'Black' Comes in Many Shadings
by Holland Cotter
Article excerpts from The New York Times, Weekend
Section, Aug 13, 2004
Wosene Kosrof teaches a new collector the meaning of his imagery at the Healdsburg Gallery opening on Sept 18th.
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Ethiopian painter, Wosene Kosrof, acknowledged by the New York Times last
Friday, August 13th. “Is Wosene an African artist? An American artist?
Modern? Postmodern? He is all of these. And however indrectly, his art is a reminder
that African art may borrow elements of modern Western style, but in absolutely
essential ways, Western modernist art originated in Africa. The link is forged
yet again...”
" When the Studio Museum in Harlem introduced a group of young African-American
artists in the show called 'Freestyle' a few years ago, the curator,
Thelma Golden, called them post-black artists, and caused a ruckus.
She was describing artists who didn't feel obliged to refer to
ethnicity or racial history in their work or, if they did, were inclined to
distance themselves from the references, put them in quotes - 'race,'
'power' - and so on.
Ms. Golden was making a suggestion, offering an opportunity, opening
a door rather than closing one. But she hit a nerve and got a lot of
people thinking about exactly what black art is and might be. Did blackness
reside in subject matter? In style? Did the ethnic background of the
artist justify, even require the use of the label, even if the art
itself was, say, abstract? Other questions arose. In what way was African-American
art African? And what does 'American' mean, anyway, in a country whose
demographics are all over the world map? ...
... Despite its symbolic significance, the Christian art of Ethiopia
has only recently gained attention in the United States, largely thanks
to the 1993 exhibition 'African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia,'
which appeared at the Schomburg Center in Harlem and later at the Walters.
With its icon paintings, processional crosses and illuminated gospels,
it is a wondrous art, a tight weave of Byzantine, Italian Renaissance
and indigenous traditions that has a look and a spirit entirely its
own.
More of this material is also on view this summer at the Newark Museum
in 'Objects of Devotion: Traditional Art of Ethiopia.' This exquisite
little gathering is meant to complement a second show, 'My Ethiopia:
Recent Paintings by Wosene Worke Kosrof,' in which an Africa-America
connection is updated and made concrete.
Organized by Christa Clarke, the museum's new curator of art from
Africa, the Americas and the Pacific, it brings together 14 recent
paintings by Wosene (as he refers to himself professionally). He was
born in 1950, came to the United States in 1978 after Haile Selassie
had been deposed, and is now an American citizen. He studied at Howard
University in Washington with the influential American artist Jeff
Donaldson, who died this year.
Like 'Rythm Mastr,' Wosene links African and American culture, but
in a different way, by blending written letters from the Amharic language
of Ethiopia with Western-style gestural painting. The results are abstract,
but richly coded, with fractured texts, personal symbols (the shape
of his childhood home in 'Words of Memory') and a palette of jewel-like
colors - reds, yellows and greens - associated with Ethiopian icon
paintings.
Is Wosene an African artist? An American artist? Modern? Postmodern?
He is all of these. And however indirectly, his art is a reminder that
African art may borrow elements of modern Western style, but in absolutely
essential ways, Western modernist art originated in Africa. The link
is forged yet again in the work of the young Kenyan-born artist Wangechi
Mutu, one of three participants in this year's artist-in-residence
show at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Dave McKenzie and William Villalongo
are the others. All three were born in the 1970's; they are members
- in excellent standing, I would say - of Ms. Golden's post-black generation..."
Copyright 2004, New York Times
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