There are countless examples of the ways that Black creativity in America has literally changed the world — from jazz, rock, and hip-hop, to soul food, to literature, to the power of a picture. The power of this creativity, of this uniquely Black point of view can, of course, be seen today and Denise Rogers has plenty of contemporary art examples to share in her lecture on “Breaking the Boundaries: The Transformative Power of African Art.”
“This…was something that I sat back and thought about for a few months. I was looking for artists who were, especially after 2020 and George Floyd, there was a lot of attention and energy on African American art and artists,” she says. “So, I was introduced to a lot of artists who were trying to get some attention. Now, it’s like, ‘OK, what has happened since then?’ The art world has transformed, so I wanted to look at how artists have transformed and redefined art, specifically African American art. How they were influenced by prior Black artists, specifically with the issues that we deal with in the U.S.”
The list was tough for her to narrow down, but she’ll discuss the ways that selected Black artists explore with ideas of identity, culture, social transformation. They’re creating installations that transform traditional ideas of a neighborhood barbershop and its unsafe masculinity, into one that would be welcoming to a young, queer boy. Or, artists who acknowledge the history of the Middle age and slavery, and also create Afrofuturist art with visions of a world beyond the tragedy and strife we’ve always known.
Rogers, who will speak at 10 a.m. Friday at the Museum of Photographic Art at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park, is a professor of art history at San Diego Mesa College and currently serves as acting dean of the school’s School of Arts and Languages. She took some time to talk about some of the contemporary Black artists are breaking boundaries and continuing the tradition of transformation their ancestors left them. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity. )
Q: Who are the artists you’re planning to talk about and how did you go about selecting them for this discussion?
A: There’s one, her name is Alisa Sikelianos-Carter and she’s based out of New York. There’s a theme of Afrofuturism that I’m really interested in. There’s the pressure to address issues facing the Black community and issues of identity, within the community — police brutality and injustice. Some of them want to address it, but they also want to see a pathway beyond, a future where there’s a world where that doesn’t exist any longer. How do we survive it, but how do we sur it? That’s the challenge for a lot of the artists, so she is an artist who creates these worlds where there’s this emphasis on Black resistance, but there’s also this world where those issues don’t exist any longer. She creates them where it’s her materials mixed with realism and mythologies and abstraction. She goes back to the Middle age and slavery, but then she brings it up to the present day. Then, she looks to the future and you go into these abstract spaces where nothing makes sense because we’re so inundated with tragedy that sometimes we can’t see beyond it. She’s able to create these spaces where we can see beyond it. It’s just, there are so many layers to it, but you can relate to it because, with the Black community and the experiences of many people, it gives you the pathway to escape. Those are her words. She says she gives you the pathway to escape beyond the tragedy. There’s also Black hair, Black beauty, Black glamour, she mixes all of this in. That’s one of the reasons I chose her, because of the complexity of her work.
There’s another artist, Devan Shimoyama. He’s a queer artist, multimedia artist, and I chose him because one of my favorite works of his is his barbershop installation, which was just exhibited last year in Europe. He talks about how, growing up, he knew he was gay, but the barbershop was this place of masculinity. Within the Black community, you know, we’ve seen all of the movies, “Barbershop”; he felt that pressure to fit in, but then not feeling like he fit in. Then, for him, that became the center of his work and the way it was transformative is that centers his work, but he wasn’t afraid to express it because it was who he was. He celebrates the barbershop. His installation is the barbershop and it includes elements, materials that he connects with — there are sequins, there’s glitter, there are garments, drag queens. So, in some communities, that would be a contradiction, but for him, it makes sense. He transformed that space, which, for him, reflected his own identity and that’s how he felt he could then engage with that space. When I saw it, I’m like, ‘This is beautiful.’ Then, he brings in his grandmother and wood ing and silk flowers. Some of us grew up with the silk flowers in the entryway that collected dust (laughs). It’s just all of that history that informed his identity, and then he said, ‘I’m going to express who I am in a way that feels comfortable and empowering’ and then in a space that’s an installation. He used real barbershop chairs and they’re like this vibrant, pink color, they’re not the standard brown, they are bright, bright pink. People who come to it visit a barbershop that has been transformed.
