reviews books
In How to See Darby English aims to challenge
the narrow confines within which black art (in this
context, art produced by black people) is read
Walker’s ‘negative images’ and condemned her
and considered, and to challenge the primacy of
art as a threat to African American culture. It is
race in the reading of their work. Focusing on
also clear that the suspicion around Walker was
Kara Walker, Glenn Ligon, William Pope.L, Fred
related to her success in ‘white’ America (she was
Wilson and Isaac Julien, How to See also aims to
a surprisingly young recipient of a MacArthur
address the lack of ‘rigorous, object based debate’
Fellowship).
around work produced by artists who happen to
Refreshingly, English spends more time
be black.
discussing Walker’s work, its relation to the
English rightly suggests that artists are
history of landscape painting and its materiality. A
increasingly resistant to the idea that their race
common theme in all of his profiles is an interest
should take primacy in any consideration of their
in process and an urge to place the artists within
work, and suggests that this is no longer a viable
a wider context beyond comparisons to other
approach, as it is ‘now less convincing than ever to
black artists. So Wilson is discussed alongside
speak of black artists as if they share an enterprise’.
Hans Haacke, Marc Dion and Renee Green, and
The introduction provides a comprehensive
Ligon’s interest in de Kooning is understood as
historical account of the ‘black representational
paramount to his development as an artist.
space’, and English carefully explores how ‘black
The sections on Pope.L and Ligon
art’ in America started as a ‘component of a
are strong, but while raising some interesting
political programme of uplift’ intimately entwined
questions, English loses his way in the Wilson/
with early-twentieth-century African American
Julien section. Julien’s Britishness is mentioned,
intellectual and political life, ‘inseparable from the
but not fully explored – it would have been
goals of black cultural politics’. Black art arises as
interesting to read English’s take on the British
a result of racism and as a form of resistance to
Black Arts Movement – and one can’t help but
it. English also explores how this space functions
feel Julien is shortchanged somehow, his work
‘as a kind of tactical segregation’ that is seldom
only considered in relation to Wilson’s Mining
explored.
the Museum (1992), and only Baltimore (2003)
‘Beyond Black Representational Space’
explored in any detail (both works were made in
sets out its stall by asking: ‘What becomes of
and about Baltimore). What is missing is a sense
black art when black artists stop making it?’; and
of a wider diaspora.
uses (among others) Stuart Hall, Frantz Fanon,
How to See could have paid more attention
Ralph Ellison, W.E.B. Du Bois and James A. Porter
to the ‘white’ artworld and how the ‘black
to explore the historical imperative behind this
artist’ as a separate category plays out within
notion of ‘black art’ and the ‘black artist’ (to quote
it. One is left with the sense of the historically
English, a ‘historically overdetermined figure’). It
censorious African American elite, but there is
is fascinating to then approach Kara Walker’s
little exploration of which ‘black artists’ are able
practice, particularly as her work – with its use of
to operate successfully in the wider marketplace,
antebellum imagery, interracial sexual activity and
and why. Nonetheless, How to See is a timely
ambiguous attitude to violence – causes such
and relevant book, opening a debate that is long
consternation among the gatekeepers of African
overdue. Sonya Dyer
American culture. A letter-writing campaign, led
by veteran artist Betye Saar, protested against
How to See a
work of art in
total DarkneSS
by Darby English
MIT Press, £19.95 / $30 (hardcover)
Artreview 172
October_books.indd 4 5/9/07 11:08:56
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