Pop art and vernacular cultures

For this volume I contributed both the Introductory essay (pp. 6-36) plus ‘Tropes of the Grotesque in the Black Avant Garde.' (pp. 136-160). This book examines pop art through a post-colonial lens that expands the study of ‘high' and ‘low' boundaries to include artistic practices in Third World settings that employ vernacular sources to question categories of ‘folk,' ‘people' and ‘nation' in relation to issues associated with the visual realm of consumerism. My chapter draws on the analytic methods of M. Bakhtin to examine the dialogical principle in African American art history, with reference to the appropriation of stereotypes, the parody of history painting and the practice of critical ‘debasement'. This is exemplified in works since the late 1960s and early 1970s by Betye Saar, Robert Colescott and David Hammons.
The fourth volume of the series, Exiles, Diasporas & Strangers will be published in 2008. Again I contribute the Introduction to this plus the essay ‘Black Britain: Three Moments in Diaspora Formation.' This final volume traverses again the chronological terrain of the first; mapping art since 1900 in light of migration and displacement as key characteristics of 20th century culture.