom are black, yet another point he misses!), claiming that the work “divides viewers between those who, because of their life experiences, will identify with the struggle for black empowerment, and others for whom the black experience remains more a matter of conjecture…those viewing from a more distanced perspective may regard as social realist clichés, like the defiant fist” (Johnson).  One must suppose that not only is the work of these artists divisive according to Johnson, but it is actually clichéd! Not to discredit the entirety of the African-American artist community, Johnson does single out a few artists that he feels have succeeded – those who “complicate how we think about prejudice and stereotyping” (Johnson). Such a statement is significantly less inflammatory, yet it is followed by the absurd proclamation that the “art of black solidarity gets less traction because the postmodern art world is, at least ostensibly, allergic to overt assertions of any kind of solidarity” (Johnson). Somehow, solidarity has become passé, or is not nuanced enough in African-American art. Perhaps, following Johnson’s advice, artists of African descent should be less “obvious”, adhere less frequently to “clichés” of social justice and solidarity. Maybe African-American artists and artists of all other backgrounds involved in “Now Dig This!” and similar projects will provide more accessible and less “clichéd” works hinged on issues of racism, oppression, and solidarity, when racism, oppression, and solidarity are no longer a problem, Mr. Johnson.

 

LA Art and the Black Experience

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Johnson: Now Dig This! chronicles black art from 1960-1980, which provides a tale of the political social, and economic problems of not only Los Angeles blacks, but all African-Americans during an era of racial oppression.

Raiford: With the rise of the Black Panther Party and it’s striking leader Huey P. Newton, the era’s photography became a representation of American blackness, and the photos were seen as evidence of the parties’ violent, revolutionary nature.

Jones: These artists address the key issues of the county- institutional racism, economic oppression, and social indifference; with their artwork the divide between the streets and art disappeared, and the political edge carried through most of the era.

Summary:Now Dig This! discusses the political problems of the country; however throughout it’s inception is alters it message to chronicles more abstract tales of the black experience. The  divide between the streets and art changed. It’s art is highly community based, and it’s evolution has come from it’s ability to appeal to larger groups outside of African-Americans. Black art in the 1960s provides unique messages. An important question that arises is about the concept of “black art”. Can black art only be produced by African Americans, or can other groups tell the story of the black American experience? This arises from the white media’s depiction of the Black Panther Party, and their choice to manipulate racist fears. The images of the BPP were sexualized, and portrayed them often as violent terrorists. This obscured to message of community development, and social responsibility.

 

The Power of Visual Technology: Weapons and Witness

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I find it fascinating how the camera can be used both as a weapon of self-defense and as a supporting witness. The camera serves as weapon by negating the hypergendered, hypersexualized, and other unfavorable representations that the “other” may force onto the body through its stereotypical lens and as a witness by providing support through a firsthand account of the subject’s true, real identity. In “Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare” by Leigh Raiford, the camera also serves as an ally and as an enemy to the Black Panther Party (BPP) by enabling the Party to negotiate dominant gender roles and debunk the stereotypes of the black body as a violent being on one hand and by feeding into this racial assumption through the “black male gaze” to invoke fear in the police and portray fearlessness to the black community on the other. The power of gaze also stood out to me when looking at the still images of the Black Panther Party because I was able to perceive fear, a feeling that proves the success of the BPP’s efforts.The photographs produced by the camera also enables commodification of both the black male and the relationship between the black community and the state by allowing the FBI to use the medium to counter the efforts of the BPP by tainting their image of good intention through mass media representation. Additionally, commodification is also introduced in the visual imagery published in the Black Panther, which provides a consistent image of the BPP as a whole in the midst of various BPP chapters being created nationally. With the recirculation of images of the BPP, I wonder how various audiences (racially, and nationally and internationally) now perceive the history of African-Americans in the United States compared to how they viewed the images during their first circulation in midst of political turmoil.

This week’s reading truly exposed me to the power of a photograph in determining identity. Prior to this course I solely viewed the camera for the purpose of capturing moments in history, totally ignoring the impact an image can have on one’s representation to the audience.

Johnson: Through assemblage, African-American artists used art to portray freedom and struggle and to promote solidarity; however, people who did not identify with the Black cultural narrative referred to symbols in Black art as “social realist cliches.”

Jones: African-American artists used black historical experiences, such as the Civil Rights Movement, and artifacts from protest demonstrations to inspire and enhance their assemblages, which represented the transformation within black art and the black community.

Raiford: The Black Panther Party used the visual technologies of their physical presence and photography to educate the people about their mission and programs and to negate their militant image that was portrayed by the state through the dominant mass media arena.

Black Art & the Promotion of Solidarity

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With a substantial rise in African American migration to Los Angeles during the twentieth century and an increase in civil rights and Black Power activism, the African American community in Los Angeles began growing stronger.  Simultaneously, black artists were creating art that symbolized and depicted their own as well as the experiences of those around them – many of which were represented in Now Dig This!  Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960 -1980.  Johnson believes that through promoting solidarity, the art in Now Dig This! “poses a problem for its audience” because it divides them into 2 categories: 1 group that identifies with the black experience, and another group that does not.  However, I do not view this as a problem at all.  How are black artists creating art fueled by emotions from events that took place in their lives any different from Picasso creating art during his Blue Period?  It isn’t.  The fact that these pieces of art can be identified with by a certain group of people is secondary, and should be treated as such.  One can not expect an entire audience to have the same feelings, or reaction towards a singular piece of art whether it promotes solidarity or not.  Art is meant to promote discussion, and these pieces do just that.

In his article reviewing the exhibit at MoMA, Ken Johnson hones in on a piece by Melvin Edwards and writes: “Such dualities would be enough on which to base judgement and interpretation were this a piece by, say, the white junk sculptor Richard Stankiewicz.  But it makes a difference to know that Mr. Edwards is African-American…”  The real problem lies here. The race of the artist shouldn’t take precedence over the art.

Here’s an assemblage piece featured in the Davis Museum that both readings reminded me of (Kienholz, Edward; Kienholz, Nancy Reddin Sawdy 1971):

Mixed media assemblage (car door, mirrored window, automotive lacquer, polyester resin, screenprint, fluorescent light, galvanized sheet metal)

Johnson:  Black artists unconsciously divide their audience by taking assemblage, an art form initially created as an expression of freedom from parochial social mores, and using it as a way to promote solidarity through their art.

Jones:  A cultural shift within the black community opened up the possibilities for African American artists and fostered artistic innovation which ultimately led to the West Coast becoming notable for the acceptance of assemblage in mainstream America (through its symbolism of the black struggle between the 1960s and 80s).

Raiford: In the 1960s and 70s, the Black Panther Party used photography to create an image for themselves and give the black revolution more visibility in the American public eye.