IS there such a thing as black art? Museums and gallery owners across the country seem to think so, and are rushing to mount shows. But as in other such efforts, earnest, liberal Whitey does not seem to have got it just right.
Some angry young black artists consciously paint black. Others of the generation that came of artistic age during the time of the new black militancy are painting and sculpting in styles ranging from expressionist to minimal, and they resist being classified racially. All these artists generally resent white sponsorship, even while recognizing that they have to deal with the white Establishment. As black men, they must approve the new recognition won by black artists. But as artists, they dislike the white man's current celebration of them merely because they are black. As one artist put it: "The black artist is a man, baby, not some kind of plastic superman you can make tap dance to Whitey's tune." Said another scornfully: "If they want black art, just take a canvas, paint it black, call it Nigger Number One, and they'll eat it up."
Young and Angry. The youngest and angriest care neither about what Whitey thinks nor about what they call the "white man's aesthetic." Their sole interest is to create a black art to which the black community can respond.
A good example is Boston's Dana Chandler Jr., a product of the tough Roxbury ghetto. At 28 he is a painter whom few in Boston can ignore, since his huge, bright Black Power murals glare from the sides of buildings that people pass by every day. Chandler's avowed intent is to "create a black museum in the inner city." His scorn for the white art world is complete. "Frank Stella? So much crap! It's decorative and costs lots of money and doesn't say anything. Earthworks? What the hell does it mean to black people if you get bulldozers and dig holes in the ground? All this stuff whites are buying tells the black man a lot about where the white community is at, namely, nowhere." His easel works are as bold and simple as his walls. In The Golden Prison, he shows a black man behind bars beneath a flag with yellow and red stripes. "Why yellow? That's because America has been yellow and cowardly in dealing with the black man." In Freddie Hampton's Door, a rendition of the Panther leader's bullet-splintered door bears a stamp of U.S. Government approval.
Into the Street. Some 20 other muralists, with encouragement and materials supplied by the city of Boston, have splashed their pride and sometimes anger on public walls. They are not subtle, nor are they meant to be. Among the most skilled is Charles Milles' mural painted on a handball wall in Orchard Park, in the primarily black Roxbury neighborhood. It proudly depicts black aspirations in dance, theater and music—and brings a spot of color to an otherwise dismal plavground.