No. 33 - Art, Culture, Legacy, and Value

We go to the gallery or see a fantastic display of Art that resonates. We share the experience with that special someone or with a group of like-minded colleagues and allow the intricately embedded message in the Artwork to give us something to reflect upon. We spend hours talking about the Art and the impact is has on us, appreciating the gift of thought and dialog we have been blessed with. We shake the Artists hand and compliment him/her of their obvious commitment to using Art to stimulate thought and remind us of some long-lost value - or perspective - that has made us great.

And then we go home.

We do not support the Arts with the very thing that gives it value and creates a lasting legacy for those who will come after us. We choose to spend our money on short-term material possessions or momentary thrills, forgetting about the experience we had just enjoyed. We rather browse through a magazine or the Internet, or go and buy a drastically reduced copy of the work we know has greater meaning to us.

So much for recognizing how important the experience we just had is to us… so much for using our financial power to dictate what is valuable to us. Instead, we have bought into the notion that someone in some distant place - who has no real connection to our community or what is important to us - determines what we need.

Let us take a moment and consider how history is recorded and information is passed down from one generation to another.

It is commonly known that much of the greatness of our past history has been learned from the many artifacts discovered in hidden burial grounds, great museums, and many of the slowly dwindling Black libraries and churches in our changing communities. Researchers from the beginning of history (as it is told these days) have used Art and Art artifacts to gain insights and understanding of life and cultures that have long since disappeared. Therein lies the real value of Art and what it means to a culture.

It is the only way to accurately insure the truth of our present day is recorded, represented, and passed down as a legacy to generations to come.

It is our tool to represent our perspective to all who seek to understand the world we live in, and it gives us the opportunity to reflect upon our present.

Art is a record of our present perspective that can be – and should be, I dare say – compared to the past.

“One can never have a better future if one can not reflect upon the truths of the past”, as the saying goes. Whenever I see pictures that remind me of the slavery and jim crow-ism I have an opportunity to consider my present. I can reflect upon the challenges and processes of the day and discern how much – or how little – progress we have made.

Value is based upon our perception of the messages we receive, and the acceptance of some monetary amount that is placed upon a thing. That’s capitalism at its best. All too often we rather debate the monetary value placed on Black Art yet will not even consider challenging a value placed on Art created by other cultures.

Why is that so? Why do we continually diminish our own value while at the same time prop up the “value” of others? What are we afraid of?

It seems to me we are supremely qualified to assign our own Value to our own Arts and we do not need the “blessings” of others. It seems to me we ought to place greater historical significance on modern-day Artists and the important work they do. We should remember the real Value Black Americans have in the United States, which is to say we have a combined buying power of over $900 Billion dollars – more than all of Canada.

Imagine what will happen when we recognize this Value and begin to make decisions that ensure our Arts are properly valued across the land. Imagine what would happen if, like hundreds of years ago all across the African continent, Black Americans came together in support of our Arts and Artists, giving them the same level of respect we give others.

As long as there are Black Artists we will have the opportunity to actively control the representation of our present reality, and use that representation to influence the trajectory of our future. As far as I can tell there will be no shortage of qualified Artists to do the work of chronicling our world – it is a calling every true Artist understands.
We have the capacity to make our voices heard and to ensure, hundreds of years from now, that our lives and the world we live in today is captured and told by Black Americans. We are all obligated to insure our reality is documented for the coming generations. And we should be tired of having others who have no real connection to our community, culture, or legacy telling us what is Art and what we Value.

For Black folk, there is only one true Art to Value – Our Art. No other ethnicity will value it properly if we do not value it properly. I encourage you, when next you are buying Black Art to say one simple word when the Artist of your liking gives you his/her price: “Okay”.