Essentialists who believe in the inalterability of racial identity
(despite contradictory anthropological findings) will be quick to note
the paradox between the title of this review and the title of the show
under discussion, and perhaps snicker about the oxymoron. The same
innocents decry what they perceive as racism among the 96 percent of
blacks who voted for the president, but miss several points in their
rush to judgment: 1) there’s a difference between racial pride and
racial fear; 2) blacks have historically voted across color lines
repeatedly; and 3) white fright ruins their attempts at dancing. Will
the new Republican National Committee head Michael Steele (who happens
to be black) and the old dittohead king Rush Limbaugh (who happens to
be white) bring these pallid, blinking troglodytes from their Platonic
cave into the new millennium? Education is key, and ignorant
complacency and hysteria are no longer options; crack those books,
slugabeds, and drill, baby, drill.
The Art of Living Black is a nonjuried exhibition of
work by black artists that the Richmond Art Center has been
presenting annually since 1996, based on the democratic (and Beuysian)
belief of founders Rae Louise Hayward and Jan Hart-Schuyers that
creativity transcends job descriptions. (The imagination is not the
exclusive birthright of Baudrillardian dandies who have mastered art
jive.) Seventy artists are showing 82 pieces here. Among the
highlights: Shaun J. Weden’s “Obatala, Eleggua Yemaya Inspiration” is
an abstraction of overlapping red, white, blue, and black Os; disks,
gears, stripes; and triangles that pays homage to the King of the White
Cloth (or blank canvas), the gentle Yoruba god of creation and
creativity. A proud Havanan with his junkyard dog and still-roadworthy
’59 Cadillac is depicted in Michael Johnson’s photo “Perro Grande (Big
Dog).” “Transplanted Man” is James E. Gayles Jr.’s Identikit-suggestive
exploration of shifting identity. Cassandra A. Falby’s “Purrr” is a
Warhol-meets-Mondrian homage to singer/Catwoman Eartha Kitt. Faux-icon
“Holy Face of St. Sambo” by Mark Dukes is replete with a punning
account of the Coon Christ’s encounter with ten proudly separatist
pistol-packing brothers. Virginia Jourdan’s grinning ceramic reader
“Lyn” has apparently vanquished War and Peace. The Art of Living
Black runs through March 14 at Richmond Art Center (2540 Barrett
Ave., Richmond). www.TheRAC.org or
510-620-6772.
