The Gentrification Of Black Creative Output

Part 2

In his book African Art in Transit (1994), Christopher B. Steiner discusses the perceptual shift of art into commodity, which he believes changes the spirit of the art as well as the social life of the artists. Because of the growing international trade in beautiful, non-traditional versions of black ancestral art forms, there is an emergence of predominantly decorative art of ‘African’ decent, and there is mounting debate on the ethics of making such modified forms of the black art aesthetic to meet non-black consumer demand.

“Important also is a new cross-fertilization between visual cultures that once were in conflict, but currently service one another”.

Using an analogy of Ndebele wall art, Steiner shines a light on what now includes stylized images of airplanes and light bulb fixtures, while current Coca-Cola cans and British Airways airplane tails display Ndebele abstract patterns, and de Beers produces pseudo-Ndebele beaded collars from precious gems. The mainstream has found the Ndebele and neither community remains the same.

Undeniably, of all the indigenous art-forms from Southern Africa that is most commodified is the Ndebele art aesthetic. This commodification has implied numerous streamlined stylizations which has fossilised the art-form’s expansion and evolution towards the satisfaction of western stratified tastes. This assimilation spans from fashion, decorative arts and has even adapted to a number of local cultures, but the sad truth has been the elimination of the spiritual dimension attached to these indigenous art practices.

Indigenous art practices which are and should remain familial activities, often practiced during initiation processes conducted by various communities, now serves only as an aesthetic commodity, an economic bridge upon which western mainstream design decisions are impacted upon a world of indigenous cultures .

The convergence of western aesthetics with Ndebele indigenous modes of a spiritualised art has, for instance, somewhat presented a complimentary diversity which is certainly a feat of genius from the black creative aesthetic point of view.

But, does this convergence of an indigenous worldview and visual culture with western worldviews hold the greatest promise for stimulating the resurgent forces that can play a lead role in reclaiming, renewing and revitalizing the responsibility of black art as whole for its practitioners, resources, economies and consumptive communities?

Recurring negative feedback in the relationships with the external forces of western financing, has posed certain concerns for black creative practitioners who now have to contend with a possible extermination of their indigenous aesthetic that has for centuries formed their innate visual culture and worldviews. The assimilation of western worldviews is not solely to blame for the disconnection the art seems to exhibit towards the real lives of the communities of under-privileged and marginalised, as a matter of fact the convergence has had some positive results for a few artists from the black community.

But the positives are too scantily scattered along a perilous road towards reclamation and revitalization of black indigenous artistic practices.