Book publication at C.H. Beck Verlag presenting 15 exemplary positions of Black artists from the contemporary art field. The book is intended for an all-ages audience and is aimed at a readership that does not necessarily have to be familiar with the contemporary art vocabulary;
Language: German.
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In the summer of 2021, the co-founder of ContemporaryAnd, Julia Grosse, approached me for a book project. It was planned as a non-fiction book in the all-ages series of the renowned Munich-based C.H. Beck Verlag and was to present the work of Black contemporary visual artists. We talked about the fact that after school art lessons one hardly knows more names than Picasso, Monet, Manet, if one does not look more deeply into the subject. Important and great artists that they are, however, they are all dead, white and male.
The idea of the book was to address this fact and introduce people outside the art bubble to living, still practicing, Black artist worth knowing. The positions presented in Black Artists Now, live in our present and explore the boundaries of genres, bring new perspectives to the public, and use the art system, whose norms and rules are not made for them, in inspiring ways.
The 15 artists are just a selection to make readers want to learn more. Each chapter begins with an anecdote from the life and work of the artists, expressing a core element of their practice. Even if you can't remember all the dates and details, stories always linger in your mind.
From the beginning, I was excited about the project because it very much matches the goals that led me to study media years ago and start writing journalistically: To make exciting and important content accessible to a larger general audience. To promote an arts discourse outside of the established media. And to help take down the hurdles of the contemporary art field to show what a transformative power art can have in everyone's daily lives. I hope that Black Artist Now will contribute to this.