ART REVIEW : CHARGED IMAGES FROM AN AGE OF UPHEAVAL

One thing is absolutely certain about “Tradition and Conflict: Images of a Turbulent Decade 1963-1973”: The big exhibition of politically charged black art at Scripps College in Claremont is a timely celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and Black History Month.

After that obvious fact comes the “conflict,” which relates to more than subject matter and begins with questions about where this exhibition fits into the scheme of things:

--Is the assembly of 80 paintings, photographs and sculptural objects by 43 artists a historical period piece? The art often looks dated and meant to be seen through the distance of hindsight.

--Is the show distressingly contemporary? The social conditions of blacks may have improved since the heat of the battles that inspired this art, but the issues still smolder.

--Or do such inquiries beg the point of art that so clearly comes from the passions of a painful and exhilarating upheaval?

The answer to all three questions is yes. The show is about equal parts social history and art history, but it’s also a reminder that the civil rights movement didn’t accomplish all that its leaders hoped it would.

In the art sphere, the movement did not succeed in weaving very many black artists into the main fabric of the country’s art institutions and enterprises. For those represented here, however, the effort itself was liberating.

The artists’ work acquired a sharp political edge as they began to speak out against repression. Some created propaganda in works less concerned with art than with rhetoric. Others delivered their social messages in styles linking African tradition with modern art’s formal language.

Whatever else these artists did, they created art that was relevant to their tumultuous situation. The gallery fairly trembles with rumblings of protest that we associate with the ‘60s.

Through Feb. 20, Scripps’ Lang Art Gallery is showing the pared-down, traveling version of a larger exhibition organized by Mary Schmidt Campbell at the Studio Museum of Harlem.

It’s a collectively powerful presentation, even though much of the work wouldn’t stand alone as art without its current context. The photographs--effective as they are in evoking events of “a turbulent decade”--are essentially documentation of rallies, funerals and other emotional gatherings. Some of the paintings are amateurish; some well-designed depictions of movement heroes lack an emotional resonance.

Yet, the cumulative strength of impassioned expression, highlighted by undeniably superior works, makes a tour of “Tradition and Conflict” memorable. No one can prove that art effects social change, but in this case art was a vital component of the forces that finally broke through a stone wall of resistance.

Among the best reasons for discriminating art watchers to see this artistically uneven show is Betye Saar’s poignantly magical assemblage, “Black Girl’s Window,” composed of a black female silhouette and a collection of other images showing through partitioned areas of a real window. She seems to look out from a rich interior life on a world that has no place for her.

In a back corner of the gallery is another startling vision that knowingly merges art and social criticism. Here, Mel Edwards’ chilling “Lynch Fragments” series of metal sculpture calls up ghastly tales of midnight terror without graphically describing them. Across the room, Camille Billops’ greenish, upside-down figure, called “Tenure,” shrieks with terminal pain in a voice that’s universal.

The exhibition is divided into four sections, in addition to the photography. “Africa: The Source” prominently features African mask and sculptural motifs, notably in James Phillips’ “Juju” painting, depicting a mass of rough hewn faces.

Faith Ringgold dominates the “Freedom and Justice for All: The American Flag” section with a painting called “The Flag Is Bleeding.” The flag’s stripes are like bars restraining a blank-faced white couple, while stars shield the face of a knife-wielding black man. The woman links both men’s arms with hers, but there is no friendly resolution in this stark, blood-spattered canvas. Another Ringgold flag painting looks more subtle, but the stripes and some letters overlapping the stars spell out “Die Nigger.”

Among the “Heroes and Monuments” are various tributes to Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and athletic personalities. One theme that packs a particularly gut-wrenching punch is images of fighters. “The Champion,” a painting by Richard Yarde, for example, is a devastating portrayal of a boxer’s physical brawn and emotional desolation. Raymond Saunders’ “Jack Johnson” series of little drawings combined with toy figures is, among other things, a wistful view of tough guys.

The final segment, “Toward an American Myth: Metaphors of the African American Experience,” is bolstered by Edwards’, Saar’s and Billops’ compelling work and some haunting, dark collages by Romare Bearden.

In many ways the exhibition catalogue is better than the show. At the very least, it is a valuable document of an aspect of art little known in high places. I have seen no other exhibition that has so thoroughly attempted to set this short era of black art in social and historical context.

The illustrated publication contains a stirring account of the civil rights movement by Vincent Harding. Campbell has conducted a serious exploration of black artists’ organizations (including their internal wrangling and problems of fractured exclusivity) and taken a critical look at exhibitions of the era and individual artists’ development.

Artist Benny Andrews’ journal of negotiations with the Whitney Museum of American Art (and other organized efforts) is in the catalogue, as are side-by-side chronologies of black art and historical events.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Leonard Simon, of UC Riverside’s department of black studies, will a present free lecture on “The Presence of the Black Artist in American Art” at 7:30 p.m. Feb 12 in Scripps’ Humanities Auditorium. The gallery will be open following the lecture. Regular hours are 1 to 5 p.m. every day.