Fred Wilson's Art Activism

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.

August Wilson uses the Blues and other musical influences in his playwrights. Music, for Wilson, is a way to connect with a larger audience. Music can connect to people’s emotions and much more efficiently than words ever could alone. Wilson sees that all African Americans used to be African. If he can use the Blues, which is highly influenced by African culture, he can allow his audience to understand much more efficiently. Wilson is able to use the blues and other music forms to shape his plays into a piece of art that can be understood and found more enjoyable, with the development of plot and lifelikeness, by virtually all audiences through work songs and simple piano tunes.

The entire interview was intended to a specific audience – artists. Thus, ethos was a vital technique to establish the speakers’ credibility in their commentary about the art industry. Both Wiley and M.I.A are recognized artists in their particular fields. At the onset, their credibility as artists and thus, critics of the industry are well established throughout the interview. By narrating a wealth of experience in working with different artists from different countries, their thesis about the death of art in New York is strengthened. By reputation, both artists are multi-awarded. Wiley is a Yale educated portrait painter whose work has been cited for its unique fusion-style rendering of African-American men in heroic poses. He is recipient of the Artist of the Year Award from

In an attempt to prepare the art educator to the paradigm shift in classroom and develop a cohesive curriculum this would comprise the needs of the students and teachers to think about cultures different from their own. While I admire McFee’s interest in cultural diversity and the plight of African Americans. However, her essay is written from a privileged White middle-class perceptive with about her understanding of African Americans. How does McFee identify six major areas of social change in America of the sixties? More importantly, how does the stereotypes of African Americans influence art, education, and society?

Douglas’s piece Afro-American Solidarity with the Oppressed is currently at the Oakland Museum of California, a gift of the Rossman family. The piece is from offset lithograph, which is a method of mass-production. This piece is a colorful representation of the fact that the BPP promoted gender equality and that women were a vital part of the movement. Douglas makes use of depth perception to give the illusion that the art is three-dimensional. He also uses linear perspective which are the parallel lines in the background. These lines also seem to portray the woman as some type of heroine. Douglas also makes use of colors in this piece to add meaning to it.

Florida’s rich history often spotlights two distinctive groups; the plentiful Hispanic population, or the conventional Caucasian syndicate. What most people tend to overlook are the copious amounts of esteem found in Black History; a chronicle furnished on centuries of symbiotic suffering and triumph. Thousands of individuals have contributed to this amorphous embodiment, but there is one woman in particular that has succeeded in evolving our world’s views on art at

As Sam Pollard, director of the PBS special - August Wilson: The Ground of Which I Stand, asserts, August Wilson may be regarded as an American Shakespeare, for “his body of work really covers the whole 20th century of American history…and there is no other American playwright who did that body of work over a period of time.” (American Masters, August Wilson: The Ground of Which I Stand) While such grand comparisons may or may not be merited, August Wilson’s Pittsburg Cycle stands as a literary, historical, and cultural feat in which Wilson illustrates, teaches, and preserves the African American experience through an exploration into the poetics of the Blues. No literary scholar would deny this claim; and this assertion remains completely

The Open Casket painting made by Dana Schutz was one out of many different art pieces that were included in the Whitney Museum exhibition, which led to protests and controversies. Many people have found this portrait of Emmett Till disrespectful to his memory, and think that she’s using Emmett’s death as a way to make money. However, Schutz declared from the beginning, that her work wasn’t for sale. Other individuals believe that because Dana Schutz’s nationality is white, she doesn’t have the right to make a drawing of an African American. Instead of dividing artists by the color of their skin, people should utilize this artistic work as a way to engage in moral discussion as opposed to censorship or destruction of an artwork. It’s wrong for a person to say that a subject should be off-limits to some creators because of their race. Parker Bright, an artist who assisted the exhibition, stood in front of Dana Schutz's painting, and wore a t-shirt with a phrase that said “Black Death Spectacle.” Bright felt as if Schutz’s painting isn’t doing any justice, and that she doesn’t have the privilege to speak for African Americans. Moreover, a writer named Hannah Black wrote a letter to the Whitney exhibition curators demanding that the painting must be destroyed entirely. Furthermore, many media outlets received an email supposedly written by Dana Schutz requesting her portrait to be removed from the Whitney Museum, but it turned out to be

