{"id":5038,"date":"2019-03-22T10:40:49","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T10:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=5038"},"modified":"2019-03-23T14:51:18","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T14:51:18","slug":"collecting-african-american-art-after-20-years-an-interview-with-author-halima-taha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=5038","title":{"rendered":"Collecting African American Art\u00a0After 20 Years: An Interview with Author Halima Taha"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collecting African American Art<\/span><\/i>\u00a0After 20 Years: An Interview with Author Halima Taha<\/span><\/h3>\n
By Shantay Robinson<\/span><\/pre>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Halima Taha, author of\u00a0<\/span>Collecting African American Art: Works on Paper and Canvas<\/span><\/i>, celebrates the 20<\/span>th<\/span>\u00a0anniversary of her book\u2019s publishing this year. According to Taha, \u201cThis\u00a0was the\u00a0first book to validate collecting painting, photography and prints by\u00a0African American artists as a viable asset and commodity.\u201d\u00a0As a seminal\u00a0how-to and reference guide for\u00a0art for both neophyte and seasoned\u00a0art\u00a0collectors,\u00a0this title has gone\u00a0into\u00a0six reprints.\u00a0\u00a0The first printing included 7500 books, which was a large run for any art book\u00a0twenty years ago. Both Absolut Vodka and PBS have created relationships with the book in order to thank their consumers\u00a0in conjunction with traveling exhibitions and membership drives.\u00a0\u00a0The book has been available\u00a0on Amazon, art bookstores\u00a0and museum gift shops, including\u00a0the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.\u00a0The beauty of Richard Mayhew\u2019s painting dons the cover which inspired window display designers at Nordstrom in San Francisco and Felissimo Design House in New York City to include a wall of this book in their window displays.\u00a0The information in\u00a0<\/span>Collecting African American Art: Works on Paper and Canvas<\/span><\/i> continues to be as relevant today as it was 20 years ago.\u00a0\u00a0Currently Taha is working on a follow up to her first publication, which will focus on collecting and commerce within the international market for African Diasporic art inclusive of the full spectrum of media artists work in.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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“This was the first book to validate collecting painting, photography and prints by African American artists as a viable asset and commodity”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
It took her eight years to find a publisher, because they told her a book about art needed to be associated with an exhibition, that black people don\u2019t buy art or read books, and white people don\u2019t buy black art. Fortunately, Taha used her intelligence to subvert the naysayers. She did her own market research by calling popular magazines for their demographics to attest to their diverse readerships.\u00a0\u00a0When the Metropolitan Museum\u00a0of Art\u00a0had a seminal\u00a0Bill Traylor exhibition, she called to find out their\u00a0attendance and published catalogue\u00a0numbers.\u00a0All of the Bill Traylor\u00a0hard cover\u00a0catalogues\u00a0were sold out and they had fewer than half of the\u00a0soft bound\u00a0catalogues\u00a0within the first month of the show’. She says, \u201cI was able to utilize all of the data. So, the hoops I had to jump through for those eight years reinforced how invisible and devalued African American visual culture was in\u00a0mainstream institutions and with publishers at the end of the 20<\/span>th<\/span>\u00a0century.\u00a0Knowing\u00a0how valuable Black culture is and how integral it is to American culture\u00a0made me push harder.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
When Taha started writing her book in the 1980s, she says there were about six\u00a0history\u00a0books\u00a0and small printings of regional\u00a0exhibition catalogues\u00a0available about black art. When her book was rejected, Taha felt like the publishing companies were telling her that she\u00a0and\u00a0African American visual culture\u00a0didn\u2019t have any worth.\u00a0The myth that black art books\u00a0would not\u00a0sell was debunked. With her market research, she secured a publisher\u00a0after firing her agent. And within the first two weeks of publication,\u00a0<\/span>Collecting African American Art: Works on Paper and Canvas<\/span><\/i>\u00a0was almost sold out. The success of the book allowed the publishing industry to see that books about black art can sell.\u00a0\u00a0Contrary to what publishers\u00a0believed at the end to the last century,\u00a0there\u00a0does not\u00a0need to be an exhibition in conjunction with the publication of a book on\u00a0Black artists.\u00a0\u00a0They were also able to see that they could publish monographs about individual\u00a0artists\u00a0with success.\u00a0\u00a0Today, there are several books about black artists on the market.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
There\u00a0continues to be a need for a\u00a0guide\u00a0like\u00a0<\/span>Collecting African American Art: Works on Paper and Canvas<\/span><\/i>\u00a0for future generations of collectors. Taha says, \u201cI have a real strong social conscious\u00a0guided by\u00a0a moral and ethical compass about the culture\u00a0as well as the importance of\u00a0equity\u00a0in\u00a0access to information. and the sharing of information which comes from learning a lot from.\u00a0My passion for sharing information about art and artist comes from love and guidance from primary\u00a0mentors like\u00a0Dr.\u00a0Samella Lewis,\u00a0Elizabeth Catlett, David Driskell,\u00a0Frank Stewart, Corinne Jennings, and Camille Billops.\u201d Taha was motivated to inform readers about collecting\u00a0black art because while attending New York University for a master\u2019s degree in Arts Management and Cultural Policy, she co-owned Onyx Art Gallery when a woman,\u00a0visited the gallery\u00a0and was excited to\u00a0share\u00a0that she had purchased a print by Elizabeth Catlett.\u00a0When Taha found out how much she paid for it, she was flabbergasted. At the time, around 1984 or 1985, the woman had paid $7,500 for a print that\u00a0today is sold for no more than $4,500.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI felt strongly that everybody, no matter what you earn,\u00a0works\u00a0hard for their\u00a0money.\u00a0The idea of taking<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>advantage of somebody who wants to invest in their culture, and support black artists is criminal.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0This experience was the catalyst for Taha\u2019s decision to educate neophyte and seasoned art enthusiasts on collecting, as she had been doing at Onyx Art Gallery. Although her book was welcomed by collectors, some art world insiders were not thrilled that Taha was sharing such valuable information. \u201cThey didn\u2019t want black collectors to know that they could go to a dealer and look at several pieces of work and negotiate a block discount for several pieces of work. \u2018You\u2019re telling the trade secrets.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
