African American Art in a Post-Black Era

The term “post-black art” was invented in the late 1990's by Thelma Golden, curator and executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem and Glenn Ligon, an African American artist. This paper examines the origins of the term, its definition and the extent to which the phrase challenges cultural practices that adversely impact artists of color and women. A discussion of the works of two African American artists who worked in the early part of the 20th century provides historical perspective on the origins of damaging cultural practices which prevailed for many decades. Though the civil rights movement instigated real change, the era unwittingly played a role in introducing cultural policies and practices that continued to limit the way in which the work of women and artists of color was presented and interpreted to the public. The paper concludes by observing the work of individual artists who circumvented those limiting cultural policies and practices and who in their imaginatively inventive ways of engaging the public were the precursors to the current "post-black" point of view.