Q: What is it about their work, their voice, that stands out to you in a way that compelled you to look at their art in depth in this way?
A: You have artists who follow, I hate to use the words “traditional path” because there’s nothing traditional about Black artists, but our artists are breaking with where you think art is going and they challenge norms, they break through boundaries, or just saying something that takes you in another direction where you think art is not going to go. There are elements, like Devan’s work, that reminds me of Mickalene Thomas with her dazzle and glitter and so on, but it’s different. Then, the artist Alisa Sikelianos-Carter, her work and going back to the Middle age and all of the materials, her work is similar to a local artist, Andrea Chung, who lives here in San Diego. There are similarities among artists, but they all have this unique ability to create a different narrative with their work. I share this with my students, that if you also look at yourself differently, that’s another source for someone like LaRissa Rogers (no relation), her work was introduced to me by a student. I had never heard of her, but she describes herself as an Afro-Asian artist and the student was an Asian student and she found this artist. The class was an African American art class and she wanted to connect with her own heritage, but you had to study African American artists because it’s underrepresented in this field. When she showed me her work and the way the student was able to connect across cultures, across ethnicities, across identities, and the way that she saw the intersection of culture, identity, colonization, and the way that the African American experience resonated with her more because of this artist, the class meant more to her. Then, the artist’s work, the material that she did, she talked about the commodification of female bodies, how female bodies are subjected to this, especially when you’re thinking of human trafficking and so on. She found authentic ways of representing not only African women, Asian women, but Afro-Asian women and the way we’re represented in media, the misrepresentation of bodies comes up. She does this with materials that represent Earth and memory; LaRissa Rogers takes this back in time and she traces it back through the U.S. and how female bodies are objectified, whether it’s a pathway back through Asian American history or African American history, she traces it back and then she connects. So, this student who found this artist, she was so excited and I’m like, “Oh my God, this is amazing” and I wanted to incorporate this artist into my classes moving forward.
Q: When you think about art that carries this transformative power, in general, what do you tend to look for or notice? And what is it, specifically, about African American art that you experience as transformative?
A: I think it’s because there’s a sense of defiance because, I was talking about this with a class last week, going all the way back to the period of slavery and how cultural practices were denied and how people, families were split, and even names and language, all of that was denied. When you bring people together, there’s a sense of empowerment, and when people are given a voice, there’s a sense of empowerment. People in positions of power know that and when they deny people access to culture, they know that that will disempower them. So, the reason why African American art, Black art, is so powerful and so transformative is because when artists have access to all of these materials across genres-whether it’s music, like we were just talking about Kendrick (Lamar) and the Super Bowl halftime show-all of that coming together, that creativity, whether it’s music or food, a mixture of materials, it’s so transformative because people have to find the right words because there are no words to express how society, communities, are transformed. They can then see how powerful the Black voice is and Black creativity is. That’s why, going back in time, those cultures were denied, they were suppressed, because they understood how powerful they were. If you allow Black people to come together, the Black community can shift the whole world. We see, even now, why are they going after DEI? Why are they going after the word “black”? Why is the Black community being criticized for not going out and protesting? They know that if the Black community comes together in protest, the world is going to be transformed. If you look back to all of the protests that have happened-Black Lives Matter, Martin Luther King, Marcus Garvey-they know, that’s why it’s so transformative because it’s the power of Black creativity and the Black voice.
Q: While we’re still very early in this current political istration, there has already been so much upheaval, particularly with programs and policies tied to social issues like race, gender, immigration, and health care. Can you talk a bit about what we’ve seen, historically, within African American art and how creators have addressed similar tensions?
