Why is black art so limited in scope? - No, I’m not saying black people suck.

[RichardMongler]

Another thread where snailslime argues in bad faith and predictably smug passive-aggressive jabs with others reacting accordingly.

Will you people ever learn?

 

[Shidoen]

People want to be part of a 'community' not just a globo-, cosmopolitan citizen of the world, consumer. Why are all Hallmark movies about some stressed out boss bitch who does it all and is strong and independent but then finds true love in some man who's 'not like the other men'? Theyre speaking to an audience.

And I agree with the above post, it is about selling shit, in a certain way--and artists do want to make money. Its compartmentalization and shorthand of experiences; you can make art that anyone can relate too but it's far more impactful if someone relates to it or likes it or engages with it more than just looking at it and moving on. Stephanie Meyers for instance, JK Rowling, made billions selling a benign experience that teenagers and young adults relate to.

You have galleries full of classic works that most people see as boring and benign because even if theyre technically fascinating and were meant to be impactful. You could show people a gallery full of like Ukiyo-e woodblock prints and those were pretty influential, The Great Wave of Kanegawa is an iconic print, but it doesnt mean much to people but then you have guys like Takashi Murakami who makes weird anime pop art and its more modern and relatable to people or people relate things together, they know the figures, shit like that, and whether you like his art or not, hes pretty famous and a successful artist.


Well if youre going to critique art and bring shit like that in it, these two statues are two totally different things and you can separate the meaning of the artist and influence of the artist and say I like one over the other but the first one is an African artist almost emulating those old neoclassical sculptures of powerful people, and the other is an American artist making a callback to centuries old tribal, precolonial sculptures or ritual figurines (although I dont think any one in particular). I dont know why its got lions as Fu dogs though.

Context, scale and placement and shit matter too. The top one is a large statue made of probably expensive materials and if you told me it was at a place where some famous figure was born or some city hall or something, Id believe it. A statue like that in Africa is probably quite novel or at least carries more weight than it would in America where its just 'Oh another statue of some guy' and you just pass it. The bottom one is depicting something more stylized and maybe ritualistic, primitive, and if you told me it was in the courtyard of the Smithsonian or something, Id go 'Sure yeah theyd have something like that', its novel in America. And in a world where AI can now just generate 'classical' art, AI portraits, realist works, like Leonid Afremov or Thomas Kinkade shit, you have a bunch of people who find the weird, niche, highly 'cultural' shit to be more appealing.

Hell even Piss Christ could be argued in favor of being Spanish art connected to the culture, viewed through the lens of Spanish Catholicism.

If you wanted to get real pretentious about it you could argue that the elongated head is probably symbolism but partly may have been a deliberate choice so that the statue doesnt get swallowed up in scale by the tall buildings around it. If you took the scale and subject of the top sculpture and kept everything the same, but placed it in the courtyard in the bottom image, it would look and feel more like the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Rome, youd imagine there to be a small pool or something on that concrete slab with people coming up and throwing pennies in or something.

Hmm maybe American niggers need to go classical instead of modern. Modern is shit.

 

[The Great Chandler]

Even African art itself seems way less focused on their own suffering than black Americans are and they have every reason to feel that way.

 

[Unyielding Stupidity]

It's because most art that is labelled as "black" art is created by either African-Americans, or blacks in other Western countries that have embraced African-American culture. And since the establishment wants to stoke the flames of racial tension in order to keep the population at each other's throats (and not wondering why the wealth gap between the 1% and the 99% is rapidly increasing), it's in their best interest to ensure that the only black artists that people see are those producing "art" that's basically just bait designed to increase racial tensions.

Actual African art is much more varied in scope, it's just that most of them lack the influence, wealth and reach required to break into the mainstream outside of their home countries.

 

[352Div]

As far as I've seen, the "black experience" only happens in western white countries where black people didn't integrate into the country's culture but developed their own seperate culture. Brazil's most prolific and famous writer, Machado de Assis, was black and wrote his magnum opus before the abohilition of slavery. Some of his stories represent the social issues of the late 1800s, but not once, you will see a random dude calling someone a nigger.
Contemporary brazilian writers know that stories with the "black experience" are imported from western media, so they write seperate books that talks about the evil white man, as if it's a black person's safespace against the horrible, patriarchal, fascist and racist reality of Brazil.

 

[Stabmaster Arson]

horrible, patriarchal, fascist and racist

You're contradicting yourself there.

 

[352Div]

You're contradicting yourself there.

Maybe I am

 

[RichardMongler]

Blame @snailslime. Her baby daddy is in prison at the moment so she's lashing out in this thread.

