ART REVIEW : The Blues and Visual Arts: It’s a Gray Picture

Black music is such an integral part of the fabric of American culture that it’s hard to separate it out for examination. That, however, is the task the California Afro-American Museum sets for itself with “The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism.”

On view through March 4, this ambitious exhibition is ostensibly an exploration of the influence of African-American culture on 20th-Century art. Sounds good, but unfortunately this unfocused show never clarifies exactly what the blues aesthetic is, nor does it succeed in drawing a specific correlation between music and the visual arts. Though painters are known to be habitually blue, no “blues style” of painting has ever been defined and none emerges from this wide-ranging collection. But then, was that the intention? The show’s catalogue essays focus on music rather than visual art, yet the show isn’t a the history of the blues either. Whatever “The Blues Aesthetic” is up to, it needs some fine tuning.

Historians date the origins of the blues to the late 19th Century when newly emancipated slaves began to develop their own communities and met with intense racial discrimination. The African-based work songs of the blacks’ slavery days blossomed into songs of protest, lamentation and solace, and thus was born America’s greatest original musical form. A working man’s music combining joy, sorrow and simple observations on human nature, blues is freighted with specific attitudes about history, race and politics, and it’s had an enormous impact on American life. Styles of dress, dance and food have been shaped by it, gospel music, rhythm & blues, rap and jazz are rooted in it, and literature has borrowed freely from it (the ‘50s Beat poets and the New Journalism of the ‘70s clearly owe it a debt).

One thing the blues hasn’t done, however, is spawn a visual arts movement. Countless white artists have looked to African and African-American culture for inspiration--Picasso was profoundly effected by African art, the Surrealists claimed jazz as part of their subconscious heritage, and graffiti art has obvious connections with black music--yet, blacks have played a minor role in the avant-garde art movements of the 20th Century. Like women, they’ve been shut out of the art avant-garde for decades.

Apparently that’s not the issue here. Curator Richard J. Powell explains that, because not all African-Americans think about art in the same way, the blues aesthetic isn’t based solely on race and that although race is a big factor in this sensibility, the blues is essentially a social condition and a way of understanding and interpreting life.

Featuring work by 60 artists, both black and white, the show is divided into historical and contemporary sections. The work in both is predominantly figurative, concerned with emotional and humanistic themes rather than formal art issues, and remarkably free of irony or cynicism.

The entrance gallery is given over to a series of photographic portraits that includes Billie Holiday looking regal and haunted in a Robert Frank photo from 1957, Diane Arbus’ 1966 image of James Brown having his hair done and vintage pictures of musical legends Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. Lee Friedlander offers stunning color portraits of bluesman Robert Pete Williams and a young and beautiful Ray Charles.

The historical portion of the show isn’t so much an exploration of art styles as it is a history of the recreational life of blacks: We see them at rowdy house parties, in smoky jazz dives and posh nightclubs. A 1899 work by H. M. Petit illustrates the Cake Walk (a dance that originated as a choreographed promenade that mocked the manners of wealthy whites), while George B. Luks’ 1907 monotype, also titled “Cake Walk,” telegraphs the energy and shape of the dance with the simplest of gestures (Luks looks to have been a student of Impressionism).

Archibald J. Motley Jr. took the black street life and cabaret culture of Chicago as his central theme, and a deliciously lush painting from 1929 titled “Blues” evokes that world beautifully. Much of the work in this section--pieces by William H. Johnson, Paul Colins, and Miguel Covarrubias--is done in the slick, art deco style typical of Vanity Fair magazine illustrations of the period.

Gertrude Abercrombie’s 1946 work, “Charlie Parker’s Favorite Painting,” is perhaps the only work on view that is a perfect marriage of blues theme and modernist painting style. We see a stark, Surrealist landscape barren but for a lynching tree with a rope dangling like a deadly vine. (Parker was a friend of Abercrombie’s and this was, in fact, his favorite painting of hers.)

Several wonderful curiosities turn up in the historical section, among them a photo-reproduction of Josephine Baker’s handwritten account of the African-American invasion of Paris in the ‘20s, a 1915 newspaper account of painter Stuart Davis’ journey into the wilds of New Jersey to experience some authentic Negro night life, and two collaborative works done by artist Aaron Douglas and poet Langston Hughes.

The contemporary section includes Robert Colescott’s 1989 “Pac-Man” (an indictment of consumerism), a dreadful painting by Larry Rivers, a mixed-media assemblage by brilliant photographer William Christenberry, a tribute to Malcolm X by graffiti artist Keith Haring and a charming assemblage by cartoonist Lynda Barry. There are a few surprising omissions in this section. Where, for instance, is Robert Crumb, the artist who almost single-handedly introduced the ‘60s Love Generation to the blues aesthetic?

Also surprising is the static installation this potentially lively show is given. If ever an art show begged for a musical sound track, this one does, yet there’s not a guitar twang to be heard.