Date/Time
Thursday February 12th, 20156:30 pm ‐ 9:00 pm
Location
CERAS Building Room 101, Stanford Graduate School of Education520 Galvez Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
About
Director/Producer: Celia Carey
Has Afro-American improvisational visual art been disregarded by the mainstream art world as less important? Have terms such as “outsider”, “visionary,” “primitive,” “folk,” “self-taught,” and “naïve”—all of which have been applied to this particular style— downgraded the importance of this art? Are these terms classist, or racist? The film explores the visual arts sibling of jazz, the blues and gospel. As the visual interpretation of life from America’s former slave culture, this improvisational style is a unique artistic view in American history—and one of America’s few very home-grown artistic styles. Are works produced by artists who never received formal training equal in dollar value to pieces created by talent honed in art classes? The current movement toward recognizing and elevating great Southern African-American talents, such as Dial, is causing the artistic intelligentsia to reexamine its own prejudices.
Following the screening discussion with Patience Young, retired Director of Academic Engagement, Cantor Arts Center, moderated by Jasmina Bojic, Camera As Witness Program Director and Founder of the international documentary film festival UNAFF.
Cosponsors
Camera As Witness, School of Education
