Cultural Marxism and AfricanAmericans

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Cultural Marxism and African-Americans

• Carla Aaron-Lopez
• Lecture Cont. Issues in Photo
• 15 April 09 (paid your taxes?)

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Marxism and Cultural Marxism (short intro)

• Started by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels in 1848
  (Communist Manifesto).
• Marx influenced Louis Althusser, art critic
  believes you can imply Marxist thought to
  cultural production.
• - defines Marxism as cultural theory for art.
• Says politics doesnt matter ? believes Marx was
  radical to the study of knowledge (epistemology).
• Thinks Marx is best at what he implies through
  his system.
• You can imply any system without knowing the
  system first (in relation to people (art)).
• Believes to first ANALYZE the system, then
  analyze how the system effects the person (art).

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Cultural Marxism (as tool for analysis)

• 1 Analyze the mode of production
• 2 Analyze the mode of interpretation
• 3 Analyze the reception of cultural artifacts
• All help to learn the system.
• From evaluating Cultural Marxism, one is able to
  create their own tools for analysis Feminism,
  African American Cultural Marxism, Orientalism
  and Globalization.
• Todays focus African-Americans in contemporary
  art, our communication and how we view/analyze
  art work.

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African American Cultural Marxism

• Created by analyzing postmodernism and Marxism
  for interpreting the African-American experience.
  
• Offers a threat to normalcy (as defined by
  mainstream authority).
• - Defined through these questions
• Where is the clash?
• Analyze the structure (see Marxism tool kit here)
• How is it providing agency?
• Are you providing victimology?

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Talking head examples (cont. in last slide)

• bell hooks name Gloria Jean Watkins
• - believes in de-centering the author. Wants to
  move past divisions in image production. Believes
  site of conflict is the media. Builds agency by
  building a new structure let the old structure
  crumble.
• Dr. Cornel West African American philosopher,
  cultural critic and pastor that believes in
  Nietzsche, religion and new cultural politics of
  difference.
• - defies victimology produced by African
  American drama. Instead of pushing the issues ?
  should be finding ways to solve our racial
  issues.
• Thelma Golden director of Studio Museum in
  Harlem
• - defines whiteness in American culture
  (whiteness cultural, historical, sociological
  aspects of whiteness and construction of
  whiteness). Breakthrough show was Freestyle in
  2001. Showcased Black artists that are redefining
  blackness.

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In our glory Photography and black life by bell
hooks

• Cultural criticism photography and its
  importance on black culture. Helps with social
  construction connection with black identity,
  race vs. class and providing vocabulary for black
  life.
• The photograph provided a connection between past
  and present.
• How we see ourselves the camera has provided
  black folks with an ability to create their own
  countercultures that are different than those of
  mainstream concerns. The struggle no longer has a
  voice but images as well.
• The photograph provides evidence of different
  styles of black culture.
• However, racial integration has placed black life
  in a form of crisis. Those that oppose the
  integration (from the inside) and those that
  agree for racial equality by ignoring history ?
  how the pica-ninny evolved into the rap star.
• Racial identity is constructed through the
  photograph. It captures everything from everyday
  life to the controversial black other. There is
  no need for the mask at this point.
• Leaves the question what does it mean to be
  post-Black? See artists for examples.

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Jamel Shabazz in relation to hooks essay Black
is celebrated as a movement, style, culture. The
photograph provided strength in building images
that describe black life from the Harlem
Renaissance to the birth of hip-hop in the early
1980s. These images are the basis for describing
and understanding blackness as a cultural
criticism. Blackness in reference to the
construction of American Blacks since
Reconstruction (to the Civil Rights era).
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Artists examples
Hank Willis Thomas How to Market Kitty Litter to
Black People Ebony Magazine 2005/2006
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Are you the right kind of woman for it? 1974/2007
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Something to Believe in 1984/2007
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Carla Aaron-Lopez Friday and the stabbed chicken,
2007
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Scholars at Darryls installation, 2008
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Allen Cooley, excerpt from series Normal
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Allen Cooley, excerpt from series Normal
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• The crisis of the Negro intellectual (circa
  2000s)
• Establishing the post-black narrative.
• Habitual racist line steppers and the academic
  institution.
• Being a postmodern skeptic ? losing faith in your
  own race/ethnicity (abandoning history because of
  racial self-hatred).
• The uprising of the Negro intellectual (circa
  2000s)
• Visual artists that are taking back what it means
  to be black and how weve evolved as a group of
  people.
• Referencing histories (collaborating with old/new
  ideals) as a part of artwork.
• Continuing to create an intelligentsia of all
  things relative to blackness and understand the
  historical context of whiteness ? how it effects
  the psychological frame of minorities.

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Rashid Johnson, Self-portrait as the Professor of
Astronomy, Miscengenation and Critical Theory at
The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club
Center for Graduate Studies, 2008
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Self-portrait in homage to Barkley Hendricks, 2005
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• Barkley Hendricks painting as a reference for
  post-Black artist, Rashid Johnson.
• Typology as a start for diversity amongst black
  folks. Showcasing things from the taboo nature of
  black sexuality to occupation (similar to August
  Sander photographing Germany pre-WW2).
• Hendricks explored male sexuality.

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Xaviera Simmons Make the Fist, 2004
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One Day and Back Then (Seated), 2007
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Kehinde Wiley Triple Portrait of Charles I, 2007
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Sleep, 2008
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Mickalene Thomas Afro Goddess with Hand Between
Legs, 2006
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Lovely Six Foota, 2007
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Fahamu Pecou, Magazine Covers series, circa 2000s.
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Other artists exploring Blackness through
theory Jefferson Pinder, installation
artist Nadine Robinson, installation
artist Otabenga Associates, cultural
rebels Allen Cooley, photographer Fahamu Pecou,
painter Ed Garnes, writer and activist Sugar
Johnson, writer and activist Charles Mills,
philosopher Toni Morrison, writer and co-creator
of Whiteness Studies Glenn Ligon, painter Kalup
Linzy, video artist Michael Eric Dyson,
philosopher For further reading, visit
www.whoiscarla.com and click on WRITINGS.