Black

Thornton Dial, a self-taught artist whose paintings and assemblages fashioned from scavenged materials told the story of black struggle in the South and found their way to the permanent collections of major museums, died on Monday at his home in McCalla, Ala. He was 87. His death was confirmed by family members. Mr. Dial, the illiterate son of an unwed teenage mother, spent much of his childhood in rural poverty in western Alabama and, after moving to Bessemer, an industrial suburb of Birmingham, labored at a wide variety of occupations, all the while making works from castoff materials that he came to think of as art only when he was in his 50s. In 1987, Lonnie Holley, a self-taught artist living in Birmingham, showed William Arnett, an Atlanta collector interested in Southern folk art, one of Mr. Dial’s decorated fish lures. The two men went to see Mr. Dial, who, once he realized what Mr. Arnett was looking for, pulled a painted, welded-steel sculpture topped by a stylized … [Read more...] about Thornton Dial, Outsider Artist Whose Work Told of Black Life, Dies at 87

Bill Arnett had spent two decades collecting and dealing antiquities from around the world — African art was his passion — when, in 1986, he had an epiphany in Birmingham, Ala. There, the artist Lonnie Holley assembled sculptures from salvaged junk, and on his first visit, Mr. Arnett bought one — a statement about racism made from a mannequin and chains. It inspired him more than anything he had seen in Europe, Africa or Asia ever had. “Nothing has been the same since,” Mr. Arnett told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1993. “I had to go out and tell the world that there’s this forgotten civilization doing this great work.” To Mr. Arnett, Mr. Holley’s work — and that of other Black painters, sculptors and quilters he would soon encounter, most of them poor — was as distinguished as that of acclaimed white artists like Willem de Kooning , Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. He became their fan, promoter and patron, paid at least 20 of them stipends of $200 to … [Read more...] about Bill Arnett, Collector and Promoter of Little-Known Black Art, Dies at 81

“I suppose neither of us is used to the spotlight,” a dapper T’Challa, the prince of Wakanda, says upon meeting Natasha Romanova, a.k.a. the Black Widow, in “Captain America: Civil War.” A few scenes later, a recently orphaned and vengeful T’Challa, swapping his bespoke blue suit for a full-body bulletproof one, reappears as a new Marvel movie superhero. The prince will have to live with the attention: Even before its Feb. 16 release, “ Black Panther ” smashed box-office records , beating out “Captain America: Civil War” on first-day advance ticket sales and surpassing “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” to become Fandango’s top-selling superhero movie in history. Perhaps even more impressive, the film is also outpacing its cinematic counterparts in cultural reach. “I’ve been waiting all of my life for ‘Black Panther,’” said DJ BenHaMeen, host of FanBrosShow , a weekly podcast on “urban geek” culture. “That said, I know where I was, the exact street in Houston and the exact … [Read more...] about ‘Black Panther’ Brings Hope, Hype and Pride

In Wakanda, the techno-brilliant African nation of the Marvel film “Black Panther,” black warrior women don’t wear wigs. Compelled to conceal her shaved head to carry off an undercover mission, General Okoye, played by Danai Gurira, calls her flowing wig “a disgrace” and discards it the instant she draws her spear to battle the bad guys. The general and her royal guard of female combatants, the Dora Milaje warriors, are among a cast of characters graced with gorgeous natural hairstyles that imbue this film with the visual power of holistic black beauty. The movie weds a Black Nationalist aesthetic to an ethos of global kinship. It projects a resilience that captures the mood of our present moment. Despite and perhaps because of a surge in white supremacist language in the United States, a wave of black cultural resistance is flooding the arts as well as the streets. And with it, black hair in its natural state of sublime uprightness has returned as a symbol of political … [Read more...] about Black Hair’s Blockbuster Moment

The BBC has run a segment claiming online reaction GIFs showing black people constitute “digital blackface” and “white people” using “dark-skinned emojis” are guilty of a “form of cultural appropriation”. The online clip , presented by writer and Guardian contributor Victoria Princewill, begins with a “trigger warning”, in case viewers find historical footage of minstrel shows “offensive”. Ms. Princewill claims the “most popular” reaction GIFs are “black people being dramatic”. “This, is digital black face,” she declares, before comparing the GIFs to the explicit racism of past decades and claiming the tiny images used to communicate in text messages and on social media are the “21st-century version of that”. Next, the presenter tackles “white people using dark-skinned emojis” – a “form of cultural appropriation”. Michael Jackson eating popcorn, a popular reaction image picked out by the video As she describes what “cultural appropriation” is for uninitiated – … [Read more...] about BBC: Black Emojis and GIFs Are ‘Digital Black Face’

Antwaun Sargent sat nursing a Negroni at Frankies Spuntino, his haunt in Brooklyn, as he described the perks of his multilayered career. “I had dinner with Madonna,” he said on a recent Friday. “Coming of age as a gay man in Chicago in the ’90s, you can imagine, I was excited. I was obsessed with her.” But within moments of their encounter last year, Mr. Sargent hit earth. Pulling out her iPhone, his erstwhile idol proceeded to show him artworks by Rocco Ritchie, her 21-year-old son with the filmmaker Guy Ritchie, regaling him for nearly an hour about her hopes for the boy. “That made things real,” Mr. Sargent said. “Here was Madonna — a legend, an icon — asking for guidance, just being mom.” It seems the pop diva had known where to turn. Mr. Sargent, 33, a former kindergarten teacher turned artist and curator and vociferous champion of Black artists, had been appointed in January 2021 as a director at Gagosian, the blue-chip mega-gallery, with a mandate to make waves. … [Read more...] about Art, Darling