Description
Book SynopsisPainter, photographer, and cofounder of AFRICOBRA Wadsworth A. Jarrell tells the definitive history of the group’s creation, history, and artistic and political principles and the ways it captured the rhythmic dynamism of black culture and social life to create uplifting art for all black people.
Trade Review“What an amazing testimony from a founding member of one of the most important artists' collectives of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries! Kudos to Wadsworth A. Jarrell for his thoroughly engaging and art historically significant memoir.” -- Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Distinguished Professor of Art & Art History, Duke University
“The principles and philosophy of the collective AFRICOBRA in many ways defined the parameters of art making for politically conscious African American artists during the era of Black power. Who can forget their stunning manifesto that emphasized standards such as coolade color, shine, free symmetry, and mimesis at midpoint?! Now Wadsworth A. Jarrell‘s new book brings us a first-person account of this group and period from an artist who was there from the start. Beautifully illustrated, it offers a fresh perspective and significant references, and it serves as an important sourcebook for late twentieth-century practice. As the study of art moves beyond a New York--centric approach, histories coming out of major centers like Chicago are especially important.
AFRICOBRA joins a growing body of literature on art making outside New York; it will allow a plethora of new chronicles to be written.” -- Kellie Jones, Columbia University
"AFRICOBRA is a timely book as part of a movement that remains current as many art organizations are assessing their complicity in the suppression and appropriation of Black voices. This book will be of interest to scholars of African American art history and American art history in general." -- Laura Haynes * ARLIS/NA *
"Lavishly illustrated with images of works by the Jarrells and AfriCOBRA colleagues including his wife, Donaldson, Jones-Hogu, and Nelson Stevens, the book describes the formation of the collective and its first three major exhibitions." -- Steven Litt * The Plain Dealer *
“
AFRICOBRA is a necessary source for the study of the Black Arts Movement.... Across poetics, analytical prose, art, and archive, Jarrell argues for revisionist readings that challenge standing interpretations of AFRICOBRA as well as the contemporary collective, AFRICOBRA Now.” -- Melanee C. Harvey * CAA Reviews *
Table of ContentsIllustrations x
Black Art and the Black Aesthetic xv
AFRICOBRA: Principles and Philosophy xvii
Foreword / Richard Allen May III xxi
Acknowledgments xxv
Introduction 1
Black in Chicago 19
Genesis 41
The Wall of Respect 49
The Inception 75
A Visual Art Proposal 91
First Cobra Exhibition 109
Recruitment 119
AFRICOBRA I 129
AFRICOBRA II 171
AFRICOBRA III 209
Postscript / Edmund Barry Gaither 241
Exhibitions 247
Reviews and Media Interviews 249
AFRICOBRA in Art Collections 251
AFRICOBRA in Books 253
Notes 255
Artist Biographies 263
Index 271
