The Social Struggles of Contemporary Black Art

Classroom Activities

• Students will view and discuss slide presentations of artwork photographs. A recent district training on “Engaging in Visual Literacy” emphasized the importance of asking just two questions when eliciting student responses to artworks: First: “What do you see?” Second: “What makes you say that?” The instructor directs these questions to a series of students without evaluating the responses provided or sharing her own perspective. Students, therefore, are able to practice analytical thinking in a low-risk environment, uninfluenced by the instructors’ interpretations. Professor Ferguson employed a similar approach during our seminar meetings, and—given my own strong impulse to seek the confirmation of a “correct” answer (which Professor Ferguson admirably resisted)—I appreciated the opportunity to practice a productive method that encourages both student ownership of learning and student-led discussion.
• Students will read brief texts or view brief videos to provide context for the art/artist under discussion. Students, for example, will view an excerpt of the AfriCOBRA documentary, AfriCOBRA: Art for the People (described in the “Introduction and Rationale” above), after discussing samples of the group’s work. Students will also view an excerpt from an episode, “Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh,” of a BBC television series, The World’s Greatest Paintings, in order to provide context for Faith Ringgold’s representation of van Gogh in her The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles. The BBC’s “Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh” emphasizes van Gogh’s loneliness and isolation at Arles, which were interrupted only briefly by the artist’s anticipation of a visit from fellow-artist, Paul Gauguin: Several paintings of sunflowers were rapidly produced by van Gogh in a burst of creative power in order to decorate his guest’s bedroom. The artist’s hopes for artistic community were not realized, however, and van Gogh would die, a victim of suicide, within two years. Having students scan the titles of the 2020 series’ ten episodes will also serve to swiftly confirm the bias in institutional art: All ten paintings were produced by European men. Although the paintings were selected by the series presenter, Andrew Marr, no one at the BBC appears to have objected to the series title (“World’s”?). Students will write exit tickets in which they demonstrate their comprehension of the historical, cultural, and political contexts considered during class.
• Each week, students will have the opportunity to create an artwork inspired by the course content. Students will, for example, use Canva (a graphic-design app with free accounts for teachers), to digitally create an AfriCOBRA-style poster with images, words, and even colors chosen by them. Students will next design a collage on a topic of their choice. Whether produced virtually or using school/student-provided supplies, students will make choices about what kinds of artifacts to include, when and how to transform them, and how best to organize them into an effective composition. Finally, students will choose an advertising image (a print magazine ad, product packaging, or the digital download of an advertising image, etc.) to first analyze (see assignment below) and then creatively subvert in the manner of Thomas, Hernandez, and/or Saar. After each of the three creative assignments, students will be required to complete a Google Doc in which they will assess their creative choices and the reasons behind them—another opportunity to engage in writing and critical thinking. I will consult a colleague from my school’s art department for guidance on appropriate scaffolding for the creative assignments.
• Final Project: Virtual Art Show Curation and Presentation. I will introduce the final project by means of a class reading and discussion of a 2020 article about major museums’ invitations to urban teens to guest curate shows in order to both increase the museums’ relevance to young people and introduce those young people to museum careers.³⁴ The article is available on Newsela, and I have taught it before. Pairs of students will curate a virtual art show of 12-15 artworks (students may include up to 5 works previously discussed in class and up to 2 of either their own or a classmate’s creative projects). Students will choose the themes for their respective shows and will write Exhibition Notes to accompany class presentations of their selected images. Students will be encouraged to be creative in the sourcing of their selections but will also be provided with resources like the Digital Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago (https://www.artic.edu/archival-collections/explore-the-collection). Again, I will be consulting my colleague in the art department for scaffolding suggestions and guidance.

Ad Analysis Assignment

Note: This assignment is preceded by a lesson on Robert Scholes’s analysis of a 1988 Budweiser commercial.³⁵ Students study notes on Scholes’s argument and analysis—which are reviewed very briefly below—and view and discuss the commercial. The class then views and discusses recent print ads together, discussing the questions suggested below, before students independently write their analysis of the ad that they will later transform in an art project.

In his essay, Scholes argues that the texts of popular culture (for example, a 1988 Budweiser television commercial) are just as important—if not far more important—to contemporary cultural identity as the “great books” (of thinkers like Aeschylus and Sophocles) favored by conservative critics like William Bennett and E. D. Hirsch.³⁶ Scholes further argues that the ability to analyze cultural texts critically (as he analyzes the Budweiser commercial, uncovering its dependence on the myth of America as a land of opportunity where talent is more important to success than race or class) is essential to the resistance of potentially harmful ideologies.³⁷

1. Using your laptops, product packaging, or one of the magazines provided, please select a print advertisement to analyze in the manner that Scholes analyzes the Budweiser advertisement. The more narrative (or story) included in or implied by the images in the advertisement, the more content you will have to analyze.
2. Write a couple of paragraphs in which you describe and analyze the advertisement. It may help to consider the following:

• What is the CONTEXT of the advertisement?
  • In which magazine or on which internet site did the ad appear? (If product packaging, where did you purchase the product? Who consumes it, and why?) What assumptions can you make about the readers of the magazine or visitors to the site? What, for example, is the subject of the magazine/site? Who is interested in this subject? What product or service is being advertised? Who would want that product or service? Why?
• What images are used to influence you, the viewer?
  • Describe any manipulation you perceive. Did you find yourself persuaded or were you able to resist what Scholes describes as the “pleasure of the text”?
• What—if anything—other than the product is being sold?
  • Remember Scholes’s argument that the Budweiser advertisement sells not only beer but the myth of America as a meritocracy and “land of the free.”
• You may also find it helpful to consider the Center for Media Literacy’s “5 Key Questions of Media Literacy”:
  • Who created this message? 
  • What creative techniques are used to attract my attention?
  • How might different people understand this message differently? 
  • What values, lifestyles and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message? 
  • Why is this message being communicated? (What does the advertiser want you to do?)