Over the past ten years, only 1% of the global art market was spent on works by artists who identified as black.
Blackness in any art space, the blockchain or otherwise, is rare. I mean this as a celebration: we are here, in spite of everything, and our work is of value. I also mean this in revolt: there could be many more of us and much more from us to love. I truly hope this exhibit gives you a little taste of what I mean.
Linda Dounia Rebeiz, curator of BLACK*RARE
MERCY (they/he)
What are some of the challenges, big and small, that you face(d) being a Black artist? 1. Access. One of the big reasons my most prominent art right now is digital-based is that I cannot afford the materials to create visual art traditionally, especially not with the vibrancy and texture that best honours my creative vision.
2. Identity/appearance. My work affirms a lot of people – people who look and love and live like me – but it is also vulgar to a lot of other people. I spend almost as much time fielding hateful responses to my art as I do receiving warmth from the people who are affirmed by it. Apparently Black queer and trans people with fat bodies can’t even exist freely in art. I’m a (smol) fat Black queer and trans person so I know what it means to move through the world as someone possessing multiple markers of deviance and vulgarity. It’s jarring still to have that also projected onto my art.
What about your culture and history are you most proud to share through your art? I’m a Black South African, but something about a country created through colonialist visions doesn’t feel like something I can be fully affirmed by. So I’m not patriotic. I also grew up in a Christian home (I’m a pastor’s kid) so culture in the traditionalist sense is something I’m estranged from. That is on the mend though. The culture I feel most solidly a part of is Black queer and trans culture – a culture that is defined by deliberateness, rebellion, self-determination, and taking up space. In most of my paintings, there are usually a lot of markers (be it clothing, hairstyles, tattoos with pronouns or symbols) of Black queerness and Black transness. We have to make ourselves conspicuous to one another, so we can find each other and also so we can preserve existing evidence of our presence here and create new archives of who we are for future Black queer and trans people. My art is immediately and obviously an ode to Black queerness and transness specifically, and the folks who love and affirm my work most are always able to find it (and me). It’s pretty dope.
ZOE OSBORNE (she/her)
What are some of the challenges, big and small, that you face(d) being a Black artist? As an artist that started in Barbados, it was hard to have my sales directly benefit…
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