“Mmmm oh yeah
lord! Mmmm well err brother Tony - do you know about consciousness? Well
consciousness is accepting the fact that your Black –right? and from that
revelation everything is cool. Now individualism is a white mans desire or
something like that (well you dig what I’m saying you know what I’m saying?) Co-operation
is a black mans need and when you know your Black then - you think black and
you will black…”
Been laid up for
the past few weeks, which has ultimately left me in quite lethargic state. I’ve had some very tedious tasks to do which
keeps guilt from snapping at my heels - but critical thinking? Not much of
that… I knuckled down this week to looking at a text someone suggested after
seeing my collages The Body in pieces: Fragments as a metaphor for modernity byLinda Nochlin. The book examines the articulation of modernity in art, mainly
concentrating on 18th and 19th century painting; Starting
with a lamentation of the loss of antiquity (the monument in pieces) - to artists
like Monet and Degas among others, focusing on their use of cropping and
aligning fluid impressionist brushwork with philosophy from the likes of Marx.
The notion of
sacrifice is central to the story of St Maurice and this book covered this
subject with references to the French Revolution and even Van Gogh’s fated ear
incident. But what really caught my attention was her reference to Baudelaire citing
fluidity and vapourousness as distinctive characteristics of modernity. Yes
this is obvious and has been reiterated many times over the decades since. But
it got me thinking about my work, and the question that keeps popping into my head
from time to time. Is it possible to
talk about the Black or the ‘Black experience’ in relation to something other
than the post colonial? Some years back I came across a debate where Stuart
Hall asked the very question who modernism belongs to? And although the ‘Post’ of
colonialism must in someway be linked to the to rise of modernism, the
convention has always been to talk about these things quite separately – is
this just a case of geography?
But Blackness as a
thing (its hypostatisation - a new word I came across recently) is an invention
of the occident, and one which itself has become very fluid – certainly it
harder to tie it down then it was in the 60’s n 70’s. I have felt uneasy at times focusing on the
thing in its vagueness. But it has (in a
way) been my strategy to consider Black past its Post-Colonialness.
I think about the
renewal of feminism in recent years, in a way that I think has a more global
perspective. From this view one can regard it more functionally, which releases
it from its ossified typecast. Although
Feminism never died, it has been given some revitalisation as a project, and
fresh application in new contexts. I wonder if Black will continue to be useful
or if it is already outlived its usefulness? In that sense it brings me back to
my earlier work.
Now because I came
from a sculpture background I’m always comparing things to form, to the
object. The re-appropriation of what
might be considered at some point as outmoded, through nostalgic appreciation
in the spirit of conservation or some kind remodelling or adaptation.
I’ve been kinda
stumped, as my drawings, which offered an optimistic scientific newness felt
rather trapped and isolated. They just existed but didn’t live; and some how I
haven’t worked out the evolution. This is why I turned to an earlier Black
invention, if not a modern one. Focusing on the objects depicting my saint, would
allow a view through the lens of an archivist, coupled with insight I have gained
as a maker. Having done this he appears as a mass of material – a shifting
form, which keeps the story moving on…
