An Exploration of Black Narrative
Abstract
Utilizing an assignment given by an Art Education course in The Ohio State University’s Arts Administration, Education, and Policy graduate program, this essay examines the article, “Black Geospatial Inquiry and Aesthetic Praxis: Toward a Theory and Method” by dr. gloria j. wilson. This paper analyzes how the author investigates Black narrative through the work of abstract artist Torkwase Dyson and feminist scholar Christina Sharpe. In addition, the exploration of this investigation is accompanied by my additional examination of other artists like Glenn Ligon and Ayana V. Jackson, as they use creative expression to give voice to what the Black narrative is and can be. As artwork and theory interact, this paper studies how each embodiment converges at a similar point: moving the Black narrative beyond suffering alone and forward to practices and existences of liberation.
Recounting history while moving beyond limited post-enslavement existences meets Black freedom and artistic expression in “Black Geospatial Inquiry and Aesthetic Praxis: Toward a Theory and Method” by dr. gloria j. wilson. In advancing Black study, the author takes the “thinking and theorizing” of Black livingness, its “inherent fugitivity,” and locates meaning in a time after chattel enslavement. In doing this, the foundation of this pursuit is the liberation strategies of both Black compositional thought and wake work. In observing both, she then questions what existence looks like for the Black body after going through a traumatic racial violence. In addition, wilson folds in the artistic expression of Torkwase Dyson and theories of Christina Sharpe, informing these concepts and enlightening how Black creativity and thought are “tools for refusing ‘death’ and offer possibilities for living” (wilson, 2023).
I believe the author explains these concepts by making liberation and artistic illumination key. Liberation is initially pronounced as wilson sets the scene for how we, the reader, are even to approach Black centered perspectives. One cannot brazenly enter into this space without first knowing how to show up for Blackness. How powerful—as I believe Black people have often been expected to show up—to serve and be grateful for whatever we receive. By doing so, the author equips the audience with a lens of tenderness. As we enter into the complexities of Black story, she unpacks Black centeredness as a refusal “of Eurocentric and Euroadjacent panopticism (voyeurism), which states blackness as simply an object to be observed and studied” (wilson, 2023). This is the making of a space that discusses Blackness “as is” and “independent of” rather than only “in relation to.” When I recall my past history lessons, I can only remember seeing myself reflected as a small and restricted part of history. This minor part only allowed Blackness to be present in terms of the bondage and captivity of slavery, and the breath of fresh air by way of one or two civil rights leaders. Blackness was always within the context of struggle, relegating and limiting a recount of history that only establishes another kind of enslavement over again. By rejecting objectivity and meaning making only by way of Eurocentricity, Blackness can experience the attention, care, and freedom it deserves. Further, this removal of Eurocentric reliance requires a more adequate replacement. Letting Blackness stand independently means not only removing master narrative dependency, but replacing it with new, freeing language. A rearticulation is described in the success of Blackness’s freedom and Black study for the arts in general. wilson highlights the need for “a rearticulation of authority, power, agency and knowledge production and representation to grapple with the indefinable range of Blackness” (wilson, 2023).
Liberation takes shape through artistic illumination in the work of Torkwase Dyson. In all honesty, before being introduced to Dyson’s work, the world of abstraction hadn’t meant much to me. Shapes didn’t seem to communicate the story or reach me as I walked through museums and galleries. Representational art had a wider vocabulary of what the artist wanted me to know and reflected the Black body directly in ways I enjoyed. Although, referencing back to the indefinable quality of Blackness, the style of abstraction makes sense as to how it can encompass such multidimensionality and range while steadily communicating narrative. The author calls attention to Torkwase Dyson and her emphasis of narrative through her new language of liberation called “grammar of abstraction.” Speaking volumes through what is described as Black compositional thought, Black people are recognized as engaging in self-liberation strategies “made for themselves through critical thought and spatial navigation of their environments.” In sculpting black structures, what is revealed is “Black self-emancipation.” This is utilized in works like Dyson’s Unkeeping (Garret Series), 2016, as an example of the state of freeing oneself. The story of Harriet Jacobs’s escape from enslavement is brought from 1861 to the forefront of our present. Her escape to freedom entailed a decade of hiding in the sloping roof garret of a slaver. By honing in on her specific story, wilson shows how Dyson preserved the unique experience of the Black individuals that endured these tragedies. There is immense power in pulling a distinct name from the past so as to not gloss over the many, making it one cursory encounter. In doing so, Dyson centers Jacobs’s Black perspective. Conveyed through the shape of a matte-black-covered rectangle, the pieces of the roof reflect Jacobs’s place of safety, her place of cover and hope for her liberation. Through the reminiscent shape, defining place, and the decisive use of deep black, Dyson portrays the otherworldly nature of Harriet Jacobs. Combining color and shape, Dyson traverses time and space to encompass the breadth of captivity, freedom, endurance, and the foresight of Black hope.
