The Harlem Renaissance was a jumping-off point for establishing Black visual aesthetics in the US. Despite their lack of understanding of Black African history, Black intellectuals knew that control over the representation of Black people was a vital part of the effort for Black people to be seen by white people as humans. Images are at the core of US society in political and economic terms. Image is everything to a public that demands a spectacle. The image is also at the core of race issues and identity in general. Many scholars still struggle to define Blackness as we know that skin colour is only part of racialisation, and Blackness’s pejorative connotations are hard to usurp. In a culture that takes alien civilisations and appropriates them for commodification, Blackness becomes another genre of extraction colonialism.

Black plastic artists have responded in various ways to Blackness and Black African aesthetics. In the past, these artists relied on white supremacist narratives to envision Africa. Though things have changed and Black people have begun to see more significant inclusion in galleries, museums, and art awards, Black US artists still have a problematic relationship with Black Africa and how to represent Blackness in their work. Though some plastic artists like Kerry James Marshall and Kara Walker challenge and subvert racist imagery in their work without appropriating Black African aesthetics to make points about the social and economic status of Black people in the US.

Images

‘History decays into images, not stories.’ In contemporary western culture, images are essential in all aspects of life.