A: We can go back to the late 19th century with an artist by the name of Henry Ossawa Tanner and the stereotypical images within art that were meant to oppress and suppress Black people-degrading, demeaning images. He used his art to create positive images of the Black family. Then, Frederick Douglass, again, in the late 19th century, the most photographed Black man during that time period and he did that intentionally because he wanted to combat those types of images. Artists from that point forward, in the different genres of art, they understood their charge to use their craft for social justice. There are periods where artists felt that, ‘This is not my role, I just want to be an artist. I don’t want to be a Black artist’ or for women, ‘I don’t want to be a Black woman artist.’ But, for many artists, they felt that using their craft, their skill, their talent as an artist could transform the world because they knew how powerful it was, especially the visual image people were seeing that countered the propaganda that was coming out from the government or ments. Using their craft to create a counternarrative to those images was very powerful and it started centuries ago and it continues today. What artists are doing today is they are creating images that use a variety of materials and textures. Then, they’re creating these Afrofuturist images that are supposed to take us beyond: what does the future look like? When do we get beyond? We thought, with (President Barack) Obama, there was a chance to get beyond, and then we got pulled right back to where now it feels like we have to start over. So, I’m seeing with a lot of artists, they feel like the fight is starting over. I’m seeing them have to challenge the policies that are coming out. Some of this happened in 2020 with George Floyd, they have to challenge police brutality, they have to challenge policies that are coming out in education and government, just make a list. With their images, they are effective. We don’t think art is effective, but the images are effective.
Q: Are there pieces by any of the artists in your lecture that resonate with you in the way that depict identity, culture, or transformation?
A: Stan Squirewell is an artist who creates these multimedia images. He uses old photographs, like old daguerreotypes. I’m not sure if this came about because of the new istration, but he incorporates the flag. These old photographs are people whose names he doesn’t know, but they are of African American people from the 19th century. He creates them in this collage form and the flag is incorporated onto their image. It reminds me of the Super Bowl performance and this whole history of the lack of acknowledgement of the contributions of Black people in the country, and how he has the flag incorporated there, but also the injustices on Black bodies, as well. He’s recognizing those injustices, but at the same time, by representing them, he’s acknowledging their contributions to the country and how Black people have built the country. Then, he takes another direction where he takes the old photographs and he transforms them into these colorful images where he dresses them and he uses fabric and he paints them. He places fabric onto them, he names them. There’s a video where he says they chose him, rather than him choosing the photographs. He says they have given him permission to give them this new life in the 20th century because they were forgotten in the past. Rather than being these forgotten images of the past, they are these lively, colorful images in the present; they’re beautiful. He’s an artist where his images are so striking because of the images with the flag and the contrast, the juxtaposition of justice and injustice, but then the way he brings to life these forgotten images.
Q: How would you describe the kinds of boundaries African American art has broken and continues to break?
A: Well, being an art historian and focusing on African American art, is a boundary in and of itself (laughs). I think being a Black artist, for Black artists, in an industry where most people don’t see Black art as being art. Even today, having to fight to be represented in magazines and museums, galleries, the price gap for Black art. (Jean-Michel) Basquiat has broken through; unfortunately, he’s not here to see that, but some artists are still struggling. They’re extremely talented artists who are still struggling to get recognition. With 2020 and George Floyd, like I said earlier, out of a tragedy you had this recognition of Black artists and they were receiving so much attention. Galleries, museums, magazines that I subscribe to, you started to see Black artists being featured on the cover and in articles and exhibitions. Then, I thought, ‘OK, how long is this going to last? Please let this last.’ Unfortunately, it didn’t, but it didn’t go back to the way it was before. You’re still seeing the representation that Black art has, I hate to use the word “survived,” but you see younger people starting to recognize this as an avenue of creativity, visual art (in addition to music, literature, poetry). It came out of tragedy, but they have broken down those barriers. It was almost like the early (19)20s again, this energy for the arts, but it was unfortunate how it had to happen.
