Experiencing Black Culture through Art


This week’s reading explores an installation created by David Hammons. His work is known to examine the social conditions of black lives. The installation is named Concerto in Black and Blue. The name itself gives away what the installation might be like for a viewer. It suggests music, violence, and race. When a viewer/participant goes through the installation art piece, it is described as pitch-black only illuminated by blue lights that are held by viewers. The blue lights were given to viewers at the entrance of the gallery.  Although the installation occupied three large spaces in an NYC gallery, viewers had to navigate an impossible space. The difficulty that viewers had navigating the space in the gallery represented an “inscrutable social space”. From my understanding, Hammons wanted to allow his viewers to be fully encompassed in his piece and get a glimpse of the social climate of black lives. 
 I actually walked through a pitch-black room a few days ago, wanting to put myself in the headspace of this reading. The only difference is that I did not have light. I remember feeling uneasy and wanting to find an exit or a glimmer of light. I put my hands out feeling the furniture around me and feeling the walls.  I stopped myself and decided to imagine myself at  Hammon’s Concerto installation. I imagined what it may have been like to be with other people navigating space with nothing but beautiful blue lights in tandem. I thought about what Hammond wanted to communicate to his viewers by putting them in this type of environment. The article mentioned that Concerto’s blackness was like “falling outside and between bodies and peoples and cultures.” So as I sat in the pitch-black room and thought about the uneasiness and stomach knots I was getting. I thought maybe this is what it feels like to be a person of color. What if there were a cop nearby (blue lights)? Would I be stopped because of the color of my skin?  Would I lose my life if I say the wrong thing or make the wrong move? Is this what Hammond wanted his viewers to experience? I can imagine how beautiful the installation may have been like, to hear the whispers, to see the lights and outline of other people. Hammond wanted to provide the experience of black culture. His work is unlike any other work out there. He wanted his viewers to be participants and to interpret the work for themselves, to truly experience the social conditions of black lives in this country and era.
Xena Goldman, Greta McLain, Cadex Herrera 

The artwork I chose this week is a mural of George Floyd. So many of us have seen this image countless times through the media this past year. But all I could think of as I sat in the darkroom was fear. I can imagine this is what George Floyd felt as police approached him that day. The murals dedicated to George Floyd are a reminder that police brutality and racism with law enforcement particularly have not been addressed. Racism is institutionalized from the top and it trickles down to front-line workers like our country's police force. Racism is prevalent in the art world as well. Institutionally the term black art was to separate art created by black people from the larger art establishment. From my understanding, Hammons did not want his work to the labeled as black art but as art. The critics wanted to put his work in a certain category or framework. This framework follows a set of rules to be considered a black art. Like lesbians in the previous article, the images initially produced were positive so that lesbians were put in certain light. The same is with black art or African art, it has certain characteristics and needs to be positive in our institutionalized white male-dominated world. Fortunately, I do not see Hammonds's work as fitting in this category or any category but his own unique way of expressing the lives of a black person in a beautiful way. 


Darby English, “Introduction,” in How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness (2007)

Berry, Dru. “Artists Paint George Floyd Mural at Cup Foods.” Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, May 29, 2020. https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/artists-paint-george-floyd-mural-at-cup-foods/.


 

Comments

  1. Cayla PeasleeDecember 3, 2021 at 8:20 AM

    Yvonne,
    I enjoyed reading this weeks blog and how you even tried to experience a piece of the artwork yourself by imitating the pitch black room. I did not physically try this out but I did contemplate what feelings I might experience had I been in those galleries. The top thing that I assume I myself would experience is fear just like you said. Being in an unfamiliar place surrounded by others and having to navigate as to not get hurt, would be as I imagine a stressful place. I know that the artist struggled with being narrowed into the category of black art and the assumptions that this piece was solely about race. Had we no idea who the artist was do you think that the same conclusions would have been reached?

    Cayla

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