Theodore Harris: Conscientious Objector to Formalism, 2015
After Kerry James Marshall.
About:
Conscientious Objector to Formalism is a series of minimal, image, and quotation based works that uses poetry to confront mainstream art criticism, art history, to look beneath the surface politics of aesthetics and formalism in a presentation of art that is not self-referential or to put a Black face on the art history of imperialism.
After Aime Cesaire.
After Fanon and Shozawa.
In the main the series takes as its subject how Black Art is historicized and reviewed by mainstream art critics. My intention is to grapple with how contemporary art criticism narrowly speaks to the politics of the subject matter rather than approach to materials.
After Mieke Bal.
Theodore A. Harris was born in 1966 in New York City and raised in Philadelphia, where his art practice is based. Harris is a collagist, author, poet, curator, and essayist on the intersection of art and politics.(text from Rechercher Website, no.3, 2015)