Back to Black: The Black Arts Movement - The Phrenologers Window by Betye Saar, 1966 [tC7feSoL8Q6]
The Phrenologer's Window, 1966, Betye Saar Assemblage of two-panel wood frame with print and collage. Today, I'm featuring an artist included in a book from my art book collection that I'm re-reading in light of the Black Lives Matter Movement: The Book: (Checked again after making the video and it is available online) Back to Black: The Black Arts Movement Art, Cinema & the Racial Imaginary 2005 was first conceived by Curators Richard J. Powell, David A. Bailey, who were later joined by Petrine Archer-Straw. The Prenologer's Window: 'As America witnessed the rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, artists including Noah Purifoy and Betye Saar turned to assemblage and collage as powerful expressions of African American experience. Saar's assemblage and collage constructions merge personal and family history with broader themes of cultural and political segregation. In the Phrenologer's Window, Saar pasted eclectic objects and imagery - sun and moon symbols, fragments of advertising, vintage photographs, the lid of a tin can - inside a found wooden window frame. The work alludes to the outdated pseudoscience of phrenology, which raised questions about an individual based on the measurements of the head.' - excerpt from Pacific Standard Time - On view at the Getty Centre under 'Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture' 1950-1970 Excerpt from the Book's Preface: 'Back to Black: Art, Cinema and the Racial Imaginary focuses on the rise of the Black Arts Movement in the US, Britain and Jamaica in the 1960s and 1970s, bringing together over forty artists whose work defined the emergence of a radical and powerful aesthetic. Their work testifies to a complex and widespread range of influences, breathtaking in their geographic, temporal and cultural sweep. African symbols and traditions blend with images of contemporary life; the symbols of radical, militant activism with an imagined Afrofuturism. Played out across the broad cultural spectrum to encompass the visual arts, film, music and fashion, their work reveals a common visual language shared among artists across the Black Atlantic, and profoundly influential to subsequent generations. Back to Black was part of Africa 2005, a year-long celebration of contemporary and past cultures from across the continent and the Diaspora which embraced the diversity of arts, heritage and audience. It also marked the first collaboration between the Whitechapel and The New Art Gallery Walsall, and the second with Rich Mix, London, who have worked with Lo-Recordings and Non-Format to create an album of rare music from the period in response to the exhibition.' Nicole Moore Visual Artist Thank you for watching. Bye for now. Do Subscribe, Like & Share. FOLLOW ME: Instagram: Twitter: #betyesaar #blackartsmovement #africanamericanart