Art in the Age of Black Power

Catalog description

Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, Black Power grew into an expansive and heterogeneous set of ideologies that cohered around the struggle for Black political, economic, and cultural self-determination and the creation of Black community infrastructure and mutual support. Focusing on art produced within the climate of Black Power, this course examines the range of strategies taken up by Black artists during these decades alongside debates around “Black Art” and what it meant to be a Black artist at the time. It will consider activism that agitated for the display of Black artist’s work and the hire of Black curatorial staff at established institutions, the creation of Black-run collectives, museums, and galleries, as well as the production and circulation of art outside institutional spaces in the streets and in print. Special attention will be paid to work and activism by Black women artists, as well as to the movement’s international dimensions and its intersections with contemporary liberation struggles in the United States, such as the Chicano Movement.