The Appearance of Time: Collecting Black Visual Culture
Fine art is among the most eloquent forms of human communication. It provides access to an artist’s vision of themselves and the world while preserving a heritage that connects shared and diverse social values, beliefs, religions, and customs. Heritage, within the context of collecting Black visual culture, connects the synergy of layered ideas and materials imbued with historic and inherent merit. This esteemed cultural legacy - as historical materialism - has a market value based on the perception of worth as an asset shaped by an American narrative directly linked to the early transnational history of the Atlantic world.
Since the early 1500s European powers collectively worked to control the resources of the emerging transatlantic world. They combined their efforts to facilitate the dislocation of indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas. Being ravaged by colonialism, the systematic negation of value for all non-European cultures accompanied their displacement. Since all cultural heritage is handed down by a predecessor it provides an automatic sense of unity or belonging within a group. Thereby shaping personal and national identities, as well as principles that impact the social and economic definitions for material and human value. It also allows us to better understand the history of previous generations who reflect America’s past, present and future.
What enables the cultural production of artists of African descent to ascend into value beyond their immediate community? Why has the market increased its interest in these artists at this time in history, as opposed to previous decades and centuries? How is the historic perception of worth directly linked to the economic benefits of American slavery and the prevailing post-colonial perceptions of people of color and their value?
The headline relationship between art history and the marketplace is disturbing because they establish a double standard, in which cultural and symbolic work overlap and differ within established Eurocentric infrastructures. This duplicitous duality for prior assessments of relevant history and market value have been limited by cultural and appraisal valuation models that perpetuate cultural sectarianism, misinformation, and inequity within the art world. Together, they impact the perception of value for African American visual culture within intersecting primary and secondary art markets. These misconceptions also influence the fields of art history and cultural preservation.
The terms African American, Black, and Americans of African Descent are used interchangeably because the expression of ethnic identity has been an American art trope since the nineteenth century when immigrant groups began competition for recognition and respect. It was not until the New Deal in the 1930s that women and artists of color participated in greater numbers in shaping and reflecting American cultural identity in public spheres through the Works Projects Administration (WPA). The civil rights movement fortified this trend and by the end of the 20th century it was solidified. Therefore, I am not defining ethnicity, instead I am focusing on the interrelated experiences and relationships among Black American artists, with collectors, dealers, curators, appraisers, critics, and academia. Collectively these overlapping and interdisciplinary relationships have defined and molded the infrastructure of power for the acquisition, assessment, and value for Black culture within the marketplace.
Currently, the market’s mercurial embrace of African American art reflects an attraction to and awe with its unique blend or African and European influences. Ultimately, the issue is not how the works of African American artists compare to their European peers, but to what extent it shows the artists’ ability to make visual statements that viewers, regardless of their background, can relate. Collectively, the work of African American artists is not confined to one style or influence. These artists are no different than any other artists engaged in the creative struggle to express an individual sensibility, while simultaneously relating to the historical and cultural rhythms of time and place. Critical attention has positioned the work of black artists among the most actively purchased and still affordable American art because of its conceptual and aesthetic spheres of range and interest.
Concurrent to the market growth and success of select Black artists, there are many who embrace a naïve bewilderment about why and how Black visual culture has become so prominent within the aesthetic discourse within the market. The same skeptics and naysayers equally refuse to take into account contemporary social, political, and ideological influences within the market that include: the expansion of African cities; Europe beginning to confront its colonial history; America’s woke culture of Black Lives Matter and the crisis in museology; the impact of art and culture via the internet and social media platforms; the globalization of biennales and art fairs; transnationalism and the development of multiple identities, and global shifts in the rise of a creative economy.
Despite the significance of these variables many want to perpetuate the traditional devaluation and past indifference to meritorious work by American artists of African descent. This is attributed to the shameful legacy of elitism, racism, and ignorance within the art world among dealers, appraisers, curators, critics, collectors, and auction houses. They consciously and unconsciously maintain a rationale that was used to justify enslaving Africans in North, South & Central America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Caribbean. Specifically, that people of African descent were “subhuman”, “unintelligent” and “only good for breeding and labor”. Hence, the notion that artists of African descent could embrace or develop complex ideas essential to making fine art or telling worthwhile narratives was unfathomable. This “outrageous” possibility has been ingrained in the minds of many, as reflected in an 1867 New York Herald article, which states: “The Negro seems to have an appreciation for art, while being manifestly unable to produce it.” This view solidified the generational perception for valuelessness of Black visual culture and its systematic marginalization of the social and economic worth of fine art produced by Black artists.
