Comments
An Open Door for AFROFUTURISM!!!
By John Burl Smith author “The 400th From Slavery to Hip Hop!”
After a year’s delay, due to the COVID-19 pandemic (2021), the eagerly anticipated “Floyd Tunson’s ASCENT,” exhibition at RedLine Gallery in Denver, CO., will premiere Friday June 10 and run through July 31st. Tunson’s exhibition will end a dreaded hiatus endured by African American artists from major venues. RedLine’s audacious exhibition series has been christened “AFROFUTURISM + Beyond 2022.” RedLine Gallery pulled out all the stops in its effort to become a huge spotlight illuminating “Afrofuturism.” Mounting such an audacious and prestigious exhibition series, Louise Martorano, Director at RedLine, envisioned “Floyd Tunson’s ASCENT,” as the kind of major exhibition that can make RedLine Gallery ground zero for Afrofuturism. African American artists are hoping RedLine’s open door will become a trend for Black Art.
For anyone unfamiliar with Afrofuturism, Mark Dery helped advance the concept in a 1994 essay: “Black to the Future!” Dery asked, “Can a community whose past has been deliberately rubbed out, and whose energies have subsequently been consumed by the search for legible traces in history, while imagining possible futures?” Quoting curator Ingrid LaFleur’s definition of Afrofuturism, “a way of imagining possible futures through a black cultural lens,” Ytasha L. Womack, wrote: “The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, defines Afrofuturism as “an intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation.”
I first encountered Afrofuturism when Floyd Tunson’s curator Daisy McGowan, brought us together at his studio in 2017. During a walk through, I was immersed in his vision Black artistic relevance. He projected what he believed artists and thinkers were trying to envision and express as an “existential reality” though Art! I was trying to develop my concept (2017) of descendants of American slavery’s journey today. It seemed, at first, Floyd and I were approaching art from opposite directions, but while exchanging thoughts our diverging views converged. Whereas Floyd developed his artistic vision and expression over the years, I was just beginning to dig in the “graveyards of dried bones,” hoping to learn “the what, why and how,” descendants of American slavery,” develop the international cultural expression and genre hip hop. Coming together today for “Floyd Tunson’s ASCENT” at RedLine has united our visions.
My vision and hope writing “The 400th From Slavery to Hip Hop,” was as to add clarity to the faintly remembered stories my great-grandfather Burl Lee, JR. told me, as a young child. “The 400th” thesis is quiet extensive, but for here, suffice it to say, telling the story of free Africans’ enslavement in the Western Hemisphere, which began in the mid-1450s, I fast forward to Emancipation (1863)! Walking off plantations in “rags, barefooted, and penniless,” former slaves were without any real idea what awaited them. Stalked by desperation, they had to create a life, while still trapped in the world their labor created, with very few resources. They had to survive in a hostile world were the knowledge in their heads. Similar to Floyd Tunson with paint, brushes and other artistic equipment, my tools were my memory and interest, which I used like a spade to uncover and reconstruct the survival journey and strategies descendants of American slavery deployed getting to “The 400th.”
I learned former slave developed 8 criteria that aided their survive struggles. Their first decisions were to “make families and build communities,” as the base of their survival. The only knowledge they had beginning this daunting task was what they learned surviving in slave pens, and what they called families were a function of slavery. Building on that foundation, “communication and education” became their next priorities. Slaves were forbidden, under the penalty of death, to learn to read, write or calculate. However, surviving and competing with white people, as freed slaves, meant understanding and being understood was an imperative, in a world that refused to accept and support their freedom. They created “Blues,” dance and theatrics, with which they entertained master. Their creative genius grew which enhanced their imagination and increased their rewards, as master’s pleasure grew.
Master’s enjoyment watching slaves’ antics brought generous rewards. Proud of what his slaves did, master showed them off at parties. Making music and clowning it up gave former slavery skills slaves to develop the next two criteria—entertainment and entrepreneurship. Amazingly less than 10 years, after walking off plantations in “rags, barefooted, and penniless,” former slaves were able to established stable families and communities under the worst possible circumstances. Even more amazing, white people watching slaves singing, dancing and clowning it up, enjoyed their antics so much, white men began applying black boot polish to their faces in order to imitate slaves on stage. Whites imitating slaves developed into the theatrical genre “Minstrelsy”—blackface—America’s first original entertainment. White Americans readily reject the notion, “slaves invented American entertainment,” but like “Blues,” America’s only original music, “Minstrelsy”—blackface—is America’s first commercial entertainment.
Consequently, the last two criteria—political and cultural development is why the artistic concept Afrofuturism and Floyd Tunson’s ASCENT” are so important to the artistic expressions of Black artists and entertainers. Tunson’s exhibition brings everything together for descendants of American slavery once 2000 arrived where Afrofuturism and hip hop converged to open the new century. With hip hop peeking over the horizon, “The 400th”, makes the case for a leap of fate by presenting “The 400th Performance Period,” as the platform to commemorate the struggles and sacrifices of our ancestors getting us to “The 400th”, while simultaneously, celebrating the highest development of Black Arts. Unawareness of 2019’s significance in the general public, it passed without a whimper. Today however, there is recognition of the importance of the unceremoniously designated, so descendants of American slavery have selected 2030 as the Quadricentennial Year to throw ourselves a birthday party. Commemorating and celebrating “The 400th Performance Period will require communication, collaboration and participation in discussions and planning for our “P-Funk party, because a P-Funk party never stops.”
The hope is that the Art world will follow RedLine’s lead and participate in “The 400th Performance Period.” Museums, Art Galleries, theaters, concert halls and other venues will have the intervening years to commit, plan and prepare for the first international commemoration and celebration of slavery’s descendants survival, with “Afrofuturism,” as its theme. RedLine’s presentation of “Floyd Tunson’s ASCENT,” has taken the lead and made Floyd Tunson’s efforts the focal point of Afrofuturism. Tunson’s exhibition will raise Black Arts to a new level of significance and with the international Arts world’s enthusiastic participation Black artists will no longer labor in the shadow of white artistic standards. Hip hop has placed Black Arts in the spotlight and no longer must enter by the backdoor. Hopefully “Floyd Tunson’s ASCENT,” will lead the Arts world to follow Director Martorano and RedLine Gallery’s lead, and leave the door open to Afrofuturism!!!l
