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Reading BRAIN's report on the latest NPD data should have given us all a couple of aha! moments. The report provides a foundation for a new conversation about the growing [...]

Abstract:Since its beginning in 1969 in Chicago, Afri-COBRA has espoused an Afrocentric aesthetic vision. At the same time, it has deemed demeaning any art that posits African peoples as hapless victims, and therefore it has sought to produce a celebratory art—one that reflects cultural balance and aesthetic hegemony. This concept of art and imagery has resonated with many African and African-descent artists throughout the world, and that continuum has created an international concordance in contemporary art that Donaldson describes as a “trans-African” style or movement. This article outlines the development of that movement and AfriCOBRA’s connection to it, as well as the artists with whom its members have come into contact and enjoyed mutual inspiration and influence.

In the AfriCOBRA manifesto Donaldson describes the origins of the group and its aesthetic principles:“The expressive awesomenessthat one experiences in African art and life in the U.S.A. like the Holiness church . . . and the demon that is the blues, Alcindor’s dunk and Sayer’s cut . . . Symmetrythat is free, repetition with change, based on African music and African movement . . . We want the work to look like the creator made it through us . . . We want the things to shine, to have the rich luster of a just-washed ’Fro, of spit-shined shoes . . . Color that shines . . . Color that defines, identifies and directs . . . Coolade colors for coolade images for superreal people.”

Reports that archaeologist Kelly Dixon and colleagues discovered the remains of the Boston Saloon which was opened in 1865 for African-Americans in Virginia City, Nevada. Background on the archaeological activity; How the discovery was made; Historical significance.