Who’s Afraid of the Black Fantastic?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margo Natalie Crawford
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Black Arts Movement ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
Literary Art ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Movement Mobilization ◽  
Glenn Ligon

This chapter uncovers the overcoming of the binary of surface and depth in the Black Arts Movement mobilization of the substance of style. Crawford shows that when we put the visual and literary art of the Black Arts Movement and the 21st century together, we can see the often unrecognized use of surface as surface (in both movements). This chapter argues that black post-blackness teaches us that the external must stop being pathologized and depth must stop being celebrated as the rejection of play and performance. This chapter analyzes the art and performances of Erykah Badu, Nikki Giovanni, Diana Ross, Haki Madhubuti, Glenn Ligon, Mingering Mike, and others.

The Aesthetics of Anticipation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margo Natalie Crawford
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Harlem Renaissance ◽  
Langston Hughes ◽  
Black Arts Movement ◽  
Jean Toomer ◽  
Gwendolyn Brooks ◽  
Amiri Baraka ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
Black Aesthetics

The first chapter argues that black aesthetics pivot on the spirit of anticipation. The first section of this chapter focuses on the 1920 and 30s Harlem Renaissance anticipation of the Black Arts Movement. Crawford then shows how the Black Arts Movement anticipates the post-black maneuvers of the 21st century. This chapter examines literature written by Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Claudia Rankine, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margo Natalie Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Black Arts Movement ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
Experimental Art ◽  
Black Art ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Cultural Movement

This introduction presents the theory of “black post-blackness” as a way of rethinking the mood of the 1970s, second wave of the Black Arts Movement. Crawford uncovers the inseparability, during the second wave of this cultural movement, of the hailing of blackness and the questioning of blackness. This introduction shows that this holding on to a blackness that keeps sliding away is the black post-blackness that shapes the 1970s second wave of the Black Arts Movement and resurfaces in the early years of the 21st century as writers and visual artists shape blackness into an unbelonging that creates belonging. Crawford argues that the connections between 21st century experimental black art and the experimental art of the Black Arts Movement matter, because post-black too often signals post-Black Arts Movement. She critiques a linear understanding of the move from black identity politics to freedom. This introduction presents the circle of black post-blackness as an alternative to the linear periodization that fails to see how blackness anticipates post-blackness.

The Satire of Black Post-Blackness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margo Natalie Crawford
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Black Arts Movement ◽  
Ishmael Reed ◽  
Charles Johnson ◽  
Amiri Baraka ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
Cultural Productions ◽  
Editorial Cartoons ◽  
Paul Beatty

The fifth chapter argues that feeling “black post-black” is a disorienting situation that lends itself to satire. Crawford analyzes the ways in which satire has begun to define 21st century African American cultural productions as both blackness and whiteness are satirized. The satire of the Black Arts Movement is shown to be much more invested in satirizing whiteness as opposed to the 21st century post-black tendency to foreground the satirizing of blackness. In addition to the analysis of novels, drama, and poetry, this chapter also uncovers the role of satire in editorial cartoons included in Black World, one of the key journals of the Black Arts Movement. This chapter foregrounds the satire of Charles Johnson, Carlene Hatcher Polite, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, Percival Everett, Paul Beatty, Mat Johnson, and others.

The Counter-Literacy of Black Mixed Media

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margo Natalie Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Media ◽  
Black Arts Movement ◽  
Open Book ◽  
Black Book ◽  
Amiri Baraka ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
Word And Image ◽  
Black Art ◽  
June Jordan ◽  
Glenn Ligon

The third chapter brings the mixed media of the BAM and the 21st century together as Crawford shows that black art, after the Black Arts Movement, continues to create an alternative way of approaching art as process, not as object. The first part of this chapter shapes this process-oriented counter-literacy around the Black Arts Movement textual productions of the black book as the open book. She explores the openness of word and image texts and argues that they produce the lack of closure of black post-blackness. Through the text paintings of Glenn Ligon and the word and image books of Amiri Baraka, June Jordan, John Keene, Christopher Stackhouse, and others, this chapter unveils the unbound nature of mixed media as one of the most innovative legacies of the Black Arts Movement.

The Politics of Abstraction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margo Natalie Crawford
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Black Arts Movement ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
Direct Continuation ◽  
Strategic Essentialism

The second chapter shows that the Black Arts Movement called upon abstraction as the movement hailed blackness. Crawford argues that the black abstract art of the 21st century is a direct continuation of the Black Arts Movement working of abstraction for its blackest possibilities. The paintings of the Afri-COBRA collective are as central to this chapter as the 21st century sculpture of Barbara Chase-Riboud and the 21st century paintings of Kerry James Marshall. This chapter argues that we have failed to see the connections between strategic essentialism and what Crawford names “strategic abstraction.”

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margo Natalie Crawford
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Black Arts Movement ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
Black Aesthetics ◽  
Sense Of Home

This epilogue argues that feeling black post-black leads Black Arts Movement and 21st century artists to rethink how people live and create home in liminality. Crawford compares the images of home in Mat Johnson’s novel Loving Day and Nikki Giovanni’s poetry volume My House. This epilogue draws upon Nathanial Mackey’s theory of tidalectics (the circular dialectic of black aesthetics). Crawford unveils the love, sense of home, and anticipation that shape the tidalectics of black post-blackness.

The Local and the Global

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margo Natalie Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Black Arts Movement ◽  
The South ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
The Way ◽  
Editorial Practices

The fourth chapter analyzes BLKARTSOUTH (the leading collective of the Black Arts Movement in the South). Crawford focuses on Nkombo journal produced by BLKARTSOUTH. She argues that the practice of the local and the global in NKOMBO prepared the way for the practice of diaspora and the local in Callaloo, the most prominent journal in current African diasporic literary and cultural studies. This chapter shows how editorial practices during both the Black Arts Movement and the 21st century pivot on making the local and the global inseparable in a manner that parallels the inseparability of blackness and post-blackness.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document