Is Art Black and White?

What is Black art and is there anything such as White art? Is Paul Gaugin a Polynesian artist because those are the graceful images that show up in his work. Is Picasso an African artist because he was hugely influenced by the masks in Africa, Adele a Black singer because she sings soul? Do we allow artist like Adele to circumvent the weight of this adjective by installing the prefix ‘pop? ’Pop-soul or popular soul, which then taps into our pre-coded minds to understand this as mainstream and therefore validated.

Does so-called Black art matter? I would answer this question with another question. If it does not matter why then have the spoils of colonial wars, been the collection of seemingly innocuous art? The Benin Mask stolen by the British in 1897 and the high prices they sell for today; this unequivocally answers this question.

So why is exhibited Black art rare as it is powerful. The rarely celebrated art tells the stories of excellence and struggle, but is this the sum total of the Black experience to be recorded. What if the stories being told were just everyday Black people doing everyday things? The rarity of our everyday image is often hidden, so that the sight of a Black family sitting down to eat or driving a car is almost magical by sheer dint of its rarity. We know this, due to the visceral response from some sections of society when these images are shown, in mainstream advertising. A topic I addressed in an earlier blog.

But what if a Black artist painted a mundane tin of beans, from our referenced Supermarket. Is it still Black art?

So why are artists such as Kehinde Willey and James Marshall known as Black artist and not just artists. Outside of the context of this blog describing Monet as a white artist would cause many to take umbrage, yet there is a familiar expectation for the reverse.

Whenever I am required to describe my work or myself as an artist I hesitate for several reasons, before writing Black art or Black Artist. My first reason for this, is: I know that this adjective Is loaded with negativity and diminution. So, I pause, which then causes me to challenge my pride in my Blackness and if my failing to use these words may lead others to question my authenticity. My second reason for pause is that describing my work as Black will mean a section of my audience may feel excluded and will not hear my story. The other side to this coin is the idea that the unlabelled White art or artist is allowed to be just art or artist, and so never confronted by the potential weight of divestment or the potential of an excluded audience; while being inherently and actively exclusive and perhaps aloof to being in possession of this invaluable benefit of being the default.

So, many Black artists concede to a prism of adjectives that we know are easily recognisable to the pre-conditioned mind. Or is it actually a concession?

After all the questions I can safely say I have resigned to the belief that black art is Black art when it tells the story of the Black lived experience. It remains Black art for as long as our story remains extraordinary and consequential to our hue.

This image below depicting the bubonic plague, which was an extraordinary white experience but it was not as a consequential to their hue.

Josse Lieferinxe

As long as there is a consequence to blackness, art will never be black and white.