African-American art

African-American art is a broad term describing the visual arts of black Americans (i.e. African Americans). Influenced by various cultural traditions, including those of Africa, Europe and the Americas, traditional African-American art forms include the range of plastic arts, from basket weaving, pottery, and quilting to woodcarving and painting.

Quotes

• The Black Artist's role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it. His role is to report and reflect so precisely the nature of the society, and of himself, in that society, that other men will be moved by the exactness of his rendering, and if they are black men, grow strong through this moving, having seen their own strength, and weakness, and if they are white men, tremble, curse, and go mad, because they will be drenched with the filth of their evil.
  • Amiri Baraka, Negro Digest, vol. 14, no. 6 (April 1965), p. 65

• African-American artists has greatly enriched our quality of life and created one of our Nation's most treasured art forms. As universal and original expressions of the human experience, their body of work, both past and present, entertains, inspires, and thrills countless people around the world.
  • George W. Bush, "A Proclamation By the President of the United States of America on Black Music Month" (29 June 2001)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on African-American art on Wikipedia