Art is a conveyor of whatever message or story a person wishes to share. As a society, we’ve become accustomed to the abundance of diverse messages and stories stemming from a multitude of cultures and people of varying backgrounds. However, the art scene has not always been this representative of all people. Contemporary artists such as Titus Kaphar, Kerry James Marshall, and Norman Rockwell have taken it upon themselves to proclaim the importance and presence of African Americans in history. Using purposeful art composition and meaningful symbolism, these artists address the imbalance power between African Americans and whites in regards to the lack of representation of African Americans in the history of art. By addressing this imbalance

Kerry James Marshall, an African American painter and sculptor born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama creates a stunning exhibit Mastry, exclusively exhibited in museums of two major cities: Chicago and Los Angelos. Through his large scale paintings and sculptures Marshall embodies the history and culture of African Americans to reflect on the lives and identity of African-Americans, what it means to be an African-American, and how the answers to these questions changed over time. Kerry James Marshall’s exhibit Mastry portrays nearly 80 vivid works centered around African American history from the civil rights era to the present African – American movement--history in the making. Marshall utilizes acrylic paint on panel, canvas, wood, etc with

On a frigid and blustery winter morning in early February. I and my classmates ventured out on an excursion to the Museum of Contemporary Art in the Streeterville area of Chicago. The exhibit we were to view was the Pop Art show, which intrigued me as I am a huge fan of Roy Lichtenstein work. But as strolled about the different artist collections I was drawn back to a piece by Andy Warhol entitled Jackie Frieze 1964. The sadness in her eyes were simply captivating as well as, her twinkling eyes and smile in two of the photos. There were other more famous compositions in the Warhol collection on display such as his sublime rendition of the Campbell's Soup cans. The sorrow of Jackie Kennedy's eyes kept pulling me back to her. So there I stood

Trailing behind the docent, I walked into the exhibit and looked around; immediately, I was entranced. Immense, 20-foot tall, canvases lined the museum walls. Vibrant colors and symbols surrounded me on all sides. Keith Haring and his graffiti style, with its anthropomorphic symbols, transported me into a different era. I was standing in the middle of New York City in the 1980s. The issues of this age became apparent through his pieces: crack-cocaine use, racial discrimination, gay rights, AIDS. His works simplified these complex controversies into stick-figures and bold lines yet the emotions remained fresh and intense. The black humanoid figures being strangled by white overlords in his “Free South Africa” posters evinced a hatred for racial

Art is something that can only be achieved with the manipulation of the imagination. This is successful when using objects, sounds, and words. Richard Wright and Amira Baraka brought the power of art into the limelight. Wright’s perception of art was for it to be used as a means of guidance, one that could uplift the Negro towards bigger and better goals. Baraka’s perspective of art was for it to be used as an active agent, one that could kill and then imprint society permanently. Baraka and Wright both wanted the Negro to see that there was a much brighter future ahead of them. Both wanted art to leave a stain, a stain that could not be easily erased, washed, or bleached. Both believed that Black Art had no need to be silent but instead daring.

Art critic Kobena Mercer, comments on the current position of African and Asian artists in Contemporary British Art, when he suggests that minority artists are seen and not heard. This oxymoronic position derives from a long historical legacy of European colonization and the emphasis on 'racial inferiority' and 'otherness.' On the one hand, British art is progressive, allowing some minority art in the general art world. Yet on the other hand minority art is still marginalized by the preferential treatment given to white artists. There is a strong degree of accuracy in Mercer's statement because while minority art can now be 'seen,' the 'voice' is

In The United States of America, thanks to the first amendment, activism is very much so alive in today's society as well as throughout our history. In this paper I will discuss how the public can interface physically with Ai Weiwei’s Arch as opposed to works of art in a museum. For example, in the majority of cases, museums require people to stand behind a line and simply observe a creation on display. However, Ai’s approach through the statues tangibility allows for the viewer to more easily connect to its true meaning and formulate an opinion. I will convey the significance of creativity through describing the arch, discussing its passageway, as well as analyzing the potential link to Arch’s location and the overall theme of Ai’s exhibit: refugees.