Black Arts West

Widener Daniel Widener

Description

From postwar efforts to end discrimination in the motion-picture industry, recording studios, and musicians' unions, through the development of community-based arts organizations, to the creation of searing films critiquing conditions in the black working class neighborhoods of a city touting its multiculturalism-Black Arts West documents the social and political significance of African American arts activity in Los Angeles between the Second World War and the riots of 1992. Focusing on the lives and work of black writers, visual artists, musicians, and filmmakers, Daniel Widener tells how black cultural politics changed over time, and how altered political realities generated new forms of artistic and cultural expression. His narrative is filled with figures invested in the politics of black art and culture in postwar Los Angeles, including not only African American artists but also black nationalists, affluent liberal whites, elected officials, and federal bureaucrats.Along with the politicization of black culture, Widener explores the rise of a distinctive regional Black Arts Movement. Originating in the efforts of wartime cultural activists, the movement was rooted in the black working class and characterized by struggles for artistic autonomy and improved living and working conditions for local black artists. As new ideas concerning art, racial identity, and the institutional position of African American artists emerged, dozens of new collectives appeared, from the Watts Writers Workshop, to the Inner City Cultural Center, to the New Art Jazz Ensemble. Spread across generations of artists, the Black Arts Movement in Southern California was more than the artistic affiliate of the local civil-rights or black-power efforts: it was a social movement itself. Illuminating the fundamental connections between expressive culture and political struggle, Black Arts West is a major contribution to the histories of Los Angeles, black radicalism, and avant-garde art.

Sujets

• USA
• États-Unis
• California

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 08 mars 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822392620
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

B L A C K A R T S W E S T

B L A C K A R T S W E S T  Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles

Duke University Press

DA N I E L W I D E N E R

 Durham and London

 2 0  0

∫2010 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$

Designed by Heather Hensley

Typeset in Minion Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

forgoodfriendsmet

andgoodfriendslost

alongtheway

inthisgreatfuture

youcan’tforgetyourpast

CONTENTS

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I

Acts of Culture, or, Maybe the People Would Be the Times

Cultural Democracy in the Racial Metropolis

1. Hollywood ScuΔe: The Second World War, Los Angeles, and the Politics of Wartime Representation 2. The Negro as Human Being? Desegregation and the Black Arts Imperative 3. Writing Watts: The Rise and Fall of Cultural Liberalism

PART I I

Message from the Grassroots

4. Notes from the Underground: Free Jazz and Black Power in South Los Angeles 5. Studios in the Street: Creative Community and Visual Arts 6. The Arms of Criticism: The Cultural Politics of Urban Insurgency

PART I I I

Festivals and Funerals

7. An Intimate Enemy: Culture and the Contradictions of Bradleyism 8. How to Survive in South Central: Black Film as Class Critique

Epilogue

Notes Works Cited Index

ix xi

1

21 52 90

117 153 187

221 250

283

291 329 353

ILLUSTRATIONS

1.uJpmJyofrochorus members, 1941 2. Duke Ellington with Louise Franklin, 1941 3. Hattie McDaniel with female entertainers, not dated 4. Housing segregation, 1950 5.lapdo≈cers arrest Joseph Lewis at Cafe Zombie, 1947 6. Professor Wilkins and students, circa 1932 7. Mrs. Alma Hightower teaching music class, 1939 8. Nick Stewart publicity still, 1954 9. City Council members visit Ebony Showcase, 1967 10. Beulah Woodard with Biddy Mason sculpture, not dated 11. Looted surplus store, 1965 12. Budd Schulberg at Watts Writers Workshop, 1967 13. Watts Happening Co√ee House, not dated 14. Watts Writers Workshop congressional testimony, 1966 15. Watts Summer Festival parade, 1968 16. Watts community chalk-in, 1968 17. Horace Tapscott playing piano, 1986 18. Art made from riot debris, 1966 19. David Hammons, ‘‘The Door,’’ 1969 20. John Outterbridge, ‘‘Case in Point,’’ 1970 21. John Riddle Jr., ‘‘Bird and Diz,’’ 1973 22. Betye Saar, ‘‘Nine Mojo Secrets,’’ 1971

25 27 43 58 61 69 70 77 78 85

93 95 96 98 109 131 144 164 166 167 168 173