Vox XV: What Makes That Black?
鈥淪torytelling you know has a real function. Stories differ from advice in that once you get them, they become a fabric of your whole soul. That is why they heal you. 鈥� - Alice Walker
Luana has written an excellent book What Makes that Black?: The African American Aesthetic in American Expressive Culture, which inspired the title of this show. Luana lifts up many ideas regarding the necessity, power and purpose of naming and claiming a black aesthetic and offers a complex multi-layered discussion; we recommend the book.
The artists in this show are not 鈥渁ll Black鈥�, whatever that means; what they do share in this work are visual/performative interpretations of powerful narratives and personal truths. What Makes That Black?, however, is a response to conversations we鈥檙e always having, particularly in the realm of art, art making and ownership, about the words we use to establish relationships, to trace the origin, to offer proof or empirical evidence of what or who belongs and what or who does not belong. The words may change, but the underlying concerns are the same: What does that thing have to do with me? Why should I care? Whose story does that belong to?
As we moved from one gallery space to another at Vox Populi 鈥� imagining as best we could how works which have never met before, might greet each other, share the space, be altered in meaning and purpose by their proximity to a strange neighbor; we ask ourselves 鈥� as keepers of The Colored Girls Museum 鈥� the question we imagine some of our peers might ask us or ask themselves (after viewing this exhibit): why did you chose that work, put it in that place, how is all of this informed by your aesthetic, or in other words what makes that black?
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鈥淪torytelling you know has a real function. Stories differ from advice in that once you get them, they become a fabric of your whole soul. That is why they heal you. 鈥� - Alice Walker
Luana has written an excellent book What Makes that Black?: The African American Aesthetic in American Expressive Culture, which inspired the title of this show. Luana lifts up many ideas regarding the necessity, power and purpose of naming and claiming a black aesthetic and offers a complex multi-layered discussion; we recommend the book.
The artists in this show are not 鈥渁ll Black鈥�, whatever that means; what they do share in this work are visual/performative interpretations of powerful narratives and personal truths. What Makes That Black?, however, is a response to conversations we鈥檙e always having, particularly in the realm of art, art making and ownership, about the words we use to establish relationships, to trace the origin, to offer proof or empirical evidence of what or who belongs and what or who does not belong. The words may change, but the underlying concerns are the same: What does that thing have to do with me? Why should I care? Whose story does that belong to?
As we moved from one gallery space to another at Vox Populi 鈥� imagining as best we could how works which have never met before, might greet each other, share the space, be altered in meaning and purpose by their proximity to a strange neighbor; we ask ourselves 鈥� as keepers of The Colored Girls Museum 鈥� the question we imagine some of our peers might ask us or ask themselves (after viewing this exhibit): why did you chose that work, put it in that place, how is all of this informed by your aesthetic, or in other words what makes that black?
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