Angela Davis' iconic 1985 essay on the role of art in social and
racial liberation, illustrated by painter Tschabalala Self
In her stirring and influential essay "Art on the Frontline," American
scholar and activist icon Angela Y. Davis (born 1944) asked, "how do we
collectively acknowledge our popular cultural legacy and communicate it
to the masses of people, most of whom have been denied access to the
social spaces reserved for arts and culture?"
Originally published in Political Affairs, a radical Marxist magazine,
in 1985, the essay calls into question the role of art in the pursuit of
social and racial liberation, and asserts the inequities exacerbated by
the art world. Looking to the cultural and artistic forms born of
Afro-American struggles, Davis insists that we attempt to understand,
reclaim and glean insight from this history in preparing a political
offensive against the racial oppression endemic to capitalism.
Working in the context of 2020's racial uprising some 35 years later,
New York-based painter Tschabalala Self (born 1990) responds to Davis'
words with new, characteristically vibrant and provocative collaged
works on paper. Her three series emerge collectively as something
greater than their parts, suggesting a joyfulness in their ebbs and
flows.
Angela Davis (born 1944) is an American political activist and
educator, most recently a professor at the Department of History of
Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is known
internationally for her commitment to prison abolition and racial
justice. Her books include Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Women,
Culture and Politics (1989) and Angela Davis: An Autobiography
(1974).
