During the late 1960's in America, Black people began to realize the failures of the Civil
Rights Movement. Their previous desire for non-violent integration, -which had sparked
behavior in the white community ranging from violent opposition to benign neglect—had
radicalized to embrace a notion of separatism and liberation from America. Black
Cultural Nationalism called for Black Power and an affirmation of the currency of Black
culture that required representation. The Black Arts Movement attempted to meet these
needs by attempting to establish a Black Aesthetic. Qualities of Black art and the Black
aesthetic were hotly debated in the media as both black and white writers argued the
relevancy of black art. The Black aesthetic advocated a return to figuration and social
realism, deemed essential to communicate with the black masses, as well as an
espousal of the political responsibility of the artist. The critique of a black art was based
on the argument that the category ghettoized and essentialized black artists. Instead a
Greenbergian modernist aesthetic was embraced that favored abstraction over
figuration, perceiving figurative art as low art. This was the dilemma faced by the
politically minded artist in Franti's lyric. How can an artist make aesthetically valid art and
maintain its access—and relevancy to Black people. An articulation of these black
cultural problems needed a specific visual vocabulary.
In my paper I will examine the art coalition called Africobra—The African Commune of
Bad Relevant Artists- as they attempted to negotiate the fine line between socially
relevant and aesthetically viable art. Formed in Chicago in the wake of the 1968
Democratic Convention Riots, Africobra wanted to produce and exhibit art specifically for
Black people without their art being dismissed as protest art. By merging their figurative
art with African color schemes and textile patterns, Africobra aspired to create their own
type of African-influenced social commentary. They chose Africa as a source of pride as
the 'dark continent' had recently shed its colonial ties to emerge as a free land for Black
people. Africa thus represented ties to a forgotten past, and hope for an independent
future for American Blacks.
My thesis will focus on an event that galvanized the Black Arts Movement, and brought
together the artists that would later form Africobra. That event was the 1967 creation of
the Wall of Respect, a public mural on the south side of Chicago that depicted images of
Black heroes and contemporary politics. Using the mural as well as Africobra prints and
paintings, I will argue that their work questioned conventional aesthetics and endeavored
to create a space for a new black aesthetic. This merging of social realism and African
color was made more poignant by the inclusion of African notions of the functional
communal object. By returning to their African roots, Africobra was critiquing the
Western art world while glorifying their own heritage. By doing this they believed that
they could inject some much needed color into White America.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/10941 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Phillips, James Wellington |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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