By Duane Deterville


A recent retrospective of the work of Jean Michel Basquiat at the LA Museum of Contemporary Art brought to mind why some Black Genius is more palatable to the art establishment than others. There is a romanticism attached to the figures of Charlie Parker, Bob Thompson, Jimi Hendrix and of course Basquiat. It's a love affair that the Eurocentric status quo art establishment has with Black Genius that can easily be reconstructed in stereotypic descriptions like nihilistic, intuitive, and primitive. These brothas ain't no threat if their lifestyles signal loudly that they won't be around much longer to challenge the status quo.

Geniuses nonetheless, but during their lifetimes they serve as entertainment while white folks watch their ever so bright star of the moment supernova. The artist who exhibits a deft academic knowledge of and facility with the European western (white) art tradition and a myriad of other plural art traditions is potentially dangerous to the notion that the whole "Black Genius thang" is tied to unschooled youthful emotion. Dying young may get you mythic status in white America but it doesn't allow one to enter into the most profound regions of creativity reserved for those that live long enough to master both craft and originality. One such artist is Raymond Saunders, now in the master's phase of his career at age 71.


The painter Raymond Saunders

Saunders' work is currently on show at The Stephen Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco through November 17th 2005 and is some of the finest contemporary painting you are likely to find anywhere. The work is painterly but, for me, the most striking aspects of the pieces are the highly refined and original drawings that are contained in them. Much is made of Basquiat's use of graffiti influenced marks and writing in his work and rightfully so, his use of those elements was brilliant. However, Saunders' predated Basquiat by a decade or more with the use of those elements and when you view pieces such as "Loving Figure and Figuration" at the Wirtz Gallery it becomes plain that Basquiat would have had to live a few more decades to achieve the degree of delicacy and refinement contained in his assured lines. The piece is done on a discarded chalk board, a drawing surface that Saunders has used for over a decade now. His work anticipates Gary Simmons' use of drawings made on a chalkboard and their transient nature.


Saunders' "Loving Figure and Figuration"


The Wirtz Gallery show is indicative of how well Raymond Saunders' work "travels." From "Walking in Oaxaca" with its Mexican crosses and Day of the Dead imagery to "China Windows" with its Chinese characters next to black and yellow vases (think Bandung Conference 1955) harmoniously occupying the composition. He draws us back to the present with the large multimedia piece "Painted by a refugee?! – Refugee as noun – One who flees for refuge to another country – Slavery?" a reference to the Katrina disaster in New Orleans and the resulting double Diaspora that Black folks were plunged into as a result. I hear that he has executed a magnificent altar to the victims of the Katrina disaster at the De Young Museum.

After leaving the Stephen Wirtz Gallery walk up 3rd street to Minna right next to the SF Museum of Modern Art and view the mural-sized Saunders piece affixed to the side of the St. Regis Hotel. After that, catch BART to the Rockridge station in Oakland and walk less than a block to 5620 College Ave and witness how Saunders has performed his visual jazz on the interior walls of Becky's Chinese Restaurant.

The notion of Black Genius is not antithesis to universality. In fact its appeal is both its specificity as part of the ethos of African descendant culture and its ability to reach into and embrace a myriad of other cultures. Jazz is a primary example of that process and Raymond Saunders' art reflects that process as well. His work easily riffs on storefront churches, Chinese writing and children's drawings seamlessly. It is necessary that we black folks make a concerted effort to experience him while he is with us. One of the reasons that we struggle with the stereotypic images attached to Black Geniuses after they have joined the ancestors is that we weren't there when their story was in progress. The audience is the other half of the artistic equation. Once Bird, Jimi and Basquiat are gone we are left with the reclamation project. Just look at the travesties that are the films on the lives of Bird and Basquiat. How many of these artist's histories need to be rescued from the stereotypic myths constructed around their memory by white artists and historians that are ill equipped to understand the black communities that produced them? This is an invitation to witness Raymond Saunders' creative star at its Zenith.

Duane Deterville is the founder and executive director of the Sankofa Cultural Center in Oakland.




BlogON: Why don't artists like Raymond Saunders get by more attention by the media? Whatchusay?