The Artists of Color Show, Art League of New Britain, Part Two: The Art

 Part One of this set of reviews of the Artists of Color show at the Art League of New Britain concerned the framing of the show based on skin color.

This part of the review will examine the art as if it were any other ALNB juried art show.

The ALNB, has previously hosted all women shows that were sponsored by one group or another. In that case the group were private advocates who seemed to think the distinction was important.

When I arrived to view this show, I was greeted by Niles Dookie who was gallery sitting. I asked what the show was intended to represent and he explained that the ALNB simply wanted to expand its footprint in greater New Britain to invite and encourage broader participation from neighborhood clusters that had not yet realized the opportunity art shows represent to everyone.

In fact the show is not [so much] about skin color as a targeted, open membership drive. This is not a typical juried gallery show at all. It includes student art, newbie art, and "Howdy neighbor!" invitational pieces. Nobody should mistake *this* as an affront to professional art practice. Having said that, the title of the show is unfortunate in that it is easily confused with the fraudulent, cash cow, anti-racist vernacular of Kendi and others. It also presumes that New Britain's white neighborhoods are any more aware than anybody else [but okay]. 

A Survey

This show may feature skin color but the majority of artists seem to have a broad-spectrum of personal cultural heritage. In other words there is no way to assume that the art projects a specific influence unless the piece self-identifies that inspirational source of aesthetic truth. Moving from one artist to another is as eclectic an experience as any other ALNB gallery show.

Almost all of the work submitted to this show is representational with some varying degree of abstraction.

And the largest group of work is represented by portraits. These in some cases are celebrity graphite drawings from photographs and in others paintings or collages of more personal, family individuals. The craftwork is pristine. Spike Lee, Tupac, and numerous jazz luminaries and others are wonderfully rendered.

A few colorful, life-experience landscapes from Africa and India offer variety.

Esmeilyn Tejeda

I was lucky enough to attend the show when Esmeilyn was also sitting the show. Her painting is one of the most striking in the show and I asked how, as a critic, I should interpret what I'm looking at. I asked her what her cultural heritage consisted of and she quickly listed a dozen different and quite unique family roots. It would be impossible to attribute a single or even primary source of cultural projection.

Her explanation of the piece is much more interesting than I could have guessed at. She said that the piece was in fact *about* skin and how skin comes in any color and any color can be applied to skin. The portrait is a human, nothing more, nothing less with color applied.

A very impressive and compelling piece.

Maurice Livingston

The sheer simplicity of work like this (ink/crayon) is so refreshing. Comparisons to the German Expressionists and Edvard Munch are inevitable. Livingston has a ways to go before joining that heady company but his pieces really hit the spot. Noticeably he does not color within the lines.

The background is interesting in that it emulates the phenomenon art critic Walter Benjamin identified as "aura". To a lesser extent, Tejeda's piece also employs that mysterious effect and so these pieces hung in such proximity to each other really gives a visitor an opportunity to compare and contrast with lots of other portraits in the galleries.

Also worth examination are the gaze each of the portraits evoke.

Black-Flat-Time Artists

Two pieces - one in the show and one that I was privileged to view because the artist was there, also sitting the show. One branch of Black Aesthetic Time is called Flat Time. And Flat Time refers to black artists and writers whose work is suspended in a social assumption that "nothing has changed". In other words, the definition of lived experience [for blacks] starts and ends with the slavery narrative. Feminists have their own, sometimes overlapping, corollary version of Flat Time having to do with women's social conditions.

By definition, the artistic by-products of artists exercising this state of navigating reality produce works that *can be* thought provoking but often are indistinguishable from political campaign material.

Cecil Gresham

This piece is a digital print that illustrates a person of color juxtaposed against a screw lodged in his brain. The eyes expose a vacant human container devoid of personal agency. The imagery is straight out of George Orwell's 1984.

"The voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting outside had died down a little. The waiters were turning back to their work. One of them approached with the gin bottle. Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain.

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

Tho the piece is a digital print, the imagery closely imitates Gerhard Richter's photo paintings of the Holocaust and German political action groups.

AndeJa Johnson

This photograph is a cropped and not very good presentation of this piece.  My apologies.

Decades after WWII was over, Japanese soldiers were still being discovered in the South Pacific who had no idea the war was over. Our popular culture and subverted public school history lessons are creating generations of young artists who are imprinted with a worldview that corresponds to Flat Time (e.g. victimhood).

Slavery and social deviants are still abundantly active in the world but its a rare edge condition in the United States. Work such as this has a literal dependency - a cluster of platitudes or virtuous declarations that leave no doubt what the artist is for and what they are against. Entering work like this into local gallery shows is important but what becomes obvious is that every artist participating in the ALNB or any other gallery is on your side. It's important information. Work like this sings to the choir.

Which brings me to the problem with the Flat Time paradigm. The weight of the world over time doesn't belong to any artist. You can't have it and you can't solve it. And, it is nothing more than a personally constructed speculative fiction. There's nothing wrong with that but there's nothing compelling either.

In terms of style and technique, this is a complex, interesting imagery. 

AndeJa and I shared a long discussion about art and artists and she is deeply intelligent, more articulate about art than many ALNB members, and she gets after it - teaching art to youngsters.

When I asked whether it was wise to waste time with teaching art to at risk children who need to read, write and do arithmetic she smiled and said none of them could do the art without some wholesome reading and personalized instruction. Say WHAT!

Just like that some faith in the future of humanity glimmered in the corners of the gallery.

The Afropolitans

There is a growing class of writers and artists who no longer identify themselves with national borders. the term Afropolitan refers to individuals who, in a very postModern sense, create art from a broad spectrum of cultural sources with no particular desire to be pigeon-holed as AfroAmerican, black, this, that, or another thing. I don't know if this is true of the following artists but their submissions sure look that way.

Frankie Baez

Baez's work is brightly colored and contemporary. The patterns are high African fashion and the ground borrows from Kehinde Wiley - floral patterns. The female figure has agency and a plentiful self-confidence.
Compare and contrast his work to these Senegalese Afripedia artists. The similarities are stunning.

Gwendolyn Quezaire-Presutti

GQP's collage piece closely emulates Nigerian tunic designs (Yoruba Atlantic art). The title of this piece, IMO, is a distraction from the imagery and even spirituality that the work can convey viewed through a more cultural lens.
In Flash of the Spirit, there is a chapter called "Black Saints Go Marching In" and this piece is uncannily similar to a number of the traditional African designs exhibited there.

In Conclusion

There is a wealth of very nice artwork in this show. I recommend taking advantage of the opportunity to see it.  My review simply covers a sampling of work that caught my eye. There's lots more, all of it good.

I cannot imagine that any of the artwork, aside from student work, would not be taken seriously in any given juried art show. This show consisting of only non-white artists is no less diverse than one which was not segregated this way. The organizers need to recalibrate 'calls' like this.

The world doesn't need to keep racism alive and the arts professions are, generally speaking, not a cohort of bigots tho special interest groups do their damnedest to corrupt them.
The video in this footer is a cautionary tale. White boys are committing suicide at alarming rates.
The next such show needs to solicit newcomers of all kinds.