Exploding Language:
Mining the Black Arts Movement
to create new visual text

Call for Artists:
Due May 31, 2007

Introduction
Obsidian Arts supports the growth of ideas . . . valuing artists, curators, and art historians in the examination of Black history and culture.  Obsidian Arts regularly develops exhibitions, art-history based educational programs and maintains a small black art history library.

We are seeking temporary public art submissions/proposals that interrogate the literary and visual languages of the Black Arts Movement and generate a new social movement oriented language aka “visual text” for today and beyond.  We will use selected artist proposals/submissions for the July – September 2007 exhibit. 

The exhibition will take place out-of-doors along a six block stretch of Plymouth Avenue in North Minneapolis, USA.  This avenue has both historic and contemporary significance as a corridor within the local African American community.  Moreover, this area was important to the local Black Power /Black Arts Movement efforts.

Background
The Black Arts Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s led to a profound cultural shift in the United States and throughout the African Diaspora.  While the goals of the Black Arts Movement focused on creating art that reflected the aspirations of Black people, it also changed how people viewed basic notions of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, politics, and art.  Long standing issues of ethnic art and its place in the mainstream art world finally had a forum.

Inherently political, the Black Arts Movement, often called the “aesthetic and spiritual sister” of the Black Power Movement, took place against the backdrop of the turbulent political and economic climate of the ‘60’s. Activism was the order of the day and the tandem movements that formed the core advocated for a “cultural revolution of ideas”.

This “revolution of ideas” created one of the most fertile environments for Black artists in the twentieth century.  Amidst all the chaos there was an energetic vision of achievement, self actualized and fed by artistic disciplines diverse as the free jazz of John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks and Sonia Sanchez, the plays of Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal, the revolutionary literature of Franz Fanon, and the creativity of  visual artists from all directions.

Our Intent
Our intent is to a create a revolution of ideas that results in new “visual text” for today’s black community based on a rigorous re-consideration of the literary and visual languages of the Black Arts Movement.  We intend to initiate a dialog that interrogates the current or standard lexicon of black visual text, with the hope to create a new language that more accurately articulates the contemporary Black experience.

To successfully interrogate existing terms and images we must ‘explode’ the manifold languages of the Black Arts Movement, exploring the texture and elasticity of new and inspiring visual texts that may move “the people” forward. We will insist that participating artists go around, on top of, under, into and through these languages.   From their respective viewpoints, artists must attack and dismantle the languages and the environments that produced them to mine for today’s relevance and enduring truths.
 
The exhibition will be limited to projects that can be executed outdoors and projects which seek to inspire and inform a general, non-art specialist public. Artists do not have to have previous experience creating public art but must demonstrate that they have researched and thoughtfully considered the implications of presenting their work outside.

The exhibit will consist of two and three-dimensional, installations, or sound-scape (DJs and composers) works.  We are also seeking film and video submissions.

Informational Resources
See www.explodinglanguage.org for more information about the history of the area and images of the site where the exhibition will take place.

Selection Criteria for Projects and Artists
The artist and art project will be selected based on a demonstration of the following:

1) Knowledge of the work of the visual and literary artists working during the period and the social and political environment that inspired them.

2) Evidence of thoughtful deconstruction of the core literary and/or aesthetic languages of Black Arts Movement.

3) Evidence of a heartfelt attempt to “explode” the literary and/or aesthetic languages and explore/create new visual text for use today.

4) The art project should examine issues of the current and future Black socio-economic status, Black pride and collective “group think”. 

5) The project must be feasible within the allotment of funds from Obsidian Arts AND we must have confidence that the artist can actually execute the project as presented.

6) *We feel that three crucial, interrelated aspects—content, communication, and context—need to be considered in order to produce a successful, piece of public art:

Content: We are looking for projects are content and context specific, work in multiple spaces, everyday life, and inside a fine art context. For the passerby, the work should be both visually compelling and an effective portrayal of the artist’s perspective.

Communication: How does one effectively get one’s ideas across to the viewer? Some of the most successful projects that we’ve seen use humor, aesthetics, strange juxtapositions or irony in order to entice the audience and encourage them to engage the ideas of the work. They have been thought through and are complete, self-consistent ideas that are visually, sonically, and/or conceptually compelling. The audience should be able to engage the work by looking at it (or hearing it), without having to read what the artist says about it.

Context: We are looking for work that is site specific — work that considers the site’s pre-existing meanings into the ideas of the project itself. We feel that public art is most effective when it takes into account the historical, political, ecological and social qualities of a given place—not just the physical and the visual.  As such Obsidian Arts will provide the artists with as much history as we can about the site both as they are currently used and were previously used.

Note:  Video and films do not have to be site specific and may become a part of the film screening program.

7) The artist’s past experience and submitted work samples indicate significant artistic capacity.

8) Artist should generally be considered as an emerging to mid-career artist.

9) Artists of all ethnic and cultural lineages are welcome.

* Taken from the selection criteria used by the Gunk Foundation.

Submissions Details

Work samples WILL NOT BE RETURNED without a SASE.
Apply sufficient postage.

Obsidian Arts provides installation assistance, a small stipend and work space to artists selected for Exploding Language. We provide publicity, exhibition invitations, mailings, opening reception and artist talks. Obsidian Arts will not insure artwork shown in this exhibition but will work with the artist and property owner to ensure secure installation of art work. There is no commission taken from art works sold.

For more information see our website at www.expoldinglanguage.org or www.obsidianarts.org. 

Submissions - Mail to:
Obsidian Arts
Exploding Language Submissions
734 E. Lake Street, Ste. 220
Minneapolis, MN 55407 USA