MISSION & VISON
The Black Artists Archive’s (BAA) mission is to leverage the rich histories of self-sustained Detroit Black artists and collectives to foster a nurturing environment for creativity, exhibition, learning, and the preservation of Black art history and visual culture. We strive to create dynamic spaces where people are empowered to engage with and contribute to the vibrancy of Black artistic expressions. Our vision is to dismantle the idea of conventional art history by engaging in a new model with local visual culture that exposes and connects all communities to the vast experiences of Black artists. Ultimately, we seek to establish a framework that will be expandable to other centers of Black artists throughout the U.S.
We will support and advance our mission of becoming a critical asset to Detroit’s arts community through our three foundational activities. Thus, our vision will manifest through the Black Artists Archive, which will implement practice shifts in archiving Black cultural materials. The Black Curatorial Institute (BCI) that will establish a new learning center to advance fresh approaches to curatorial and archival practice, and the DUO Incubatory Residency which will create and facilitate interdisciplinary dialogues between curators and artists unique to the Detroit experience. These three core programmatic activities will establish BAA as a new model of space, community, and support for Detroit’s arts community.
CREATION
The concept for BAA began germinating in 2011 when I visited Kellie Jones’ groundbreaking exhibition Now Dig This!: Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980. I identified immediately that I needed to bring more visibility to the fact that Black artists in L.A. were not an anomaly. In fact, the artists in the exhibition in L.A. were just one example of a much larger scenario. Black artists have always created the cultural and institutional infrastructures they needed to sustain their practices, despite being purposely excluded from their local, regional, national and international arts establishments.
I utilized my experience in viewing the L.A. show to reflect on the artists in Detroit, Michigan who had also established a burgeoning arts community and vast cultural ecosystem throughout the city from the late 1950’s through the 2000’s, in isolation, without support and acknowledgement of the traditional arts community. I had come of age with the work of artists like Ronald Scarborough, John Onye Lockhart, Olayami Dabls, Harold Neal, Shirley Woodson Reid, Dr. Cledie Taylor, Sabrina Nelson, and a host of others, whom I admired and championed, but found few others that held them in the regard they deserved. In that moment, I realized that an exhibition chronicling the histories of Black artists in Detroit was necessary, and quite possible due to the depth of artists and their legacies within Detroit. As such, I began, on my own time and with my personal finances, to further research and plan for just such an exhibition.
Although traditional museums and the larger arts community, including the for-profit sector, have recently broadened their interests in Black artists and culture, they continue to be colonial institutions with very complex histories and practices. Artists in general are often not the focal point of support for their careers, however, Black artists are even more so left without that infrastructure, and that is not changing with the current interest in their work. Meaning, despite the fastidious acquisition and exhibition of works by Black artists, serving to promote and advance individual for-profit and nonprofit organizational DEAIB efforts, traditional institutions rarely compensate or assist emerging Black artists beyond “museum exposure.” Additionally, they do not cultivate healthy work environments for Black arts professionals, which leaves artists and curators of color at the forefront of those inequities. Lastly, the artwork is hardly ever interpreted through Black cultural frameworks and intellectual traditions. Black museums across the nation have often led the charge in doing this work, however they have historically gone under-recognized and severely underfunded.
BAA will change that reality by collecting and documenting the histories of Black artists and Black arts professionals, specifically beginning with those from Detroit, who are currently in need of an institutional repository that will preserve their legacies, artworks, papers, and various ephemera. BAA is dedicated to leveraging the histories and grassroots organizational strategies of self-sustaining Black orgs in Detroit to establish itself as a place dedicated to the cultivation of all people interested in the exhibition of Black artists and the preservation of Black art history and visual culture. BAA is designed to provide a caring and comforting environment that celebrates Black people, Black art, and Black culture in ways that allow artists and professionals who specialize in those areas to research, curate, and create their work free from tokenism, disingenuity and the psycho-emotional abuse perpetrated by institutions rooted in white colonialist and imperialist histories.
Since that initial lightbulb moment thirteen years ago, I have utilized my scholarly pursuits, lectures, teaching and coaching, collection advisement, and exhibitions to diligently set BAA in motion, transforming it from an exciting exhibition concept into a comprehensive arts organization. BAA is working to preserve the legacies of Black artists in Detroit; educate artists and arts professionals in how to maintain and grow their practices; and exhibit the works and ideas of emerging/mid-level artists & curators throughout the Midwest region.