Viewing page 20 of 37

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Afrocentric expression. Cross-cultural debates and confrontations ensued, innumerable conferences were convened, strident manifestos were issued and the political dimension of artistic expression attained new significance throughout the African world.
For earlier generations of artists Africa had been a dream continent darkly perceived through the few confusing reference books available, fanciful folklore and distorted images produced by propagandistic print and film media. But beginning in the 1950's many artists, like Elton Fax and John Biggers, visited the continent and returned to share their first-hand experiences. Elizabeth Catlett immigrated to Mexico. Later, others like Herman (Kofi X) Bailey and Tom feelings, New Poster pioneers, and Earl Sweeting, a 1930's protege of Garveyite bibliophile Dr. Charles Seyfert, would travel to Africa and work for the newly independent nations. At the same time artists from African and Caribbean, such as Papa Ibra Taal (Senegal), Vanjah Richards (Liberia), Twins Seven-Seven (Nigeria), Amir Nour (Sudan) Skunder Boghossian (Ethopia), LeRoy Clarke (Trinidad) and host of others, came to study and work in the United States.
However, by 1970 the Federal Bureau of Investigation's counter-revolutionary program (COINTELPRO), under the guise of "law and order" and the U.S. government program of "benign neglect", combined to brutally repress and economically suffocate African-American progress. In the process, the Afrocentric impetus in art was effectively dulled, and to a large extent, the development of all vanguard artistic expression in the United States was retarded.
But, the first phase of the development of a distinct coherent Afrocentric art style was already well established. It had crystalized in the mid-60's, appearing in the work of nationalist individuals