| Studies show that African Americans participate in the visual arts far less frequently than they do in other art forms such as music, dance, or theater. Data from the National Endowment for the Arts indicates that while African Americans participate in music, dance, and theater to the same degree as other cultural groups, their participation in the visual arts is significantly lower. Among professional artists, African American artists are not represented to the same proportion as African Americans in the population of the United States as a whole. Moreover, there is evidence that visual art is an academic area which African American students are discouraged by parents, teachers, and guidance counselors for studying in high school and in college. African American students score lower than other cultural groups on national tests of art knowledge and application. The author bell hooks writes about the apathy toward visual art she witnessed among the people with whom she grew up, and projects this lack of interest onto the larger African American community.; Theories that attempt to account for Black underrepresentation in the visual arts range from the discouragement of a racist professional art world, a lack of opportunities to participate in art activities, a reticence to visit institutions such as museums and galleries, to the hegemonic influence of the Western canon. In school, art is seen as a dangerous distraction from more occupationally oriented areas of study.; In order to examine this I interviewed thirty randomly chosen African American high school students.; Theories of cultural ecology were employed to help sort and analyze the data, which were examined on four social levels. The first level is of the dominant Euro-American context of the United States, and the historical relationship between artists and society. The second level involves the primarily White politicians, policy makers, and cultural gatekeepers who mediate the relationship between African American artists and society. The third level entails African Americans' attitudes toward social institutions and self-representation. The fourth level examines the home environment and developmental processes of young African Americans, and the effects of these on their beliefs about artists and art as a professional pursuit. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
