Writing Abstraction: Pushing the Boundaries of Human Visual Expression

 So far, I've discussed what I discovered studying abstraction. 

This time I'm going to talk about what led me to study.

I've called this talk

Writing Abstraction: Pushing the Boundaries of Human Visual Expression

(or Blackstraction is always Abstraction but Abstraction is not always Blackstraction)

Let's start with a couple of definitions:

Language: 
a system of communication between members of a group.

Art: 
the expression and application of human creative skill, spirit and imagination.

When I started looking at Language AS Art in the mid1980s I decided
because all meaning is derived from the creative and unorthodox usage of grammar, sentence structure, punctuation and words within the poem,
poetry can be considered the original formalist abstract art.

After tracing abstraction in western art back to modernism and the european response to African and oceanographic art, my theory was 

after nearly 100 years, abstract art must be a language of sorts.

I thought abstract artists spent most of the 20th century dissecting and isolating surface treatments that could act like words. the challenge was to create syntax- grammar, sentence structure, and punctuation- mechanisms that supported intelligibility because as a language- the art would communicate with people who understand abstraction (and perhaps a few that do not...)

Writing abstraction requires subconsciously accessing the deepest recesses of both soul and intellect. Writing abstraction requires an all encompassing knowledge of technique and material as well as an intuitive ability to use that knowledge to make work pushing the boundaries of human visual expression.

I'm going to explain what I mean using two works executed between March 2020 and May of this year, one an exercise, the other execution of an idea. Worked on simultaneously, they depict the same time: one a kind of emotional diary and the other a portrait of the circumstances.

"M o o D"

20 mixed media drawings on recycled rag paper with perforations

Process:
record my state of mind day or night using graphite by marking each page once each time I worked on them for however long I worked on them 

An exercise that would have yielded pages of graphite markings of various strength and depth changed when I accidently used a blue coloring pencil one night.

At this point, I began to consciously add communicable signs and make choices about to what to record, beginning with a firm straight red line and the title, yellow circle/sun brown square/warmth, using pattern outside the square made me separate the drawings into two sets- prompted use of red in the body to refocus attention to the center and pattern inside the square to communicate boredom and anxiety.

"inher sanctuary"

a response to lockdown, isolation, and finding solace within

painting project:  
use white as a dominant color to convey a sense of safety and security in a kind of wall plaque like my mothers' religious wall sayings...

 

starting point: 
12 labyrinth drawings on rag paper collaged with Japanese paper and painted over with titanium

transferred images of wooded areas using photocopies over the labyrinth drawings, applied a layer of white repeated the process then reinforced the colors  introduced by the photocopies using graphite, coloring pencil and paint... repeated this twice, then concentrated on layering white and reinforcing the colors three times.

(each time I paint, I am subconsciously channeling my intent...)

I mounted the pieces on foam core with Japanese paper and gave them a blue braided loop to hang from thinking I had taken them as far as I could. I had them photographed but kept thinking they could be stronger... 

I cut off the backs and began to paint layers of white and color again fusing content and the idea of turning inward. I decided to fold them along the edges of the Japanese paper to give them an actual interior and to hang them from an arced light greenish plastic coated wire at the top to suggest chapel. 

Finally, closing the backs using paper painted blue suggested rounding so color is reflected behind and the arc become a steeple...

Abstraction. Blackstraction.

Meaning derived from the work.

M o o D, Abstraction = a surface treatment  (bored anxiety?)

inher sanctuary, Blackstraction = an object treatment (meditative solitude?)

remember:
Abstraction is not always Blackstraction but Blackstraction is always abstraction.

Blackstraction in Context

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