This essay foregrounds the problem of commercial art in the history of African American art. Despite recent interest in graphic design and the history of capitalism, scholars of African American art tend to diminish commercial art as background context or overlook it entirely. For scholars to reckon fully with the economy, however, they must consider commerce as a critical tradition and dimension of African American art practices. I focus on commercial artist Emmett McBain and public artist William Walker—each associated with the Black Arts Movement—as well as contemporary social practice artist Theaster Gates, to illuminate the commercial dimension of black art and the work of art as a form of commerce.
{"title":"Economies of Black Culture","authors":"C. Dingwall","doi":"10.1086/707470","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/707470","url":null,"abstract":"This essay foregrounds the problem of commercial art in the history of African American art. Despite recent interest in graphic design and the history of capitalism, scholars of African American art tend to diminish commercial art as background context or overlook it entirely. For scholars to reckon fully with the economy, however, they must consider commerce as a critical tradition and dimension of African American art practices. I focus on commercial artist Emmett McBain and public artist William Walker—each associated with the Black Arts Movement—as well as contemporary social practice artist Theaster Gates, to illuminate the commercial dimension of black art and the work of art as a form of commerce.","PeriodicalId":43434,"journal":{"name":"American Art","volume":"33 1","pages":"14 - 19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/707470","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47428037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What do we talk about when we talk about economics, money, and the art market? In the historiography of American art history, what shifts have we seen in ways of thinking about artistic production, the art market, and the visual cultures of economics? When we study financial systems, institutions, instruments, and objects, do we examine them in relation to economic power and social class, or in relation to other social phenomena, and why? To what extent have economic forces such as the art market and institutional funding shaped the field of American art, whether in terms of the objects and inquiries we pursue and neglect, or with regard to the vocabulary we use and avoid ?
{"title":"Art and Economics","authors":"J. Ott","doi":"10.1086/707467","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/707467","url":null,"abstract":"What do we talk about when we talk about economics, money, and the art market? In the historiography of American art history, what shifts have we seen in ways of thinking about artistic production, the art market, and the visual cultures of economics? When we study financial systems, institutions, instruments, and objects, do we examine them in relation to economic power and social class, or in relation to other social phenomena, and why? To what extent have economic forces such as the art market and institutional funding shaped the field of American art, whether in terms of the objects and inquiries we pursue and neglect, or with regard to the vocabulary we use and avoid ?","PeriodicalId":43434,"journal":{"name":"American Art","volume":"33 1","pages":"3 - 4"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/707467","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43147731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay focuses on an underrepresented medium of nineteenth-century visual culture—the theatrical playbill—and its relationship to antebellum riot spectatorship. Specifically, it contends that antebellum theater producers used sensational playbills in order to cultivate a profitable nativist audience. Philadelphia serves as a central case study, because the city witnessed a series of nativist and anti-immigrant riots during the era, including the infamous Kensington and Southwark riots of 1844. As pamphlets and lithographs of these riots soon appeared, theater producers posted eye-catching playbills and mounted theatrical melodramas capitalizing on the spectacular street violence. Because the playbill is ephemeral in nature and many of these noncanonical dramas were soon forgotten, scholars often have overlooked popular theater artifacts. Yet through scrutiny of extant theatrical materials now, we can better understand the era’s class-based conflicts, specifically how the visual culture of theater contributed to them.
{"title":"Storms! Shipwrecks! Massacres!","authors":"Michael d'Alessandro","doi":"10.1086/707478","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/707478","url":null,"abstract":"This essay focuses on an underrepresented medium of nineteenth-century visual culture—the theatrical playbill—and its relationship to antebellum riot spectatorship. Specifically, it contends that antebellum theater producers used sensational playbills in order to cultivate a profitable nativist audience. Philadelphia serves as a central case study, because the city witnessed a series of nativist and anti-immigrant riots during the era, including the infamous Kensington and Southwark riots of 1844. As pamphlets and lithographs of these riots soon appeared, theater producers posted eye-catching playbills and mounted theatrical melodramas capitalizing on the spectacular street violence. Because the playbill is ephemeral in nature and many of these noncanonical dramas were soon forgotten, scholars often have overlooked popular theater artifacts. Yet through scrutiny of extant theatrical materials now, we can better understand the era’s class-based conflicts, specifically how the visual culture of theater contributed to them.","PeriodicalId":43434,"journal":{"name":"American Art","volume":"33 1","pages":"94 - 113"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/707478","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43185867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper introduces the economic concept of asymmetrical information in markets and the role of “certification” of quality in response to this condition of unequal access to information. By using this concept, art historians can advance their insight into both the historical and contemporary American art market. Understanding the importance of certification in markets recasts art institutions and professional art historians not just as neutral observers, but as potentially active market participants. Three examples of certifications are addressed: prizes granted at prestigious annual exhibitions, praise or criticism by notable art critics, and solo exhibitions at major art museums. Over time, these certifications have functioned in the market as indicators of the value of artists’ work.
{"title":"Used Cars and Canvases","authors":"D. Greenwald","doi":"10.1086/707468","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/707468","url":null,"abstract":"This paper introduces the economic concept of asymmetrical information in markets and the role of “certification” of quality in response to this condition of unequal access to information. By using this concept, art historians can advance their insight into both the historical and contemporary American art market. Understanding the importance of certification in markets recasts art institutions and professional art historians not just as neutral observers, but as potentially active market participants. Three examples of certifications are addressed: prizes granted at prestigious annual exhibitions, praise or criticism by notable art critics, and solo exhibitions at major art museums. Over time, these certifications have functioned in the market as indicators of the value of artists’ work.","PeriodicalId":43434,"journal":{"name":"American Art","volume":"33 1","pages":"5 - 9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/707468","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46280265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines how the market for pre-1945 American art, which skyrocketed during the 1960s, has shaped, encouraged, as well as limited the study of American art.
