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Queering post-black art : artists transforming African-American identity after civil rights / Derek Conrad Murray.

By: Series: International library of modern and contemporary art. 30 Publisher: London : I.B. Tauris, 2016Description: (xi, 236 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (black and white) ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
  • still image
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781784532871
Subject(s):
Contents:
Looking for Ligon: towards an aesthetic theory of Blackness -- Kehinde Wiley's Black utopia: racial fetishism and the queering of masculinity -- Loving aberrance: Mickalene Thomas and the queering of Black female desire -- We're all Kalup's churen.
Summary: What impact do sexual politics and queer identities have on the understanding of 'blackness' as a set of visual, cultural and intellectual concerns? In Queering Post-Black Art, Derek Conrad Murray argues that the rise of female, gay and lesbian artists as legitimate African-American creative voices is essential to the development of black art. He considers iconic works by artists including Glenn Ligon, Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas and Kalup Linzy, which question whether it is possible for blackness to evade its ideologically overdetermined cultural legibility. In their own unique, often satirical way, a new generation of contemporary African American artists represent the ever-evolving sexual and gender politics that have come to define the highly controversial notion of 'post-black' art. First coined in 2001, the term 'post-black' resonated because it articulated the frustrations of young African-American artists around notions of identity and belonging that they perceived to be stifling, reductive and exclusionary. Since then, these artists have begun to conceive an idea of blackness that is beyond marginalization and sexual discrimination.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-224) and index.

Looking for Ligon: towards an aesthetic theory of Blackness -- Kehinde Wiley's Black utopia: racial fetishism and the queering of masculinity -- Loving aberrance: Mickalene Thomas and the queering of Black female desire -- We're all Kalup's churen.

What impact do sexual politics and queer identities have on the understanding of 'blackness' as a set of visual, cultural and intellectual concerns? In Queering Post-Black Art, Derek Conrad Murray argues that the rise of female, gay and lesbian artists as legitimate African-American creative voices is essential to the development of black art. He considers iconic works by artists including Glenn Ligon, Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas and Kalup Linzy, which question whether it is possible for blackness to evade its ideologically overdetermined cultural legibility. In their own unique, often satirical way, a new generation of contemporary African American artists represent the ever-evolving sexual and gender politics that have come to define the highly controversial notion of 'post-black' art. First coined in 2001, the term 'post-black' resonated because it articulated the frustrations of young African-American artists around notions of identity and belonging that they perceived to be stifling, reductive and exclusionary. Since then, these artists have begun to conceive an idea of blackness that is beyond marginalization and sexual discrimination.