African-American Exhibit Shows Consciousness of Heritage

It’s a rare moment in San Diego history--perhaps even an unprecedented moment--when so much work by contemporary, African-American artists is on public view. The fledgling African-American Museum of Fine Arts has installed a broad, albeit shallow exhibition of abstract prints by black artists nationwide at the Lyceum theatre (through Feb. 28), and now, Grossmont College’s Hyde Gallery presents “Afro-American Artists.”

The Grossmont show, organized by the gallery’s director-curator, David Beck Brown, differs from the Lyceum show in several respects.

First, it contains primarily figurative or representational imagery and very little abstraction. Second, all 12 of the artists included live in San Diego or the Los Angeles area.

The most important distinction, however, is that the dozen artists in this show bring the consciousness of their black heritage and experience to the surface of their work. Rarely do they succumb to the bland, decorative homogeneity that prevails in the Lyceum show. Not all of the work at Grossmont sings with poetic import, but most embodies a sincere commitment to content and an inexhaustible spirit of self-reflection.

Two of the local artists in the show, Brenda DeFlanders and Jean Cornwell, assert continuity with their African ancestry through the making of masks. DeFlanders pays homage to the memory of two individuals in her “Ifa” and “Rooster” masks, which combine such traditional, organic materials as shells and raffia with newer, commercially produced sequins and multicolored plastic straw. Simple, yet powerful, Cornwell’s untitled mask of woven, limber twigs, snakeskin, feathers and beads conveys the magic of an ineffable spirit that transcends particularities and personalities.

Other artists in the show focus on the pathos and poetry of African-American life, past and present. From the wistful exhaustion of field workers to scenes of domestic and spiritual renewal, these paintings and weavings are simple, sentimental, and occasionally moving.

Tougher, and more incisive are the works of Mark Greenfield and La Monte Westmoreland, both L.A.-area artists. A rumbling, buzzing energy makes the surface vibrate in Greenfield’s large gold canvas, “Crips, Bloods and Dreams.” Violence and spirituality each claim their turf in this pictographic metaphor for the warfare and wonder of contemporary urban life.

Tracings of two large, fallen figures--one with a gun--hover near the top of the painting. Toward the bottom, an immense, radiant mandala counters this gritty reality of gang life with an image of sublime stability. Between these two extremes lies an explosive array of black, graffiti-like markings. A hamburger, paintbrush, skull and bones, hammer and sickle, a crutch, a car, an arrow, a peace sign--all jostle against one another but remain tightly bound in uncanny equilibrium, the epitome of controlled chaos.

In Westmoreland’s biting collages, images of blacks as subservient workers mingle with the glorified depictions of whites in art history and popular culture. Michelangelo’s famous image of a heavenly, gray-haired God reaching out to give life to the supine Adam clashes with a rendering of black fieldworkers engaged in back-breaking toil. The proud white Quaker of Quaker Oats fame finds his equivalent in the smiling black cook in a Cream of Wheat advertisement.

By borrowing primarily from familiar sources for his mixed media assemblages, Westmoreland hints at the subtle forms of racism that are well entrenched in our cultural memory. The images of watermelons that crop up throughout the artist’s work--between God’s hand and Adam’s, at the feet of the fieldworkers, dripping off the Queen of England’s chin--push such cultural cliches into the realm of the absurd. Westmoreland’s wry sense of humor, like that of painter Robert Colescott, who recasts seminal images of Western art history to include blacks, has a bitter edge and a valuable message.

“Afro-American Artists,” presented in celebration of Black History Month, also includes work by Nancy Baptist, Mag Bowens, Jihmye Collins, Eddie Edwards, Talita Long, Mari Morris, Clarence Scott and Roderick Sykes. It continues through Feb. 23.