Untitled Black

Untitled black series 2009

Was it a ‘New Black’? Some how I knew it was, not a particularly world changing kinda ‘new’ - but on a personal level it felt radical. I didn’t call it 'new' - too grand a statement, ‘Untitled’ seemed to have more scope.

A couple years ago I was introduced to the term Post-Black, coined apparently by Thelma Golden and Glen Ligon. Post-Black attempts to distinguish African-American artists of the present from those of the past. To acknowledge a younger generation with different experiences and consequently a different relationship to African American history.

These African American artists are described as ‘adamant about not being labelled as “black” artists, though their work was steeped… in redefining complex notions of blackness’ Thelma Golden 2001

And there you go that word ‘blackness’ a term, which needs expanding by the admission of that statement. It’s a rather generic term, the nature of which excludes the idiosyncrasies of the individual. This is why I have begun this work I’m interested in exploring my own subjectivity and gestures in relation to this overarching construct...

Rashid Johnson Citizen Band (Explorations in Topology) 2008