"African American artists need a new dialog with one another - visual artists and writers alike. I'm often wrong, and I probably am, but our creative output seems to have become stagnant since the late 1980's/early 1990's. ...not that there aren’t black artists out there doing some phenomenal work, because there are... but much of our contemporary work imitates what’s been already said/done/did/etc. For some reason, it seems that we've let America lock us in on what it means to be black artists... that only our white contemporaries are allowed to 'step outside the box' and find acceptance…that we make our art for the critics of “Blackness” and not for those who truly appreciate what we have to offer as artistic visionaries. Do we still believe in messages in our art? Have we lost the ability to inspire each other into new directions?
Commercial fame is an elusive thing for black artists to achieve... so shouldn’t we at least
create work that identifies our positions on life/love/society? In actuality, I’m really asking for a lot... this is no small task. Knowing yourself well enough to express who you truly are can be a daunting thing... to make art challenging again, either thru its message or its ambition.
The graphic design pieces that I’ve done might be seen by a few, but there's no guarantee that any of my visual artwork will ever be seen by the masses (or even appreciated if it is), so if my own art doesn’t make me happy, expressing who I am/where I'm from/where I want to go, then how can I expect it to make any of you happy as well?"
--Ron Davis (Upfromsumdirt) |