At this rate, I'm blaming you faggots more. Everyone knows snailslime is a retarded contrarian libtard whore but you keep replying to her. Her troll fu isn't even that strong; she's Dynastia minus the funny.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I went to the Michael C. Carlos Museum for ancient art (India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mesoamerica and the Incas, American Indian, Greco-Roman, Sub-Saharan African) in Atlanta recently.

They had a display up by a modern Black woman artist, semi-abstract paintings of Black women/girls, with the theme being something about Black women being God or something.

 

[The Great Chandler]

They had a display up by a modern Black woman artist, semi-abstract paintings of Black women/girls, with the theme being something about Black women being God or something.

Did they just come up with their own esoteric race cult already?

 

[Cilleystring]

1. Money grift for white liberals so they can pay to have their white savior complex patted
2. To keep black people feeling like victims and keep the racial division going

As Secret Asshole said there are a bunch of great films etc that deal with The Black Experience in a very creative way, but all that pop shit is a combination of grift and propaganda.

 

[CowPox]

Blacks can only mimic and retard what they see and are not capable of the abstract thought process required for original art, this is the reason that black actors always just play themselves in movies and you get Will Smith dressed as a cowboy or Will Smith dressed as a Government agent but never a different character. This is why in the same time it took rock music to change from Elvis Presley to Nirvana rap is still the same NWA nigger bullshit it was 30 years ago today.

Niggers poison everything.

 

[CowPox]

I wonder how many of the people here going "Niggers can't do creative works!" have done anything themselves worth a shit....

Nigger enabler detected.

 

[Ben10]

If you look at "western" art its built upon 2000+ years of European history. Stories and concepts reimagined and subverted over and over. You've got Beowulf, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Dracula. You've got romanticism and the reaction to it.

I think black art is fundamentally linked to them being encouraged to reject the western cannon, which they've been immersed in their entire lives. Maybe they can imagine Little Red Riding Hood or Santaclause as black, maybe, but I just doubt it. All this imagery is clearly "white".

At the same time most have no strong connection to their African roots.

So the one "core" of their identity is that they were slaves and treated badly. Essentially they only have 200 years of history and culture to work with, and the one positive spin to take from it is "we endured great suffering".

 

[The Foxtrot]

Did they just come up with their own esoteric race cult already?

Yes, it's called "Black Hebrew Israelites". Literally "WE WUZ KANGZ!", mixed with "WE WUZ DA TRU ARYANZ!" as well.

 

[Senator Armstrong]

Simple, most are just mentally retarded. Asians and (some) Whites are simply smarter, which is why so many Asian classical music geeks exist. All the good art from Europeans was already made, and only people of higher intelligence care about formalist or traditional modes of expression, like how Da Vinci was a polymath and studied the works of Plato or Vitruvius to make masterpieces. Niggers have no ability to appreciate fine arts, so their scope is limited to simple topics like "racism." Oversocialized and pseudointellectual whites will give Kendrick Lamar a Pulitzer Prize for mumbling to a basic rhythm about kill whitey. There are always outliers, but for the most part most of them are too stupid to be another Michaelangelo or Wagner.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I think a more interesting question, that isn’t answered by “lol niggers,” is why were Blacks extremely productive musicians but not visual artists? (Painters, sculptors)

 

[NevskyProspekt]

Blacks can only mimic and retard what they see and are not capable of the abstract thought process required for original art

This is false.

Grafton Tyler Brown, Columbia River Scene, oil-on-canvas

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Pilgrims of Emmanaus, oil on canvas

Robert Scott Duncanson, Lanscape With a Rainbow, oil-on-canvas

Edward Mitchell Bannister, Approaching Storm, oil-on-canvas

This is why in the same time it took rock music to change from Elvis Presley to Nirvana rap is still the same NWA nigger bullshit it was 30 years ago today.

Who do you think Elvis and all the brilliant early white rock musicians were influenced by?

I'll concede that rap has largely stagnated, but quite frankly it represents a different subset of black American culture.

 

[Wormy]

Who do you think Elvis and all the brilliant early white rock musicians were influenced by?

Why, Wagner of course! Delta blues wasn't ever a thing, silly goose!

Oh, and for the "All niggers can do is rap" set, have an all black punk band before Punk was even coined...

And some classic rock while we're at it

 

[Useless(?) Boomer]

I've heard it stated that black people are relatively high in conformity. The notion is, for example, that in a school full of white kids you'll have the cool kids, the goths, ravers, freaks, jocks, nerds, cowboys, etc. But in a black school the vast majority of people aim for roughly the same look, persona, etc. Those who fall outside the norm are harshly punished, thus reinforcing the monolithic norm.

I can't speak to whether this is true, but it does mesh with my limited knowledge. If it were true, I suppose it would be in keeping that the art from such a group would also be rather uniform with fewer attempts branch into new and experimental territory.