Derogatory images, from the 1915 film Birth of a Nation and New York actor Thomas Rice’s creation of the stereotyped Jim Crow character, in which he wore burnt cork to create the first blackface minstrelsy, have contributed to the degradation into invisibility of Black artists. This diminished perception reinforced painfully stereotypical and derogatory images of the coon, mammy, buck, sambo, pic-a-ninny, and blackface characters portrayed in subservient roles and mocking caricatures from Aunt Jemima at breakfast, Buckwheat from the 1930s Little Rascals, Shirley Temple in The Littlest Rebel, Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in blackface on Saturday morning TV, to Uncle Ben staring from the cupboard. These images all reinforced the demeaning representations of African Americans created to promote a false narrative of White supremacy and Black inferiority. The promotion of this ideal perpetuated the systemic suppression and suffocation of the black being. American writer, Ralph Ellison aptly describes the experience in his book Invisible Man, “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me“.
Without understanding this history, many art professionals, collectors, and cultural philanthropists will continue to feel bewildered and demand, “Why haven’t I heard about these artists before?”, or “If these artists mattered why wasn’t I taught about them in school?” The most consistent argument of disdain is that there is a market category called “Black art”, which Black artists did not create, but which previously used excluded them. The explanation “I don’t see color and it doesn’t make a difference to me if the artist is Black because it‘s about the art”, may be a true statement, but having to state it reveals the inseparable truth that the color of the artist’s skin has always mattered to the market. This underscores that just as skin color was seen as a barrier for entry into the fine art arena, it clearly illuminates the intersection of art and eco-politics for many Black artists.
A primary reason increased attention for Black visual culture exists is the legacy of scholarship. Scholarship became a legacy of necessity that created the discipline of Black art history and substantiated today’s commerce. This legacy is extremely important for any serious collector of Black visual culture for the context behind their acquisitions. It begins with James Porter (1905-1970) an artist, curator, professor, and mentor. He asked art critics why artists from the Harlem Renaissance between 1919 and 1930 did not receive critical acclaim. He was told because Black people had not been in America long enough to have an art history. This was the catalyst for him to write the classic “Modern Negro Art” in 1943, which was the first African American art history book that firmly established the field for African American Art History. Thirty-three years later, in 1976, former student, artist and scholar, David Driskell curated and wrote “Two Centuries of Black American Art”, to reiterate that not only do Black artists have a documented history, but its history extends 200 years. Two years later, in 1978, Dr. Samella Lewis ( b. 1924), artist, scholar and the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in Art History in 1951, wrote “Art: African American”, the first African American art history book by a trained Black art historian. Serious collectors of African American art also include the work of the following scholars in their libraries: Dr. Richard Powell, Dr. Lowry Simms, Dr. Leslie King Hammond, Dr. Kellie Jones, Dr. Kobena Mercer, Dr. Deborah Willis, Dr. Darby English, Dr. Huey Copeland, and Dr. Sarah Lewis to start. Essentially, it has taken forty years for there to be a substantial body of historical literature about African American artists, their lives, and the context for the work they create.
An additional reason for this nascent focus on Black visual culture is the imperative for the sustainability of museums and art professionals. Due to the previous lack of scholarship and interest in Black visual culture, few exhibitions and acquisitions of Black artists were made by museums which perpetuated an undemocratic narrative in American art history. As the market interest expanded, museums felt the pressure to acquire more work for their collections. Between 2008-2018 thirty of the nation’s leading museums acquired 4822 art works by African American artists in conjunction with 401 national exhibitions, representing 7.7% of artists of African descent. At the same time, many of these institutions have aggressively hired qualified Black curators to assist them with their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. It became increasingly essential for institutions to consider contrasting narratives that reflect a culturally diverse audience of collectors, donors and patrons that make up most of the world. In some ways, the market is steering the decolonization of restrictive ideas about the capacity of Black artists. While simultaneously avoiding the connection that the same culture gave the world America’s greatest contribution - 20th century jazz. It has taken 228 years for the art world to realize that Black visual culture reflects a range of aesthetic traditions and that Black people, their lives and art are not monolithic nor monotonic.
