"Africobra: Message to the People" at MOCA

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www.smartymagazine.com "AfriCOBRA: Message to the People" at MOCA by Lili Tisseyre #The highly symbolic aesthetics of Black Art was discovered during the "Soul of a Nation" exhibition at the Tate Modern in September 2017 and again this summer at the Brooklyn Museum. On the occasion of the 2018 edition of Miami Art Basel, the Museum of Contemporary Art North in Miami celebrates AfriCOBRA's 50th anniversary for "African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists" and presents "AfriCOBRA, Message to the People", a "revolutionary" exhibition by the collective created in 1968 in Chicago. This legendary group of black artists defined, from its foundation, the immediately identifiable modern and visual aesthetics of what would be called the Black Arts Movement in the mid 1960s and 1970s. AfriCOBRA was born out of a first collective, the OBAC, which acquired national fame in 1967 with the creation of a monumental fresco, the Wall of Respect, in the Bronzeville district of Chicago. AfriCOBRA claims to be the tool for using art to meet the social and cultural challenges affecting the African-American community. This huge mural "depicts the 'Black Heroes' as positive role models for identity, community formation and revolutionary action. AfriCOBRA frees itself from codes and uses painting, printmaking, textile design, clothing design, photography and sculpture. The group's artists couple them with abstract motifs to evoke African artistic traditions and with visual elements of luminous, luminous "Kool-Aid" colours. Thus, works created from portraits, found everyday objects, letters and pictures emerge. Thus created, these raw, emotional and festive images of black figures defined the social, economic and political conditions of the black people. In 1969, the group disseminated its ideas by publishing a manifesto "Ten in Search of a Nation", which set out the goals they hoped to achieve, defining the images that retrace the past, tell the present and herald the future. By using its black identity, style, attitude and worldview, AfriCOBRA promotes solidarity and self-confidence of the African Diaspora: a true revolution of mind, body and soul of which AfriCOBRA is the cradle. This exhibition, which can be described as historical, explores both the individual careers of the founders, Jeff Donaldson, Jae Jarrell, Wadsworth Jarrell, Barbara Jones-Hogu and Gerald Williams, and those of artists who exhibited with them between 1968-1973, and explores how AfriCOBRA's philosophy manifests itself as a group in their artistic endeavours. AfriCOBRA, Message to the People Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MOCA) Until April 7, 2019 770 NE 125th Street, 33161 North Miami, Florida 06 Dec 2018 #Afrique #Black Art #Miami Art Basel #Peinture copyright: All rights reserved www.smartymagazine.com Contacts smArty Intern'l Ltd Ibex House Baker Street Weybridge KT13 8AH [email protected] www.smartymagazine.com.

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Group Interview with Africobra Founders
Group interview with AfriCOBRA founders Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The original format for this document is Microsoft Word 11.5.3. Some formatting has been lost in web presentation. Speakers are indicated by their initials. Interview Group Interview Part 1 AFRICOBRA Interviews Tape GR3 TV LAND GROUP INTERVIEW: BARBARA JONES HOGU, NAPOLEON JONES HENDERSON, HOWARD MALLORY, CAROLYN LAWRENCE, MICHAEL HARRIS Note: Question difficult to hear at times. Also has heavy accent. BJH: I don't think (Laughter) ... I don't think the Wall of Respect motivated AFRICOBRA. The Wall of Respect started first, and it was only after that ended that Jeff called some of the artists together and ordered to start working on the idea of philosophy in terms of creating imagery. You know, recently I read an article that said that the AFRICOBRA started at the Wall of Respect and I'd ... it's just said that some of the artists that worked on the Wall of Respect became AFRICOBRA members. You know, but the conception of AFRICOBRA did not start at the Wall of Respect. MH: How different was it than OBAC? What was going on in OBAC? BJH: Well, OBAC is what created the Wall of Respect. MH: Right. Q: Right. BJH: Yeah, that was dealing with culture. MH: But in terms of the outlook of the artists and all of that, how different was OBAC's outlook than what came to be AFRICOBRA? BJH: Well, OBAC didn't have a philosophy, per se.
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