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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies

On The Black Book As Durational: Noah Purifoy’S Desert Library, Paul Benzon Jun 2023

On The Black Book As Durational: Noah Purifoy’S Desert Library, Paul Benzon

Criticism

What happens to a library in the desert? How does it transform as a material object under these pressures, and what might these transformations tell us about its capacity for bearing and registering history? This article considers these questions in relation to the artist Noah Purifoy’s found-object installation Library of Congress, one of approximately thirty works that make up the ten-acre space of the Noah Purifoy Desert Art Museum of Assemblage Art in Joshua Tree, California. The museum consists of a wide range of found-object sculptures, all deeply enmeshed within the space of the desert. The museum, and indeed Purifoy’s …


The Beautiful Struggle Of Black Feminism: Changes In Representations Of Black Womanhood Examined Through The Artwork Of Elizabeth Catlett And Mickalene Thomas, Juana Williams Jan 2017

The Beautiful Struggle Of Black Feminism: Changes In Representations Of Black Womanhood Examined Through The Artwork Of Elizabeth Catlett And Mickalene Thomas, Juana Williams

Wayne State University Theses

The visual representation of black womanhood is important in understanding black women’s journey toward liberation and empowerment. The use of representations of black womanhood as tools of empowerment is evident through the artwork of Elizabeth Catlett and Mickalene Thomas. Catlett was one of the most prominent black female artists during the 1960s – 1970s, as her artwork and activism expressed the Black Nationalist theories of the Black Arts Movement. Thomas’s artwork and artistic beliefs are in line with many theories regarding post-blackness, such as a reinterpreting of the definition of blackness. Discussing the work of these artists offers a glimpse …