{"title":"“A Distasteful, Indelicate Subject”","authors":"Alan Wallach","doi":"10.1086/707474","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/707474","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how the market for pre-1945 American art, which skyrocketed during the 1960s, has shaped, encouraged, as well as limited the study of American art.","PeriodicalId":43434,"journal":{"name":"American Art","volume":"33 1","pages":"26 - 31"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/707474","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43498575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Unlike previous displays of art by African Americans presented on the National Mall in 1929 and 1930 that were derived chiefly from shows organized by the Harmon Foundation in New York, the Smithsonian Institution’s 1933 Exhibition of Works by Negro Artists was a distinctly Washington affair. Carter G. Woodson’s Association for the Study of Negro Life and History sponsored the show, with contributions from Alain Locke, James A. Porter, and James V. Herring from Howard University, as well as Washington-based artists James Lesesne Wells and Loïs Mailou Jones. Taking place just as the New Deal art initiatives were being launched, the 1933 exhibition interjected Washington into ongoing debates regarding definitions of African American art and American Modernism during the interwar period.
{"title":"Toward a History of Modernism in Washington: The 1933 Display of Art by African Americans at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Gallery of Art","authors":"C. Brock","doi":"10.1086/705620","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/705620","url":null,"abstract":"Unlike previous displays of art by African Americans presented on the National Mall in 1929 and 1930 that were derived chiefly from shows organized by the Harmon Foundation in New York, the Smithsonian Institution’s 1933 Exhibition of Works by Negro Artists was a distinctly Washington affair. Carter G. Woodson’s Association for the Study of Negro Life and History sponsored the show, with contributions from Alain Locke, James A. Porter, and James V. Herring from Howard University, as well as Washington-based artists James Lesesne Wells and Loïs Mailou Jones. Taking place just as the New Deal art initiatives were being launched, the 1933 exhibition interjected Washington into ongoing debates regarding definitions of African American art and American Modernism during the interwar period.","PeriodicalId":43434,"journal":{"name":"American Art","volume":"33 1","pages":"4 - 10"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/705620","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46885987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
During the 1950s and 1960s Richard Lippold was a leading practitioner among a select group of artists who were frequently commissioned by modernist architects to create large-scale, site-determined sculptures for interior threshold spaces. These collaborative projects offered new models for the integration of art and architecture during the postwar period, but also resulted in intense debates, with the resulting work simultaneously celebrated as some of the most important examples of American sculpture being produced at the time and derided for being nothing more than shiny, metal decoration within architectural schemes. This article focuses on two of Lippold’s most high-profile commissioned sculptures: Orpheus and Apollo (1962) in Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center in New York, and Gemini II (1966) in the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts in Houston. It argues that the postwar principle of synergy provides a framework to assess the stakes of the more pronounced relationship between sculpture and architecture at midcentury.
{"title":"Synergizing Space: Sculpture, Architecture, and Richard Lippold at Lincoln Center","authors":"Marin R. Sullivan","doi":"10.1086/705625","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/705625","url":null,"abstract":"During the 1950s and 1960s Richard Lippold was a leading practitioner among a select group of artists who were frequently commissioned by modernist architects to create large-scale, site-determined sculptures for interior threshold spaces. These collaborative projects offered new models for the integration of art and architecture during the postwar period, but also resulted in intense debates, with the resulting work simultaneously celebrated as some of the most important examples of American sculpture being produced at the time and derided for being nothing more than shiny, metal decoration within architectural schemes. This article focuses on two of Lippold’s most high-profile commissioned sculptures: Orpheus and Apollo (1962) in Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center in New York, and Gemini II (1966) in the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts in Houston. It argues that the postwar principle of synergy provides a framework to assess the stakes of the more pronounced relationship between sculpture and architecture at midcentury.","PeriodicalId":43434,"journal":{"name":"American Art","volume":"33 1","pages":"38 - 61"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/705625","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41988444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article considers a specific context in which the 1933 Exhibition of Works by Negro Artists operated. The Smithsonian National Gallery of Art was located in the National Museum’s new building of Natural History, featuring its science collections of anthropology and animal specimens. Both its science and art exhibitions presented museum visitors with a narrative that contrasted “superior” white Western civilization to “primitive” peoples of color. By examining two earlier temporary art shows in 1929 and 1930, along with the concurrent display of the Herbert Ward Collection in the museum’s Africa Hall, we can see how competing ideas about race, culture, and national identity played out.
{"title":"Exhibiting the Negro: Art and Anthropology in the National Museum, 1929–33","authors":"M. Moresi","doi":"10.1086/705622","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/705622","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers a specific context in which the 1933 Exhibition of Works by Negro Artists operated. The Smithsonian National Gallery of Art was located in the National Museum’s new building of Natural History, featuring its science collections of anthropology and animal specimens. Both its science and art exhibitions presented museum visitors with a narrative that contrasted “superior” white Western civilization to “primitive” peoples of color. By examining two earlier temporary art shows in 1929 and 1930, along with the concurrent display of the Herbert Ward Collection in the museum’s Africa Hall, we can see how competing ideas about race, culture, and national identity played out.","PeriodicalId":43434,"journal":{"name":"American Art","volume":"33 1","pages":"17 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/705622","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47484331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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