| "The heart of the Neo-African movement
is also outside Africa where in the absence of the tribal system, the Neo-African
Artist of the NewWorld, has synthesized an intel-lectual basis for the Neo-African
School that has produced an art, a formal integrity of which is a reaffirmation
of the Paleo-African canons of art." |
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"The theories of deconstruction,
reduction, frontality, and overall repetition of primary forms and the eschewing
of texture, perspective, natural color, narrative and literary content cogent
to the minimalist movement in painting and sculpture need to be evaluated
in relation to some of the basic formal canons of Paleo-African and Neo-African
art:" |
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Basic formal canons of Paleo-African and Neo-African
Art:
Tension
between an implied and actual axis. Tension between implied and actual
symmetry. Rhythmic stacking or piling of a primary geometric form in the
configuration of a mass, plane, negative or positive area of space, concave
or convex forms, closed or open form. Regularity of an overall rhythm
or pattern interrupted by randomly arranged adherent motifs, formal surprises,
or fuguelike inversions of the pattern's basic unit. Lack of conformity
between painted areas and the surfaces of planes. Visual punning in which
reduced forms become ambivalent and may be read as alternately representing
one thing or its synonym or antithesis. Pars pro toto motifs which use
a salient aspect of a thing to represent its entirety. Mixed media combinations
of what to the Westerner appear as irrationally related textures, patterns,
colors, objects or ideas.
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