In the 1980s, when she started writing the book, the African American art market revolved around works on paper because they are typically less expensive than works on canvas or other media. Her African Americans clients \u201chad real estate, they had their trips, the cars,\u00a0jewelry\u00a0clothes,\u00a0stocks, bonds, all the typical investments.\u00a0\u00a0Now\u00a0<\/span>and<\/span>\u00a0they were looking for something else\u00a0to enrich\u00a0their lives\u201d She educated them on how art appreciates, which is quite different from how stocks and bonds do that have more definitive ways of appreciation. It was an abstract concept for them. According to Taha, the 1980s experienced a significant growth in collecting of African American art. She says, \u201cAnd that growth was not just among African American art collectors. There were a tremendous amount of European, Japanese and white American collectors looking at African American art.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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Today, again,\u00a0collecting\u00a0African American art\u00a0has emerged as an important\u00a0investment for major\u00a0corporate and\u00a0art\u00a0institutions. Taha explains, \u201cIf you\u2019re collecting Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler, you\u2019re looking for Norman Lewis,\u00a0Hale Woodruff,\u00a0Beauford Delaney,\u00a0Mary Lovelace O\u2019Neal and Mildred Thompson\u00a0to make a complete\u00a0art historical statement\u201d The gaps in the visual narratives are being filled in major collections with the work of African American artists who had been ignored and\u00a0now completing the story.\u00a0\u201cEssentially, at the time of the book\u2019s release, many museum curators and collectors recognized the importance of filing the gaps in their American collections with the meritorious work of American artists of African descent.\u201d\u00a0\u201cI think\u00a0the visual narratives, and<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>intellectual prowess of\u00a0many\u00a0African American artists is a lot more compelling than a lot of the other narratives\u00a0in the marketplace.\u00a0The work is more vibrant\u00a0and substantive,\u00a0not just in terms of color, but in terms of content.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Collecting African American Art: Works on Canvas and Paper<\/span><\/i>\u00a0invigorated museums to search for collections of African American art because they\u00a0are in the business of showing\u00a0private and institutional\u00a0collections<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n
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When asked if she thought the increased interest in African American art is a phase.\u00a0She explains, \u201cI\u00a0do not think this is phase because quality art requires intellectual and cultural diversity, worldwide.\u00a0\u00a0I think what\u00a0is\u00a0most significant is that an opportunity exists for the art world to recognize these artists as American artists, talented artists and thought-provoking artists who happen to be Black.\u00a0This is what African American artists have just wanted for years.\u00a0\u00a0They did not segregate themselves from the art world or art market.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The hypocrisy is that\u00a0the\u00a0art world and market want to paint a broad brushstroke and infer that it\u2019s all about the art not the color of the skin, when for years that was their criteria for whether they would exhibit or\u00a0sell\u00a0\u201cAmerican artists\u201d work.\u00a0As recent as the\u00a01980s and\u00a0the end of the 20<\/span>th<\/span>\u00a0century\u00a0artists\u00a0were told,\u00a0we don\u2019t show black art and they didn\u2019t even look at the portfolio. They just saw the artist\u2019s skin. And that\u2019s fact.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
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Taha has community-based goals and is motivated by that. She wants to make information about African Diasporic visual culture available to all people regardless of class or education level. She believes in engaging in thinking about art as a way to get people to think critically. She sees art as a \u201cgateway for communication about important thoughts and feelings about the world in which they live in and [thinks] that it also brings disparate groups of people together that might not ordinarily meet.\u201d She thinks art inspires us to our greatest humanity.\u00a0\u00a0Halima Taha loves the culture and she loves what she\u2019s doing. \u201cAnd in the words of Samella Lewis and Elizabeth Catlett, one of the things they said is there\u2019s so much that needs to be done. There are so many cogs in the wheel. There\u2019s so much work for everybody in terms of the work that needs to be done.\u201d She says it can be discouraging, but she\u2019s clear about her intentions. \u201cThe purpose of my work continues to be to bring people together through art. To have conversations that will ultimately enhance our understanding of one another about the issues that are important for people to discuss, and to come up with viable solutions to whatever those issues may be. But the art can be a catalyst to that discourse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
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Shantay Robinson, BAIA resident scholar has participated in\u00a0Burnaway<\/i>\u2019s\u00a0Art Writers Mentorship Program, Duke University\u2019s\u00a0The New New South\u00a0<\/i>Editorial Fellowship, and CUE Art Foundation\u2019s Art Critic Mentoring Program. She has written for\u00a0Burnaway, ArtsATL, ARTS.BLACK, AFROPUNK, Number, Inc.\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0Washington City Paper<\/i>. While \u00a0receiving an MFA in Writing from Savannah College of Art and Design, she served as a docent at the High Museum of Art. She is currently working on a PhD in Writing and Rhetoric at George Mason University.<\/p>\n
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