Whether organizing long slates of exhibits, mounting fine art marketplaces or commissioning works from individual artists, the National Black Arts Festival can lay claim to an important visual arts program over its 23-year history. But with the festival also presenting or honoring performers as dynamic as Gladys Knight, Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee, as well as a galaxy of literary lights, it's been hard for the visual arts to avoid getting eclipsed.
The NBAF attempts to right the balance this year by presenting a new program Thursday night in Symphony Hall, "Interpretations: Black Visual Art – Past, Present and Future." It's the first of intended annual celebrations honoring visual artists in a style that borrows a little bit of performance sheen by pairing live and recorded musical segments with wide-screen art images.
The first "Interpretations" pays tribute to six master artists -- Elizabeth Catlett, Thornton Dial, David Driskell, Samella Lewis, Richard Mayhew and Betye Saar -- and also celebrates the centennial of Romare Bearden's birth.
"The festival is hell-bent on saying thank you to so many of the artists who are our elders, who have worked so hard to lay the groundwork when there was nothing there before they came," NBAF director of artistic programming Leatrice Ellzy said.
In fact, age was a serious consideration in narrowing down the first group of honorees, Ellzy acknowledged. All of the artists are in their 80s except for Catlett, 96 and now unable to travel from her home in Mexico.
But Dial, Driskell, Mayhew and Saar are all expected to attend and speak. To represent their impact on generations that have followed, one mid-career and one emerging artist will also be recognized (their names will not be revealed in advance).
Music director Russell Gunn selected music by John Coltrane, Stevie Wonder, Fela Kuti, Miles Davis and others to accompany nearly three-minute "visual packages" highlighting each artist's output. Live performances by Jessica Care Moore and Gunn's quartet with vocalists Heidi Martin and Jodi Merriday will also propel the evening.
"The music carries you through it, and it's absolutely beautiful," Ellzy said. "It's kind of like being able to see [the art] differently almost. You may have seen an Elizabeth Catlett [sculpture] before, but not like this."
While the ceremony intends to look back with respect, several of the honorees continue to blaze trails, most notably Alabama self-taught artist Dial, the subject of a career retrospective at the Indianapolis Museum of Art that is receiving major media attention nationally. After stops in New Orleans and Charlotte, "Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial"comes to Atlanta's High Museum in March 2013.
In the meantime, art aficionados can view Dial's recent "Disaster Areas" series at Midtown's Bill Lowe Gallery through Aug. 27.
Ellzy applauded the outsider artist's growing prominence in venues once limited to academically trained artists, defying what she calls the usual art world "boxes and categories."
"Thornton Dial, he broke down those barriers," she said. "He said, 'Because of the way I see the world, I span this entire strata: I am contemporary art. I am folk art. I'm black art.' He is all of those things, and all of those things very proficiently. Hands down, he wins the prize."
Event preview
"Interpretations: Black Visual Art – Past, Present and Future"
8 p.m. Thursday. $25-$45. Symphony Hall, 1280 Peachtree St., Atlanta. 404-733-5000, www.woodruffcentertickets.org.
About the Author
