Narrative-driven black art estranged artists from contemporary art movements

Evidence

By trying to build their identity from a representation of reality in itself close to a narrative (the narrative of their existence), most of the time they become estranged from the artistic reality of their time. One can see that this idea assumes completely new turns with the works of some African-American artists who, in the late 1960s (and for the 30 following years), inhabit that gap and contrast by appropriating for themselves the forms of representation of contemporary art while displaying in it elements specific to African-American culture. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2902

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to debates about representational vs formalist art and African American artists like Romare Bearden, Kerry James Marshall, and Glenn Ligon.