Viewing page 26 of 57

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Initial response is a question. If the Black artist is left to his own devices, will this increase the possibility of his making more dynamic visual statements which reflect more meaningfully the Black experience in the United States? I think not. For art is a social phenomenon; it serves a broad communicative function, involving dialogue - an interaction between the "producer and the consumer." The relationship between the artist and his public may not be all "sweetness and light." Indeed, some of the communication from the Black community may be prescriptive in nature. And it is reasonable to assert that one of the reasons the Black artist has produced so few "aesthetically tough" statements is greatly because the lack of enlightened and in-depth criticism.

For instance, there is the frequently heard statement: "The Black artist must make his work relevant to the Black community." Admittedly, such expresses a sentiment that is nearly universally palatable. But as criticism, defined here as meaningful discussion of art, it is not sufficient in and of itself. Furthermore, for those of Marxist persuasion "bourgeois formalism," or some generically related term, is directed at the works of those Black artists that do not exhibit a pronounced social consciousness. At times, such a label may be most appropriate. But criticism has to be far more than this, especially if the Black artist is to provide more than a pastiche of the Black experience.

A viable and "aesthetically tough" Black art will evolve when there is informed art criticism. The term informed art criticism is used here to refer to those acts of evaluation that are performed by one who is thoroughly conversant with what has preceded and what is contemporaneous with the work that is the object of critical scrutiny. As has been mentioned previously, an art object is a sufficiently complex phenomenon involving numerous concepts to allow for may interpretations - some of which may be quite contradictory. The informed critic then should be able to state in intelligible terms what is thought to be the major premise of the work. To be able to do this the critic has to be willing and perceptive enough to deal with what is there, i.e., the actual and virtual properties of the art object.

[[image]] 
JACOB LAWRENCE
Toussaint L'Ouverture series, 1938.
Tempura 24 ' 18