The strong analogy between Earl “Fatha” Hines’ (1903-1983) rhythm of song and the Cubist innovations of the late 1920s, parallel to the blues-drenched Pointillism of Count Basie (1904-1984) and the angular Impressionism of Duke Ellington (1923-1974). Abstract Expressionism combined the Bebop of Charles “Yardbird” Parker (1920-1955), the hard bop of Thelonious Monk (1917-1982), the intricate phrasing and harmonies of John Coltrane (1926-1967) and the detached performance attitude of Miles Davis (1926-1991), and the extemporized melodic dimensions of Lester Young’s (1909-1956) cool motivic improvisation. When connections to the way communities communicate interdisciplinary ideas it becomes clear why major collectors of American art are filling the historic and aesthetic gaps in their collections. For example, if they have paintings by Jackson Pollock (1912-1945), Helen Frankenthaler(1928-2011), Joan Mitchell (1925-1992), Mark Rothko(1903-1970) and Elaine De Kooning(1918-1989) the collections are incomplete without a discourse with Norman Lewis (1909-1979), Alma Thomas (1891-1978), Hale Woodruff (1900-1980), Beauford Delaney (1901-1979), Mary Lovelace O’Neal (1942), MacArthur Binion (1946), Joe Overstreet (1933-2019) or Mildred Thompson (1936-2003).
Newcomers to Black visual culture attribute the exposure to Black art, on both sides of the Atlantic, to the 2017 exhibition “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power'' that originated at the Tate Modern, London and travelled to the Brooklyn Museum, New York and the Broad, California. Others also credit the 2018, “Outliers & American Vanguard Art'' exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, which dismantled the lines between fine art created by “formally trained” and “self-taught” artists. It is clear that the dissemination of culture in the United States is stacked through its commerce, resulting in being coveted and taken more seriously because of economic gain. This is exactly what is happening within the art market. However, the origins for international awareness of meritorious work by African American artists can be traced back to 1891 when Henry Ossawa Tanner(1859-1930), after studying with Thomas Eakins (1844-1919), went to Paris to because he was struggling with his work not being acknowledged on its merit, but instead dismissed because of the color of his skin. Tanner achieved great success abroad for his biblical genre paintings and many African American artists visited Tanner in Europe for his mentorship, including Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907), William A Harper (1873-1910), Annie E. A. Walker (1855-1925), Meta Warrick Fuller (1877-1968), and William Edward Scott (1884-1964). Additional artists who lived and worked in Europe included William H. Johnson (1901-1970) Beauford Delaney (1901-1979), Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1998), Romare Bearden (1911-1988), Herbert Gentry (1919-2003), Walter Williams (1920-1998), Ed Clark (1926-2019), and Sam Middleton (1927-2015).
One of the primary people to cultivate and expose the world to the work of African American artists is Evangeline “EJ” Montgomery (1931). She is an artist who developed the Arts American Program for the United States Information Agency (USIA) as their Arts America Program Development Officer, from 1980 until the agency’s conclusion of its 46-year history in 1999. There were many African American artists included in these traveling exhibitions and work was on loan to various embassies during this time. Two years before USIA closed, art enthusiast and retired policeman Jocelyn Wainwright founded the first art fair for Black visual culture, called the National Black Fine Art Show (1997-2008) at the Puck Building in New York City. It exhibited local, regional, and international artists of African descent with dealers from all over the United States. This annual fair coupled with educational programs and the publication of the first book to validate collecting African American art as a viable asset and commodity, Collecting African American Art: Works on Paper and Canvas, cultivated the market that inspired Swann Galleries to have the confidence to establish the first African American art category in an auction. The market is indebted to the countless Black cultural centers, organizations, art advisors and dealers who placed the work of Black artists in museums and private collections worldwide, prior to the 2017 “Soul of a Nation” exhibition,
Meritorious work produced by American artists of African descent has become the pinnacle of a bustling untapped market. Not only does Black art in America possess unique global characteristics by virtue of the rich contributions by artists from throughout the African diaspora living and working in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, and the Americas, but it is an exciting body of cultural diversity at its very best. This robust market is exposing historically relevant work, simultaneously filling aesthetic gaps in collections assembled to uphold the American art historical canon. The recent excavation of an ever-present treasure has compelled the business of art to partake in the theatre of diversity, equity and inclusion of visual ideas and culture, as an ever-lasting part of the art world’s ecosystem.