This tool in the refusal of death and promotion of Black life is important in the imagining of a post-enslavement society. I have seen the same utilization of creativity when looking at the work of Glenn Ligon. While exploring American history, literature, and society, Ligon makes legacies of modern painting and conceptual art. Commonly known for his black and white text-based paintings, he is motivated by the work of cultural figures. Pieces like Untitled (I am an invisible man), 1991, addresses the novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Not quite representational but also not completely abstract, Glenn Ligon’s use of the selected text emphasizes the Black body’s invisibility due to the dominant culture’s refusal to see the main character. Mirroring the truth made known by Ellison, Ligon uses an oil stick to layer a gradient over the text. As viewers begin to read, the difficulty in deciphering Ellison’s words increases.
Invisibility is paired with illegibility as the viewer moves down the length of the page, the only word “not” the only clearly visible word at the bottom of the paragraph. The relief of the singular word is the light of hope in the surrounding darkness. “Not” is the daring counter to being made unseen, a term that is “clearly visible, responding to the words of the title and this insisting on visibility and respect” (Moma, 2022). In choosing this particular story, Ligon centers the Black narrative of Ralph Ellison’s main character and his experience of society refusing to acknowledge and see him. “Not” is the tool of refusal that also brings life to the Black story.
wilson pairs artistic illumination with the wake theory of Christina Sharpe. Described in four parts, the wake includes themes of homegoing after life, a continued search of humanization and the consequences of racism. Sharpe also likens life and death to the pathway of the back of a ship's engine. Wake theory uses these themes to “position blackness in the overallness, the everywhere, the anywhere of antiblackness” (wilson, 2023). I believe this was a necessary framework to include in the author’s process of answering the questions of what existence and meaning there is for Black people after chattel enslavement. Moving from post-captivity to existence in a world stained by the slave trade, this theory confronts questions of what engagement in freedom and life looks like while in environments affected by and operating in antiblack violence. This theoretical tool is another form of refusal to the dependency of only being known by Eurocentric reference and, by default, only seen as victims, confined to terror and pain. The answer to what this looks like begins when Black people are freed both in body and in narrative, “moving beyond the carrier of terror’s embodiment (blackness)” (wilson, 2023).
This is a necessary way of looking at history with new eyes and framing the present to make room for life outside of suffering. This has been effective in the work of Ayana V. Jackson and her photography. Through her creativity, she analyzes the effects of the colonial gaze and reimagines nineteenth- and twentieth-century portraiture of Black historical figures. Remaking colonial archival images, Jackson frees the Black body, providing them with an alternative liberatory narrative. In her series, From the Deep: In the Wake of Drexciya, ruthless history intersects with hopeful myth. Throwing themselves to their deaths or jumping overboard was the only free will allowed. Pregnant women and their legacies—made slaves—were murdered before setting foot on land.
Thinking of the mothers, their children, and the continuation of their lives from the Drexciya myth, Jackson’s photography, sculpture, and video acknowledge the history of death but also make pathways of life. It is “the brutal history that cast these beings to the sea while simultaneously envisioning a world of powerful, resilient women” (Smithsonian, 2020). In challenging the colonizing gaze, Jackson addresses the annihilation that was the transatlantic slave trade and introduces new realms of possibilities (Smithsonian, 2020).
Through questioning the state of Black existence, wilson finds answers in the acknowledgment of the past and the liberation of tools that free Black people for the present and future. Frameworks like Black compositional thought, the wake, and the style of abstraction used in Torkwase Dyson’s artistry reflect the pursuit of this goal. If the Black story begins and ends with enslavement, all that is left is a continuation of imprisonment and intangible and tangible loss of life and dreams. As each realizes the importance of challenging master narrative accounts that lack depth, they each work to make space for alternative truth, aspirations, and dreams.
Centering and treating Black stories as an independent entity that births self-freedom expands what Blackness has been, is, and can be. I believe that these concepts are necessary because “Black life must always insist on imagining new ways of living an unimaginable life” (wilson, 2023). This quote makes something absolutely clear: that no one has, and no one will imagine new ways of living for us. Engaging in theory and artistic practice that work to shape the world in these ways can transform environments and the lives of all Black people.
Bibliography
About – Glenn Ligon. (n.d.). https://www.glennligonstudio.com/about/citation machine. Citation Machine, a Chegg service. (n.d.). https://www.citationmachine.net/bibliographies/7971ef8c-bce7-46a7-b43d-e80750507be 7
CV/Bio. Ayana V Jackson. (n.d.). https://www.ayanavjackson.com/biography-c1enr gloria j. wilson (2023) Black Geospatial Inquiry and Aesthetic Praxis: Toward a Theory and Method, Studies in Art Education, 64:2, 113-131, DOI: 10.1080/00393541.2023.2180267
Home. National Museum of African Art Smithsonian Institution. (n.d.). https://africa.si.edu/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/from-the-deep-in-the-wake-of-drexciy a-with-ayana-v-jackson/
The collection | moma. (n.d.). https://www.moma.org/collection/
Sydney Summey is a graduate student in the Ohio State MA program in Arts Administration, Education and Policy. As an artist, Sydney cultivates her craft and perspective of the arts not only to be viewed but used to challenge history and create change. This is expressed in her passion of the Black experience and how Black ways of knowing make pathways to liberation. Sydney cherishes the vulnerability and transformation that the coming together of community, validation of narrative, and art can produce.