Eddie Chambers

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This class will look at cinema of the African Diaspora, an important manifestation of identity and cultural expression. Over the course of several decades, independent film-makes from many different parts of the world, including the US, have been making films that speak to the history, challenges, and multiple identities of people in the African Diaspora. Often overshadowed by more dominant mainstream cinema, these independent films have nevertheless made an important mark and contribution. Films such as Horace Ové Pressure, from the mid 1970s, told the story of the coming of age of not just one Black Londoner, but of a new generation, born of Caribbean migrants who came to Britain in the years of the mid 20th century. Rue cases nègres (made in the early 1980s and also known as Black Shack Alley), set in Martinique, in the early 1930s tells the story of young José and his grandmother who live in a small village. In so doing, the film offers insights into the nuances of the French-speaking, early 20th century post-slavery community that José and his family are a part of. Other films of the Caribbean the class will look at include the Jamaican classic, The Harder They Come. The class will also examine films such as Nothing But a Man, filmed in 1964 and set in the context of the Civil Rights movement, and Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, (1977), a masterpiece of African American filmmaking which looks at the life of Stan, a slaughterhouse worker.

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A look at a wide range of artists from the countries of the Caribbean, including examples of cinema and reggae music packaging.

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This course will look closely at the emergence of Black Britain, through an examination of the visual arts. Since the middle of the 20th century, the demographics of the United Kingdom have altered markedly. Though Black people had been coming to Britain for centuries, it was not until the relatively large scale Caribbean migration of the post-war decades that substantial and tangible 'Black' communities emerged. Thereafter, large parts of Britain were transformed from relatively monocultural 'white' societies to a nation in which the Black presence was as substantial as it was noticeable. The class will examine the work of a wide range of Black British artists, particularly as it relates to the changing face of British society, and the changing nature of the visual arts in Britain. The course will look at the work of painters, sculptors, printmakers, filmmakers and others, in an attempt to explore the ways in which these artists have intervened in debates about race, racism, Britishness, empire, Black identity, and so on.

Artists to be looked at include Eugene Palmer, Keith Piper, Sonia Boyce, Donald Rodney, Tam Joseph, Sokari Douglas Camp, and Vanley Burke.

ARH 373E: African-American Artists of the Mid 20th Century.

Unique number, MWF 2-3pm, ART 1.120

Dr. Eddie Chambers

The class will focus on the fascinating work of African-American artists during a half century period of the 20th century that began with the ‘Harlem Renaissance’ of the 1920s and ended with the ‘Black Arts Movement’ of the mid – late 1960s to early to mid 1970s.  The Harlem Renaissance stands as a towering moment of American creativity and will figure prominently in our class syllabus. Our class, African-American Artists of the Mid 20th Century will present and discuss work that is as varied as the practitioners responsible for it. Sculpture, printmaking, painting, figurative, non-figurative, trained, untrained; the variations are almost endless.  The period of time under discussion witnessed hugely important developments of African American history. The ‘Great Migration of people from the south to the northern industrial centers, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, all these factors and many more have their part to play in the absorbing history of African American artists of the mid 20th century. The work of a number of highly accomplished artists will be considered, from Aaron Douglas and William H. Johnson to Dana Chandler, Elizabeth Catlett, and Faith Ringgold. The class will also seek to put the work of these artists into a variety of the wider political, social and cultural contexts that made the mid 20th century such an important period for African-American people and also for America itself.

Consistently framed, in some quarters, as little more than a holiday destination, the Caribbean is in actuality one of the world’s most fascinating and complex regions. The countries of the Caribbean, at once united and divided by the great expanse of the Caribbean Sea, are home to a wide range of religions, cultures, nationalities, ‘races’, and peoples. Whilst Spanish-speaking Cuba and French-speaking Haiti are in some ways the artistic giants of the region, equal stature can be attached to the biggest English-speaking island of the Caribbean, Jamaica. Together with its neighbors such as Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Guyana, the English-speaking Caribbean has produced much of the most dynamic art to come out of the region during the course of the 20th century. This class will look at the work of a fascinating group of modern and contemporary Caribbean artists. The history of the region is a compelling and fascinating one, embracing as it does a variety of factors including the trans-Atlantic slave trade, 20th century patterns of migration and travel, and ‘New World’ sensibilities. This class will examine the work of a range of Caribbean artists whose practice came to the fore over the course of the 20th century, from the 1920s right up to the present time. Artists to be studied include practitioners such as Edna Manley, Barrington Watson, Albert Chong, and artists with substantial links to the Caribbean such as Jean-Michel Basquiat. In addition, the class will critically explore the visual culture of the region, through the mediums of film, documentaries, record sleeves, and tourist imagery. Visual Arts of the English-speaking Caribbean will be invaluable to those students looking to broaden their understanding and familiarity with Caribbean artists, those living within the region and those who have moved away and are now practicing in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States.

Whilst slavery, in a variety of forms, has existed for millennia, the Atlantic Slave Trade, which saw millions of Africans captured, sold and transported into slavery, was a particularly brutal, systematic and enduring manifestation of bondage and servitude. Spanning several centuries, the Atlantic Slave Trade is remembered and visualized in an astonishingly broad range of ways by an equally astonishing variety of artists, filmmakers, illustrators and others.  This seminar will critically examine the work of modern and contemporary artists, some from the Caribbean, some from countries such as the United Kingdom, and some from the United States that touches on, or explores the issue of slavery. The history of the enslaving of Africans is a compelling and fascinating one, embracing as it does a variety of factors including the trans-Atlantic slave trade itself, as well as subsequent 20th century patterns of migration and travel, ‘New World’ sensibilities and the critically important development of the African Diaspora. These factors, and many others will be explored in the work of artists such as Kara Walker, Godfried Donkor, Tam Joseph, and Mary Evans, artists whose practice came to the fore over the course of the late 20th / early 21st centuries. In addition, the seminar will critically explore the visual culture of the remembering or recasting of slavery, through television dramas such as ‘Roots’, through to mainstream cinematic efforts such as ‘Amistad’ and more recently, ‘Amazing Grace’ about the British abolitionist, William Wilberforce. Through an assortment of mediums such as films, film posters, documentaries, record sleeves, and the covers of trashy ‘pulp fiction’ accounts of slaves, masters and mistresses such as ‘Mandingo’, Visualizing Slavery will be invaluable to those students looking to broaden their understanding and familiarity with not only the Atlantic Slave Trade itself, but as important, the range of ways in which this period of history is remembered and recalled. Surprisingly perhaps, much of the work to be examined in the seminar, particularly that being offered up by artists, not only recalls slavery, but simultaneously has much to say about ongoing human conditions and experiences.

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