Friday, November 30, 2007

Out of Context Amiri Baraka Quotes

From the classroom session by Amiri Baraka, November 17th. Video on view in Otabenga Jones' installation at the Menil Collection.

"the artworld is just another white racist institution"

"I don't know about American Gangster, I want to see Harriet Tubman's life- make that exciting!"

"Whenever I say [Al] Gore I think of Gorey Island, a slave island off the coast of Senegal..."

"the artist is the ideological reflection of the world in the mind of the artist..."

"the colored secretary of state is there so they can threaten other colored people"

"Abstract painting is safer than showing blood pouring out of the chest of the worker"

"In the history of America there has never been a white man convicted of raping a black woman"

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

It doesn't matter to me if they are out of context, they are anachronistic... A whole host of eye popping statements from the old guard... with no concept of new generations, new problems, but especially no new ideas... the worst part is the fear of being labeled racist for criticizing such statements, remember white is a color too