When I coined the term blackstraction to refer to the objectification of painting in 2000, it was the result of research that I began in 1980 as a creative writer working as an artists’ model at the Corcoran School of Art. Looking at language as art led me to see poetry as the original formalist abstract art because all the poem’s meaning is based on relationships created with words contained in the body of the work.
Experimenting with painting and drawing to study abstract art as language, I started looking at all kinds of paintings to understand how the materials are used. I began reading about what painting is, what art is and how the art world evolves. I found styles of painting correspond to the introduction of studio methodology.
How and what artists painted began to change in the mid-19th century after invention of the photograph. Until then, paintings were two dimensional and mostly flat with impasto used to emphasize details. In the industrial age, artists began to use it to alter how we see and perceive images. Impressionism, Fauvism, Expressionism and Constructivism, all inching away from painting realistically, developed during this time.
Late in the 19th century Modernism arrived. European exposure to African and Oceanographic art opened the way for Cubism, Surrealism, DaDa, Bauhaus and other styles propelling painters fully into imaginary realms. Collage, assemblage and intellectual discourse join the techniques used.
The next important additions come after World War 2. Abstract Expressionism gives us all over painting, Art Brut common materials like fiber and non-traditional techniques like stitching, and Spatialism introduces three dimensionality. While the painting itself remains a flat two dimensional object, pouring, staining, scraping and cutting are now used by artists exploring what painting can be. Depth is incorporated into the picture plane. These three styles lay the foundation for Blackstractionsim.
In the 60s and 70s, artists expanding and delving deeper into abstraction used all the above techniques to experiment with both the image and how the image is constructed. Action Painting, Color Field, Op Art, Hard Edge and other styles followed the trail of expressionism.
Spatialism led to shaped canvas, cloth alternatives to canvas, and dropping stretchers altogether. Relaxing the rigidity of the traditional painted rectangle ushers in Minimalism and Blackstractionism-- both dealing with the sculptural possibilities of painting. While Minimalists embraced design, industrial materials and commercial execution, Blackstractionists were focused on labor intensive experiments involving both aesthetic and physical properties of painting with depth.
Going into the 1980s, painting had become any and everything, including intellectual discourse.
The Postmodern era that had been building since the 60s brought new art favoring installation, performance and new media stemming from developing technologies. Indeed, painting is declared dead, art becomes “contemporary” and really of the moment. By the end of the century referential discourse describing what artists are painting is more important than the style of painting executed. We arrive at zombie abstraction.
In the 1965 essay “Specific Objects,” Donald Judd unknowingly described blackstraction when he wrote, “The new work exceeds painting in plain power, but power isn’t the only consideration, though the difference between it and expression can’t be too great either… This work which is neither painting nor sculpture challenges both. It will have to be taken into account by new artists.”
Jack Whitten, one of many artists developing blackstraction, talked about his work in 1983 as “... a precise and continuous development of experimentations dealing with the possibilities of paint, using various processes towards defining a new spatial perception in painting…” Judd, one of the most well-known minimalists and a prolific and influential critic of his peers, consistently denied three-dimensional painting was a movement. Between 1959 and 1975 he did not once review the work of Whitten or Sam Gilliam or Al Loving or Joe Overstreet or Howardena Pindell who were his contemporaries in NY and exhibiting the work he talks about.
As Whitten noted in 1980, “Clement (Greenberg) would never accept the possibility of a Black man leading….” He spoke of one critic but it could have been the entire art industry then or now, as today that same industry seeks to add diversity by monetizing artists like Gilliam and Whitten without recognizing their contribution to the canon. 20 years into the 21st century, Stella is practically a household name for anyone interested in abstract art, while the effect of Sam Gilliam’s draped canvases has yet to be evaluated for the influence it exerted over all the work that follows.
I call this work blackstraction because I trace its beginnings to the European response to indigenous art and to confront the art world protocol of belittling, absorbing and erasing advances made in studio practice by and because of Black, outsider and other minority artists. Blackstraction provides a platform for discussion around the work artists executed in a way that acknowledges the full extent of their contribution which will ultimately direct the course of art because three-dimensional abstract painting remains basically unexplored.
blackstraction (blak-strak’ sh-n) n. 1. the objectification of abstract painting 2. A non-
representational transcendental work of art stressing formal internal relationships using African/Asian/American art practices at times employing craft techniques and three-dimensional presentation. blackstractionist n. An artist engaging therein...
blackstraction (blak-strak’ sh-n) v. t. 1. to make markings with color on diverse surfaces that relate to each other and their environment in two and three dimensions. 2. Painting using depth as part of the picture plane blackstractioned, blackstractioning
Blackstractionism (blak-strak’sh-niz-m) n. Fine Arts1. a style of emotive non-representational painting appearing in the US in mid- to late 20th century sometimes employing craft techniques and three-dimensional presentation. 2. theory and practice of transcendental three-dimensional painting