Today historical scrims are gingerly raised to reveal this new scene on the art world’s stage. Evidence of this meteoric drive-in market interest made its impactful debut on May 16, 2018, when Kerry James Marshall’s “Past Times” sold for a record $21 million at Sotheby’s New York auction. The year before, at the same auction house, Jean Michel Basquiat’s 1982 ‘Untitled” painting of a skull brought $110.5 million on May 18, 2017 - the highest auction price for an American artist living or dead. This sale recalibrated a truer value for fine art conceived and made by American artists of African descent, as compared to their white American peers, within the marketplace. These stratospheric prices at the top of the market reflected a dramatic shift within the auction arena when Kerry James Marshall’s 2018 $21 million sale is compared to his previous 2007 record price at $541,000. These artists are among a long line of consistent auction headliners including, but not limited to David Hammond, Martin Puryear, Mark Bradford, Glen Ligon, Julie Mehrutu and Sam Gilliam to name a few. The stage was set for Swann Galleries’ May 2018 African American art sale, earning $4,509,540, which was the highest auction record in its 75-year history in any category.
The resounding sound of the gavel exclaimed the affirmation to the broadening market reinforced by Sotheby’s May 2018 evening contemporary sale of “Brenda P“, a full-length portrait from 1974 by Barkley L Hendricks, who was one of the standout artists in Tate Modern’s “Soul of a Nation” show. Estimated at $700,000 to $1 million, this work sold on the telephone for $2.2 million. A few lots earlier, Sotheby’s contemporary auction had been kick started by a fundraising charity sale for the Studio Museum in Harlem’s new building designed by architect, David Adjaye. The sale of works by Mark Bradford, Julie Mehretu, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Glenn Ligon and Njieka Akunyili Crosby, collectively raised $16.4 million, topped by the $6.8 million reached for Mark Bradford’s “Speak, Birdman” which sold for triple its estimate.
Today artists of African descent are producing work that offers new ways of thinking about contemporary themes by addressing issues of gender, sex, sexuality, immigration and trade, identity and beauty, politics and race, social justice, and technology. Their work is relevant to global audiences in this century and beyond. Today, and throughout the history of African American art, artists continue to produce some of the most challenging and compelling work of our time. Within the last thirty-five years African American art has become the most actively sought work by private and institutional collections worldwide. Major collectors are recognizing the historic and aesthetic gaps in their American art collections. African American artists are combining a rich and diverse blend of aesthetic traditions from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, North, South and Central America. Consequently, they are attracting an international audience of collectors to a varied aesthetic with a historic precedent since 1793. Two-hundred and twenty-eight years later the market has confirmed that African American art is: 1) aesthetically and historically relevant and 2) a worthy asset and commodity. Generally, African American artists want to be recognized for their talent and as American artists whose ethnic identity is neither a detriment nor an asset. For all artists it is about the work and the linear or organic aesthetic pedigree within the history of art.
After we hear the news about these great auction records and we visit artist studios, galleries, and museums, all the hoopla fades away when you are standing in front of the work. You ask yourself: “What is this?” “How am I responding to this?” “What does it mean?” “What kind of cultural, social space does this work create and/or occupy in the world?” Although much of the market is booming, it is important to keep in mind that it is dominated by one artist, Jean Michel Basquiat who is the highest auction earner, posthumously. The good news is that the art market is more flexible for meritorious work by African American artists because they are no longer invisible. The byproduct of scholarship, increased exhibitions, galleries, and art fairs have provided context and history to substantiate the increased number of African American artists and scholars receiving MacArthur Fellowships, Andy Warhol Fellowships, US Artist Fellowships, artist monographs, books, museum shows, gallery representation and groundbreaking art sales. This revelation has been the most significant part of this century, to date, and it will continue because Black people have always used their ingenuity for survival, but in this scenario to create new and unique – sounds, moves, words and vision.
Perhaps the sequence and continuous change in time will enable the market for Black visual culture to become fully integrated within the intellectual and conceptual diversity of visual statements that reflect the hopes, dreams, challenges, and triumphs of the human condition. Most artists want to be recognized for their talent and as American artists whose ethnic identity is neither a detriment nor an asset. Perhaps the 21st century will be the timespan to truly begin to celebrate the unique cultural sensibilities that would enable us to embrace that we are a nation of many tribes so we may know one another with visual culture as the gateway toward a better humanity.
