Afterword

Jacques Rancière’s democratic theory affirms not only an an-archic antifoundationalism, but also an everyday theory of political subjectivization and democratic appearance, through which “the power of the people” is “re-enacted ceaselessly by political subjects that challenge the police distribution of parts, places or competences, and that re-stage the anarchic foundation of the political.” This afterword focuses on Rancière’s conceptualization of the relationship between democracy as a politics without arche, and the singular acts of political subjectivization and democratic appearance that bring this contingency to light and enact it on the public stage. I turn first to Rancière’s work and then to an examination of a series of images created by the contemporary artist Glenn Ligon that critically engage with the Nation of Islam’s 1995 Million Man March. Ligon’s work provides an occasion for thinking in more historically and aesthetically detailed ways about the forms of everyday political speech and action that Rancière’s work brings into view as distinctive modes of democratic appearance.

Slashed Interiors: Text/Space

This essay explores the relationship between text and space by considering the notion of writing interiors as a form of creative practice. The research focuses on the textual and spatial uses of the punctuation mark slash (/), as evidenced in a range of text-based works by Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Anni Albers, and other artists. The first part of the essay surveys the typographic character’s varied uses in written language; the second part considers its role within artwork titles, namely how its presence shapes spatial interpretations of each artwork in question; in the third part, preceding the conclusion, the focus is on the use of the slash as a mark that is both material and graphic. The resulting interpretations support a call for a change in the conversation about the relationship between writing and interiors.

Authenticity, Misunderstanding, and Institutional Responsibility in Contemporary Art

This paper addresses two questions about audience misunderstandings of contemporary art. First, what is the institution’s responsibility to prevent predictable misunderstandings about the nature of a contemporary artwork, and how should this responsibility be balanced against other considerations? Second, can an institution ever be justified in intentionally mounting an inauthentic display of an artwork, given that such displays are likely to mislead? I will argue that while the institution has a defeasible responsibility to mount authentic displays, this is not always sufficient to avoid misunderstanding; the institution will sometimes need to supply auxiliary information. And even where competing considerations require mounting an inauthentic display, thoughtful museum practice can promote the audience’s ability to grasp the work. The argument will be developed with consideration of artworks by El Anatsui, Lygia Clark, and Glenn Ligon.

The Counter-Literacy of Black Mixed Media

The third chapter brings the mixed media of the BAM and the 21st century together as Crawford shows that black art, after the Black Arts Movement, continues to create an alternative way of approaching art as process, not as object. The first part of this chapter shapes this process-oriented counter-literacy around the Black Arts Movement textual productions of the black book as the open book. She explores the openness of word and image texts and argues that they produce the lack of closure of black post-blackness. Through the text paintings of Glenn Ligon and the word and image books of Amiri Baraka, June Jordan, John Keene, Christopher Stackhouse, and others, this chapter unveils the unbound nature of mixed media as one of the most innovative legacies of the Black Arts Movement.

Who’s Afraid of the Black Fantastic?

This chapter uncovers the overcoming of the binary of surface and depth in the Black Arts Movement mobilization of the substance of style. Crawford shows that when we put the visual and literary art of the Black Arts Movement and the 21st century together, we can see the often unrecognized use of surface as surface (in both movements). This chapter argues that black post-blackness teaches us that the external must stop being pathologized and depth must stop being celebrated as the rejection of play and performance. This chapter analyzes the art and performances of Erykah Badu, Nikki Giovanni, Diana Ross, Haki Madhubuti, Glenn Ligon, Mingering Mike, and others.