Thursday, 20 Oct 2005 | 10:29 PM

One of the topics I'll be covering in my presentation at the Afrofuturism show on Saturday is the paradox of creating a black subjectivity in art that is central and yet not overdetermined. The typical catch-22 for the black artist is either to avoid any racialized subject at all (see Jerald Ieans or Julie Mehretu) or to risk having one's work be received as serviceable to an understanding of identity--and identity alone--and therefore reduced to a mere political slogan or form of protest art. This art, read as identity-obsessed, then gets separated from the wheat of "pure art" like so much chaff.

I'm leaving aside artists like Michael Ray Charles whose work pretty much does begin and end with identity interrogation. I'm interested instead in a growing cadre of artists--say, a Lamar Peterson or a Laylah Ali--whose work puts black subjectivity visibly at its center, but emphatically not just as a vehicle for wrangling identity politics. In other words, the articulated presence of blackness does not foreclose on other readings of the work.

This strategy is something black artists typically have to think a great deal about in order to succeed at it. It doesn't just happen. As a way of understanding the problem, I considered its opposite. That is to say, what about the myriad white artists who explore whiteness in their work, where whiteness is central and indispensable and yet which fact is usually overlooked in favor of other critical readings? Take Cindy Sherman:

At bottom, Sherman's work hinges on an exploration of whiteness, its myriad forms, its very flexibility to wear different kinds of psychological and historical drag without hinderance. Yet the work is rarely (ever?) discussed in those terms.

A few others:

Jack Pierson


Christian Holstad


The whiteness of these subjects is not incidental; it is absolutely necessary to the meaning and success of the work. Same with Delia Brown (who does by the way sometimes feature black subjects as an interesting counterpoint to her white subjects):



and Tim Gardner


My informed guess is that these artists did not at any point have to think consciously in terms of "strategy" to make this multiplicity of readings possible. The history of representation already works in their favor to make it happen without effort. The identity of whiteness functions as a breaker switch; it shuts itself off automatically when it gets overloaded and reverts to a customary neutral position. Black artists do not have this luxury.

This problem is not limited to black artists, of course; any artist with a so-called marked identity has to deal with this to a lesser or greater extent: Latino artists, women, gays and lesbians, poor people...all the typical ingredients from the multi-culti salad.

Cauleen, Lanneau, Bea and I formed The Carbonist School as a forum in which to share solutions to this problem. A think tank for getting around the dialectic of over- and under-presence. A rubric by which to posit our own universality and flexibility, which white (and male and straight) artists have been claiming as their birthright for centuries. This is why The Carbonist School be.

Thursday, 20 Oct 2005 | 12:11 AM

Tuesday, 18 Oct 2005 | 9:59 PM

Going crazy preparing for the talk at the closing of the Afrofuturism show in Minneapolis. I've finally nailed down a hook 3 days before the presentation: my starting point will be to discuss some of the difficulties in editing Electric Skin as I kept running into the question of "what counts as black art?" Does it have to do with the artist's identity? The content? The formal qualities? The target was always moving.

They are the same questions that ultimately point to the need for a more sophisticated analysis of race and art, or at least of blackness and art. The same questions that gave rise to the Carbonist School that Cauleen, Bea, Lanneau and I founded, which is designed to be a rubric for exploring possible answers to those questions.

So this talk is also supposed to serve as an unofficial coming out party for the Carbonist School to the world. I'm nervous about that as we have yet to put together the physical documents we wanted to have ready.

All this, and I'm trying to work on buying that house in Atlanta at the same time--and of course, moving across state lines.

Andrea, my studio mate, tells me that some people have been in our studio to look at her work and several have commented on the small tower drawings I have hanging around, the sketches that are designed to accomplish almost nothing artistically, except work out some ideas. If I could get my head around selling those, I probably would. But God am I far away from that at the moment.

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