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Cultural Marxism and AfricanAmericans

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Title: Cultural Marxism and AfricanAmericans


1
Cultural Marxism and African-Americans
  • Carla Aaron-Lopez
  • Lecture Cont. Issues in Photo
  • 15 April 09 (paid your taxes?)

2
Marxism and Cultural Marxism (short intro)
  • Started by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels in 1848
    (Communist Manifesto).
  • Marx influenced Louis Althusser, art critic
    believes you can imply Marxist thought to
    cultural production.
  • - defines Marxism as cultural theory for art.
  • Says politics doesnt matter ? believes Marx was
    radical to the study of knowledge (epistemology).
  • Thinks Marx is best at what he implies through
    his system.
  • You can imply any system without knowing the
    system first (in relation to people (art)).
  • Believes to first ANALYZE the system, then
    analyze how the system effects the person (art).

3
Cultural Marxism (as tool for analysis)
  • 1 Analyze the mode of production
  • 2 Analyze the mode of interpretation
  • 3 Analyze the reception of cultural artifacts
  • All help to learn the system.
  • From evaluating Cultural Marxism, one is able to
    create their own tools for analysis Feminism,
    African American Cultural Marxism, Orientalism
    and Globalization.
  • Todays focus African-Americans in contemporary
    art, our communication and how we view/analyze
    art work.

4
African American Cultural Marxism
  • Created by analyzing postmodernism and Marxism
    for interpreting the African-American experience.
  • Offers a threat to normalcy (as defined by
    mainstream authority).
  • - Defined through these questions
  • Where is the clash?
  • Analyze the structure (see Marxism tool kit here)
  • How is it providing agency?
  • Are you providing victimology?

5
Talking head examples (cont. in last slide)
  • bell hooks name Gloria Jean Watkins
  • - believes in de-centering the author. Wants to
    move past divisions in image production. Believes
    site of conflict is the media. Builds agency by
    building a new structure let the old structure
    crumble.
  • Dr. Cornel West African American philosopher,
    cultural critic and pastor that believes in
    Nietzsche, religion and new cultural politics of
    difference.
  • - defies victimology produced by African
    American drama. Instead of pushing the issues ?
    should be finding ways to solve our racial
    issues.
  • Thelma Golden director of Studio Museum in
    Harlem
  • - defines whiteness in American culture
    (whiteness cultural, historical, sociological
    aspects of whiteness and construction of
    whiteness). Breakthrough show was Freestyle in
    2001. Showcased Black artists that are redefining
    blackness.

6
In our glory Photography and black life by bell
hooks
  • Cultural criticism photography and its
    importance on black culture. Helps with social
    construction connection with black identity,
    race vs. class and providing vocabulary for black
    life.
  • The photograph provided a connection between past
    and present.
  • How we see ourselves the camera has provided
    black folks with an ability to create their own
    countercultures that are different than those of
    mainstream concerns. The struggle no longer has a
    voice but images as well.
  • The photograph provides evidence of different
    styles of black culture.
  • However, racial integration has placed black life
    in a form of crisis. Those that oppose the
    integration (from the inside) and those that
    agree for racial equality by ignoring history ?
    how the pica-ninny evolved into the rap star.
  • Racial identity is constructed through the
    photograph. It captures everything from everyday
    life to the controversial black other. There is
    no need for the mask at this point.
  • Leaves the question what does it mean to be
    post-Black? See artists for examples.

7
Jamel Shabazz in relation to hooks essay Black
is celebrated as a movement, style, culture. The
photograph provided strength in building images
that describe black life from the Harlem
Renaissance to the birth of hip-hop in the early
1980s. These images are the basis for describing
and understanding blackness as a cultural
criticism. Blackness in reference to the
construction of American Blacks since
Reconstruction (to the Civil Rights era).
8
Artists examples
Hank Willis Thomas How to Market Kitty Litter to
Black People Ebony Magazine 2005/2006
9
Are you the right kind of woman for it? 1974/2007
10
Something to Believe in 1984/2007
11
Carla Aaron-Lopez Friday and the stabbed chicken,
2007
12
Scholars at Darryls installation, 2008
13
Allen Cooley, excerpt from series Normal
14
Allen Cooley, excerpt from series Normal
15
  • The crisis of the Negro intellectual (circa
    2000s)
  • Establishing the post-black narrative.
  • Habitual racist line steppers and the academic
    institution.
  • Being a postmodern skeptic ? losing faith in your
    own race/ethnicity (abandoning history because of
    racial self-hatred).
  • The uprising of the Negro intellectual (circa
    2000s)
  • Visual artists that are taking back what it means
    to be black and how weve evolved as a group of
    people.
  • Referencing histories (collaborating with old/new
    ideals) as a part of artwork.
  • Continuing to create an intelligentsia of all
    things relative to blackness and understand the
    historical context of whiteness ? how it effects
    the psychological frame of minorities.

16
Rashid Johnson, Self-portrait as the Professor of
Astronomy, Miscengenation and Critical Theory at
The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club
Center for Graduate Studies, 2008
17
Self-portrait in homage to Barkley Hendricks, 2005
18
  • Barkley Hendricks painting as a reference for
    post-Black artist, Rashid Johnson.
  • Typology as a start for diversity amongst black
    folks. Showcasing things from the taboo nature of
    black sexuality to occupation (similar to August
    Sander photographing Germany pre-WW2).
  • Hendricks explored male sexuality.

19
Xaviera Simmons Make the Fist, 2004
20
One Day and Back Then (Seated), 2007
21
Kehinde Wiley Triple Portrait of Charles I, 2007
22
Sleep, 2008
23
Mickalene Thomas Afro Goddess with Hand Between
Legs, 2006
24
Lovely Six Foota, 2007
25
Fahamu Pecou, Magazine Covers series, circa 2000s.
26
Other artists exploring Blackness through
theory Jefferson Pinder, installation
artist Nadine Robinson, installation
artist Otabenga Associates, cultural
rebels Allen Cooley, photographer Fahamu Pecou,
painter Ed Garnes, writer and activist Sugar
Johnson, writer and activist Charles Mills,
philosopher Toni Morrison, writer and co-creator
of Whiteness Studies Glenn Ligon, painter Kalup
Linzy, video artist Michael Eric Dyson,
philosopher For further reading, visit
www.whoiscarla.com and click on WRITINGS.
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