Darkytown Rebellion Kara Walker Analysis

Featured and organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Romare Bearden’s collection is one that appreciates and depicts life for what it really is. Bearden did not like abstract expressionism. Instead, he made many collages depicting life with different perspectives, allowing the viewer to see reality, but also try to figure out the true meaning that Bearden meant to portray in the collage that was not directly seen by just looking at the picture. These collages were made by “Cut and pasted printed, colored and metallic papers, photostats, pencil, ink marker, gouache, watercolor, and pen and ink on Masonite” (MET Museum). Bearden liked telling narratives within these collages involving Harlem life. Whether it was on the streets, inside

William H. Johnson was a successful painter who was born on March 18, 1901 in Florence, South Carolina. Johnson began exploring his level of creativity as a child, and it only amplified from there because he discovered that he wanted to be an artist. After making this discovery he attended the National Academy of Design in New York which is where he met his mentor Charles Webster Hawthorne who had a strong influential impact on Johnson. Once Johnson graduated he moved to Paris where he was exposed to different artists, various artistic abilities, and evolutionary creations. Throughout Johnson’s time in Paris he grew as an artist, and adapted a “folk” style where he used lively colors and flat figures. Johnson used the “folk” style to express the experience of most African-Americans during the years of the 1930s and 1940s.

The artist that I will be focusing on is Ori Gersht, an Israeli photographer. He is a modern photographer and the names of his work are Blow Up #1; and Black Soil: White Light Red City 01. His works often reference violence, beauty, life and death. The medium vary from different printing methods. Blow Up #1 is light jet print, mounted on aluminum and size 96 x 72 in. (as the rest of the Blow Up series). Black Soil: White Light Red City 01 is a chromogenic print and size 47 1/4″ x 59 1/16.

Apparent in his works are themes such as racism, identity and culture that references the artist’s own backgrounds and experiences. Ah Kee draws on his own experiences of being and aboriginal Australian in the contemporary life in Australia.

The intersection of social movements and Art is one that can be observed throughout the civil right movements of America in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. The sixties in America saw a substantial cultural and social change through activism against the Vietnam war, women’s right and against the segregation of the African - American communities. Art became a prominent method of activism to advocate the civil rights movement. It was a way to express self-identity as well as the struggle that people went through and by means of visual imagery a way to show political ideals and forms of resistance. To examine how a specific movement can have a profound effects on the visual art, this essay will focus on the black art movement of the 1960s and

The painting is about nine black students who tried to enter one of the most highly accomplished and prestigious school in Arkansas, Little Rock High School on September 23, 1997. As these students were entering the school they got assaulted with stones, rocks and rubbish by the whites. As you can see on the painting Domingo tried to capture as much of the horror on the canvas that those black

Faith Ringgold composed this piece by using oil paints on a 31 by 19 inch canvas. It is depicting the struggles that her community and herself were facing while trying to gain equal rights from the majority of white American culture. She uses line, shape, color, value and texture

Civil Rights have been the long and dreadful fight against desegregation in many places of the world. Throughout its hard fight many people captured the turmoil that they were faced with by painting, some sculpted, and most photographed. Many reason for this art platform to take place was to create a visual symbol of what we know as the resistance time period. Artist wanted to have the feel of empowerment and most of all feeling liberation. Recently I visit the Savannah Civil right Museum to share some of the major history that was capture in the during the 1960’s time err. The museum was founded by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Civil Rights Movement. It has recently been rename to The Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum to honor Dr. Ralph Mark Gilbert. Each piece in the museum carry’s a huge amount of information that explains the history and the time periods of which it was done. One particular piece that caught my eye was the amazing paint by Jacob Lawrence- Daybreak: A Time to Rest. This art piece is by far one of the best of what I saw at the museum. It tells a story of how Harriet Tubman led many slaves to freedom. Each painting walks you through the time and place of what each movement.

This piece was created during a time of political and social change. Increased political awareness and a focus on celebrity demanded art that was more

African Americans are no stranger to discrimination. Children across American are taught about the horrific times of slavery. Following slavery, we learn about the discrimination African Americans face in the light of their bittersweet freedom. Due to this unstability, many amazing young African American artist emerged with breathtaking stories to reveal; the stories weren’t easy to expose because publishing companies and the alike were very

Richard Hunt is a sculptor whose work largely draws on abstraction, crafting organic shapes with industrial materials. His approach to his art is one that is based on compulsion, as he combines various curvilinear and angular forms to form an ambiguous hybrid that captures the African American experience. By crafting an unconventional layering of different shapes, Hunt is able to create a conceptual piece that is open to interpretation. Similarly, Betye Saar aims to promote thought-provoking reflection. By carefully utilizing racial stereotypes into her artistic vision, Saar is able to manipulate racist devices into a more positive message. Her exaggeration of certain caricatures of African American life served as a new symbol for

The piece I choose to critic is titled “Buscado por su madre” or “Wanted by his Mother” by Rafael Cauduro, no year. This piece is an Oil on Canvas painting that measured 48”x36” located at the Long Beaches MoLAA. The work is presented as one of a few Mexican artists that share an interest in their painting primarily figurative style, political in nature, that often narrated the history of Mexico or the indigenous culture. The painting is one of the first viewers see as they enter the Museum. It is at eye level and demonstrates a superb use of illusionistic realism that it creates the illusion of being real. The painting is of a old Missing poster of a man on a brick wall. What made it stand out in my eyes was the fact that it looked to be a three dimensional object on what looked like real bricks with the words wanted by mother on the top. Cauduro’s piece, in my eyes looked like he literally took a chunk out of a wall, and placed an old torn missing poster of a man on the front and put it out for display. Cauduro uses texture to represent the look of brick by applying thick strokes of paint creating a body of its own as and mimics the look and shape of brick. He also makes applies the same technique on the wanted poster by implying that it is old and torn by again layering his paint to create the

Jacob Lawrence's Harriet Tubman series number 10 is aesthetically beautiful. The light blue and dark blue of the sky is different because the stars are illuminating one section of the sky. The artwork is not sophisticated, it's difficult to ascertain if that is a waterfall or a river in the picture but there are more rivers in the south then there are waterfalls so you can assume that this is a river. She appears to be reaching for the stars with her left hand while dragging the chains of oppression with her right hand. This portrait has the highest aesthetic value, the portrait not only elicits joy it teaches you about determination, heroism, American history, and the history of black people in America.

The subject matter exhibited in this representational work of art is four people that are gathered around rigid rocks. The two figures on the left are black, young-adult women, and a younger black boy on the right is looking up at a tall older white male in the center. Even though the use of silhouettes hides fine details, the women and the child portray exaggerated stereotypical racial features. The women are wearing head wraps, which are exclusive to women of African descent, the boy has Afro shaped hair, and all three have large protruding lips. Their clothes are worn down and ragged compared to the man’s attire. The white male’s features are less obvious, but the texture of his hair and lack of lip definition is apparent.

Filled with shades of red, the upper part of the painting comes to create a strong opposition with the black area below it, itself encircled by a darker red. This painting consisting of three floating rectangles in various colour combinations, creates a sombre mood conducive to spiritual contemplation. With the use of Rothko's saturated colours the viewers are moved