To bell hooks

To bell hooks, 

I am writing to thank you for your insights and the critical considerations you forward within your article An Aesthetic of Blackness: Strange and Oppositional. It was a refreshing and insightful read, engaging me in matters I have previously been aware of however have rarely seen considered in this way (perhaps I am not adequately engaged). Specifically I appreciate your anti-essentialist sentiments, arguing for a non-prescriptive aesthetic accounting for the diversity of experience within and of Black artistic production. On page 70, you write, “a radical aesthetic acknowledges that we are constantly changing positions, locations, that our needs and concerns vary, that these diverse directions must correspond with shifts in critical thinking.”2 This is an important reflection upon the realities of artists working from a marginalized position– I am speaking as an Indigenous artist specifically. Your stance contra reductive understandings of human experience is highly valuable and necessary, not only in the context of the Black Arts Movement of the 60s, but in our contemporary reality today. I would argue that neoliberal identitarianism has seeped its way into various subcultural and/or political streams, influencing the way we interact with the world, with each other, and with the arts. It becomes an essentializing force which reduces people to solely one or two identity categories to which they belong, while denying the multifaceted aspects of their personhood. As an Indigenous artist, I see the effects of this reductive culture; I’ve experienced similarly restrictive sentiments within conversations about Indigenous art production and aesthetics to those you describe regarding Black arts/aesthetics. 

On page 68, you write: “Links between black cultural nationalism and revolutionary politics led ultimately to the subordination of art to politics. Rather than serving as a catalyst promoting diverse artistic expression, the Black Arts Movement began to dismiss all forms of cultural production by African-Americans that did not conform to movement criteria. Often this led to aesthetic judgments that did not allow for recognition of multiple black experience or the complexity of black life[.]” At times within Indigenous arts discourse, there exist risks of prescriptive modes of artistic production; dictating what is or isn’t Indigenous art, creating expectations for artists to reduce their experience/expression of their Indigeneity/themselves within their work to fit within projected ideals of what Indigenous art is supposed to be. Here, expressing the realities of facing or being affected by assimilation or hybridity are suppressed. I am not saying Indigenous artists who entirely deny or reject their cultural backgrounds/knowledges in the name of appealing to white/Western audiences are to be upheld as the best representations of Indigenous art. What I am saying is that Indigenous artists can’t be expected to be entirely uninfluenced by powers and processes of colonialism, of assimilation and hybridity. I think you would understand what I am saying, as you discuss a similar phenomenon when you write: “There is a grave difference between that engagement with white culture which seeks to deconstruct, demystify, challenge, and transform[,] and gestures of collaboration and complicity. We cannot participate in dialogue that is the mark of freedom and critical agency if we dismiss all work emerging from white western traditions.” (hooks, 70). This recognition of the ability of Black artists to engage with non-Black (Western, colonial, etc.) artistic forms/modes of thought is crucial to combatting reductive, prescriptive, or essentialist sentiments. Especially regarding aesthetics of racialized, marginalized, and/or generally ‘other-ed’ peoples; furthermore, accounting for liberatory thought and possibilities. 

I read your article as an assigned reading for an aesthetics class I am taking at OCAD University. In the course we theorize and philosophize, deeply thinking about and engaging critically with various concepts regarding aesthetics and aesthetic production. I would like to point you towards another thinker we considered, Theodor W. Adorno. I am unsure if you know of his work, so I will write as if you do not. For the course we read Culture Industry Reconsidered, wherein he describes a phenomenon of ‘artistic autonomy’ being suppressed: “The autonomy of works of art, which of course rarely ever predominated in an entirely pure form, and was always permeated by a constellation of effects, is tendentially eliminated by the culture industry, with or without the conscious will of those in control.” (Adorno, 13). I see this as relevant to what I have been saying, in that the will of an artist is no longer free to be expressed. Adorno connects this to capitalism, that artworks become commodified and reduced to mere objects of profit. (Adorno, 13). I’m sure you’ll appreciate this anti-capitalist framework, as you speak to the impacts of “consumer capitalism… nurturing in us a longing for things that subsume our ability to recognize aesthetic worth or value.” (hooks, 66). Adorno would surely resonate with this identification, claiming that “[t]he total effect of the culture industry is one of anti-enlightenment.” (Adorno, 18). Generally in my life I see growing evidence of anti-intellectual sentiments- reliance on artificial intelligence, the inability or unwillingness to engage or think critically, a dismissal of intellectual theorizing or discussion. Perhaps I am pessimistic or not happening to fall into particular sociocultural scenes wherein intellectual thought is revered, or at least respected. Regardless, I understand Adorno’s theory of the culture industry as relevant to the prior issues I have brought up. I read this theory as being restrictive in that prevailing notions of cultural production are constructed and reaffirmed by dominant discourses/individuals. Furthermore, the ‘anti-enlightenment effect’ expressed by Adorno is of particular importance to thinkers of cultural aesthetics. By manufacturing these prescriptive notions of aesthetic ideals, stripping an artwork (and the artist) of its autonomy, the arts then become an essentializing force not reflective of the fullness of one’s human experience and existence. This suppresses true possibilities of engaging in liberatory and discursive practices and discourse, as it demands a sort of self-censorship and misalignment with self by denying entire aspects of one’s self. It’s a sort of erasure, contributing to a dumbing down of those engaging with, and producing, artworks. 

I am grateful for your essay as it has provided me with deeper investigations into artistic cultural production, relevant to my experience as an Indigenous artist. It is nourishing to engage with the sentiments you express, reflecting and forwarding solutions to homogenizing forces. What Black and Indigenous artists may need to consider in their artistic practices moving forward, which I know I will be doing in my own, is how to build trust within themselves to vulnerably reflect the fullness of their experience. To not suppress or deny elements of themselves to fit within scripts of expected production. To reflect and embrace their ‘strange and oppositional’. I believe this will allow artists to produce artworks rich with insight, criticality, and humanity, while opposing limiting, dehumanizing, and/or reductive impositions. 

Thank you, 

Jordyn Hendricks