Confrontations with art museums by African-Americans stopped almost ten years ago. Some of them have recognized a good artistic reputation to join organizations or museums that had been accepted before. Some of them have come to teach in university and school art departments around. But even most of them who are in excellent positions agree with Black artists that it is tough to gain acceptance in their work today.

Ironically, a lot of African-American artists seem to believe that their skin color is the main reason relevant to people in the art world ignore them. Most designers have no further interest in what they deem to be a white-dominated industry. But most of them contend that what infuriates them is the self-absorbed view of the art world, a view that prevents the acknowledgment of Afro-American or African qualities in their pieces.

Check out this site for more information about the history of African-American art.

They acknowledge the importance of standard quality, but Black professionals claim that if an artist is good and wants to make it to the top, they need to play the game and act like their cultural values are not connected with their artwork. Even artists who don’t want to make it big in the industry find the idea of racial subservience an insult.

Nevertheless, according to the NCAs convention, artworks done by Afro-American designers in the United States seem to be flourishing in the industry. From all over the United States, some artists, art historians, and teachers gathered to explore the state of the art by Afro-American people in the country today.

Artworks by Black people in the United States seems to have reached a dynamism that was not found since the 70s. In comparison, there has not been an all-inclusive exhibit of recent artworks by African-Americans. This dynamism looks increasingly apparent to people who have been doing studio visits and people who have seen recent exhibits.

The artists mentioned below showed in some known exhibits. These experts were extensively reviewed in journals like Time Magazine, New York Times, or Wage Voice. It is time that these designers are reviewed in reputable journals and get acknowledged because they are among the best Black professionals in the world today. These professionals have worked outside the system developing their craft via personal introspection. Some of their ideas seem to be distillations and refinements of street arts.

Afro-American Artists

Mel Edwards

His pieces have been famous for many years. He is regarded by his peers as a major sculptor in the country today. Two of his works were seen in the MoMA PS1 show. His pieces impress as very aggressive structures with tons of energy. On the contrary, his Nile Lynch Fragments shows masks of Afro-American people. His treatment of metals compels people to see the mask suggested to the connections between its wake.

Mel Edward’s other piece in the MoMA PS1 show was the Homage to the Poet Gotan Damas, a sculpture that expands through chains, disks, and planes over a 10-inches by 10-inches floor space. Tensions in the piece are put through spaces between its elements, through the shadows cast by angular and disk forms, as well as the drama of the chain.

Visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoMA_PS1 for more details about MoMA PS1.

Barbara Chase-Riboud

She is a respectable artist in the country since the 1950s and now lives in Europe. Her artwork has new qualities over the years. Her MoMA PS1 showpiece is made of bronze material folded towards one another, braided and draped with strands of silk cords. It presents and closes in on itself; on the other hand, it suggests jewelry through glistening and polished metal, as well as the ceremony of braids and folds.

The aspects of artwork from Black artists

Some aspects of artworks seem to cause uneasiness for some Afro-American artists. Maybe because of the absence of West African traditions in pieces. From what people know about some notable Black designers, their guidance in forming their visual patterns has been in their rhythmic principle of the drum.

Even if it was played using New World instruments, people suspect that the African drum rhythm has been a significant inspiration for most visual-design Afro-American professionals. This factor is crucial when understanding the pre-occupation with patterns by Black artists.

Visually speaking, the indigenous African equivalent to the drum rhythm is the rhythmic patterning painted in African masks and sculptures and its rhythmic proportions that are intrinsic to their pieces. Experts think that many early Black designers in the country sensed the relationship between African Music and their art.

As their ideas have improved and evolved, they seem to have realized that what they feel connected with Black Art is the visual look but the character of the piece. For instance, traditional West African pieces moved; therefore, its painted surface took on different qualities of what we have seen in museums.

These pieces lose a lot of its dynamism. It is partly because of the recognition of African craft with sounds as part of the content. The sense of rhythmic structure involving patterns through the center point is an important part of cultural diaspora. A lot of these Black Artists do not have a strong kinship to the African rhythmic structure. This is more apparent in music because music is a non-material and can be projected to a lot of people compared to sculptures and paintings, which require a physical presence.