Curator’s Choice: The Next Generation of Masters in Black Contemporary Art
In this new installment of our “Curator’s Choice” series, Tony Parker, sales director of United Talent Agency’s Atlanta art space, describes the impact of the great masters of Black art on a new generation of Black abstract painters. As told to Ayanna Dozier.
I am a Black masters fiend. I study Black masters in art to understand what these contemporary artists are trying to convey—what is teetering the line of being a total copy. In order for me to understand a work or artist, and coming from a basketball background, I study people [who came] before us to understand what to do now. It is a really great way to find that balance in art.
My first experience with art came through [late abstract painter] Sam Gilliam. I first encountered Gilliam’s work when I tore my ACL and had to figure out what I was going to do with my life. I was a professional basketball player, had played at UCLA, and won two gold medals. It was a serious part of my life and it was hard to see it not be. So, while I was at a physical rehab center, late at night I was just going religiously through art books and losing myself in Gilliam’s work. It’s a cliché to say, but I was losing myself in real life so it was really easy to lose myself in a painting. Artist books are important to me because I didn’t grow up with art, so that was the only tangible thing I could see about an artist—it educated me in a lot of ways.
Portrait of Tony Parker by Anthony Hilliard, 2023. Courtesy of Tony Parker and UTA, Atlanta.
I first saw Gilliam’s work through Michael Rosenfeld, a gallerist in New York, who walked me through a show they had on view of his work. It was a homecoming moment where I realized that the art world was right where I needed to be and I began as a collector. Collecting, and later consulting, really helped me through a tough period of career transition that many people won’t ever experience. It helped me understand that art collecting [is not just about owning works of art] but that it is a representation of you, and for some people it can be therapeutic.
At that same show at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, I encountered the work of William T. Williams, Norman Lewis, Jack Whitten, and Romare Bearden. It was inspiring to see the depth of their craft and their artistic competitive drive among one another. For me, that was the coolest thing ever, that in spite of discriminatory racist practices that made being a living Black artist difficult, they were still challenging each others’ practice. Williams had once written to his peers that “in the midst of all of this and in order for us to be who we are, iron has to sharpen iron.”
Encountering Bearden’s work was a doozy because he was the only artist from that group to dance between figuration and abstraction. And when you’re studying art in school, you don’t encounter artists who are in this in-between space, so these are the ones that you have to discover for yourself. I love how Bearden views color in the faces of his subjects, where he merges yellows and reds into the skin pigmentation of his Black subjects. A contemporary artist that I have seen evoking his style and at that level is Vaughn Spann. It’s amazing to see Bearden’s influence on younger painters—that’s why they’re masters, you’re supposed to go to them for that stylistic inspiration.
For example, I see Gilliam’s influence on the young emerging painter Darin Cooper. You see Cooper go through these iterations of himself, pulling from artists like Gilliam, Lewis, and Frank Bowling. The special thing with Cooper is that he is not painting like Gilliam, per se, but he is stabbing the canvas with alcohol to make watercolor images on linen and manipulating the canvas with figurative works set against abstract backgrounds, which is outrageous for an artist of his age.
Reginald Sylvester II is another painter who has honed his approach to the canvas. For example, you see him playing with the canvas by putting dents in it and rearranging what people think the canvas should look like, similar to what Gilliam did with his draped paintings [in the late 20th century]. Sylvester’s work, like Gilliam, reimagines what people feel art should look like.
Ryan Cosbert’s work is from parts of the diaspora that people don’t really know: She traces parts from Africa and the Caribbean and puts it together as one in her textile-inspired abstractions. In one work, Cosbert compares the ocean to Black people. We tell the ocean that it’s beautiful and that we love it, but we don’t do enough to protect it. The painting, L.A.S. 1 (2022), refers to all the pollution in the ocean that we can ignore because it’s inconvenient for us to think about. Cosbert is really good at using her abstraction as a vehicle for addressing problems that trouble her. She is an empath and that shows in her work.
Cosbert’s retrospective in 80 years will show the timeline of her abstraction addressing social issues. I think her work mirrors that of Bowling. Whereas he put the countries on the canvas, Cosbert puts the characteristics of these various Black diasporic cultures. That skill that Cosbert possesses is the special part where we talk about influence without stepping over. The work that she puts in and the studying of other masters to elevate her practice, while still conveying her message on contemporary issues, is really special.
Anthony Akinbola, then, is that bridge for Black kids going to the museums today, who will be able to place themselves in the work and say, “That’s me.” His abstract do-rag paintings bring out a beauty that many have looked down upon, and are now hanging in museums. He is a master for how he took an object, like the do-rag, that is two dollars and transformed it into a work of art as an abstract painting. I live with Akinbola’s paintings, they are of my generation, there has been not one Black contemporary art collector who has not wanted an Akinbola painting from me, and it is because it represents us outside of representation.
Sam Gilliam once said that his introduction to abstract painting came from Muhammad Ali’s father. Similarly, here I am: This athlete who doesn’t feel like I belong in the art world, but has gravitated toward it naturally. I’ve discovered the overlap in skill, passion, and drive between the two fields, and I realize that art and sport really are not that different.
Header image: Anthony Akinbola, Camouflage #009 (Sidewinder), 2021.
