Will soon be seen in the collection of Robert Rubin, The Bridge, Noyack, N.Y.

Robert Rubin, collector, art historian, good guy and country club owner has acquired new work for the club house at Long Island’s finest private country club, The Bridge. Although more pieces may be selected, for now, Mr. Rubin has selected, “Coors, Coors, Coors” and “Becks” to hang in the clubhouse behind the bar. The refined and dynamic quality of the bar interior is a nice contrast to the ready-made quality of these canvases. These recent pieces join the permanent home of Arthur Negro I in addition to a collection that includes photographer David Levinthal and painter Richard Prince (who also happens to be a member).

Although I haven’t seen them installed yet, I am told they look great.

I should have pics of the pieces soon.

I showed work, talked about my process and made plenty of time for question, answers and comments. It seemed everyone left feeling a little more inspired, if not humored, by my whimsical and entertaining nature when I do these things.  I have fun doing it and my energy is appealing.  Im definitely not the shy, brooding, weight of the world artist when I present work… it’s entertainment as far as I’m concerned. My fear is someone getting bored, so I do what I can to keep them engaged =, curious and interested.

It was a great day and I was happy to share with the young art students.

Points of departure. New pieces literally wrestled into shape. Stubborn objects that nearly refused to let me make them! Painting with leather, staples, screws and a little accidental blood. New work in the new year.

‘Skinning” these bags feels like I’ve ambushed a wild boar to skin it alive. There is so much resistance. Im straddling the bag at times like Ive jumped on it and its riding away in fear while I cut and rip its hide away from its bones! The only thing missing is the high pitched squeals of the boar. Im making up for its absence with my own painful sounds. Fucking frustrating process!

My Toupee, a drawing I did in early October was done for a very specific reason – a project was presented to me and I accepted.  The project allowed me to indulge in one of my strengths, drawing.  Secondly, the guidelines for the project had to do with self-portraiture with a broad scope and plenty of freedom.

However, many time in art these days, drawings seems de-emphasized. With that said, my choice in doing this project was to keep it very simple – to do a self-portrait from the mirror. Drawing from observation – what a concept!

Often times it seems drawing comes from the imagination, with imagery forms and imaginary environments.  Drawing from ovservation, from actual visual investigation of an object or figure, seems to have less and less appeal.  Whether that is because it is out of fashion to draw or many contemporary artists cant draw (due to an art school education’s de-emphasis on drawing), the point is, drawing from observation MAY be becoming a lost art.

More on the subject later – for now, enjoy the drawing.

This is a re-posting and is updated based on newly discovered documents. The documents include a book store receipt with handwritten notes on the back. The handwriting has been determined to be that of Arthur Negro. Also, a yellowed mail order form for Argyle sweaters with Arthur Negro’s name and address on it [this is the first time an actual address has been established for the enigmatic leader]. And lastly, a signed copy of the cookbook, ‘Barbecuing with Bobby Seale‘ (signing date date indistinguishable).

WHAT IT WAS

Arthur Negro, the founding member of the Former Black Militant Golf and Country Club, is considered a pioneering force of his time. He operated behind the scenes of many of the 20th century’s most charged and politically divisive campaigns for racial equality.

Although retired from day to day activism, Art Negro (as he is referred to by those close to him. In some circles he is known as Black Art), was a power broker in the 1960s orchestrating behind the scenes for such organizations as the Student Non-violent Co-coordinating Committee (SNCC), The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) as well as the militant wing of the Black Panthers.

In the comfort zone of his post-rebel days however, he remains a progressive thinker recognizing the necessity for a private environment in which trailblazers of the past are permitted to commune and discuss strategies for future movements. What has transpired is the first and only Golf and Country Club devoted exclusively to the post-militant years of former radical political activists.

Art Negro’s early years are vague. Some say he organized the protests against the guilty verdicts against the Scottsboro Boys in the early 1930s. It was he, some say, who advised the Till family on the open casket presentation of little Emmett Till’s mangled corpse after he was killed for allegedly whistling at a southern white woman. Others speak of how he devised the very successful strategy for the Montgomery Bus boycott in 1955. He is also said to have taken the infamous picture of Malcolm X peering through the curtains of a window while propping an assault rifle on his hip. His impact was even felt in the dismantling of apartheid in the early 1990′s.

Separating the legend from the facts is a difficult task. He was never filmed giving a speech since neither cameras or tape recorders were allowed in meetings at which he was designated to speak (The few photographs appearing here are the only known images of the elusive Mr. Negro). His writing contributions were always published under a fictitious name or were often attributed to such figures as Martin Luther King, Adam Clayton Powell and Eldridge Cleaver.

Art Negro visited Martin Luther King in a Birmingham jail where he was said to have proofread King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” It was he who smuggled the ink pen King used to write the letter. About the parts written on toilet paper, Art Negro joked, “Marty they’re gonna think you’re full of shit.” It was one of the few times Martin laughed during his incarceration. “It was a blessing he came to see me. It’s difficult to find amusement in jail. Art Negro provided some much needed humor and relief under the circumstances. He had me in tears many times”

Ralph Abernathy, who was also arrested and held with King, apparently was of little help to King during their time in jail. “Ralph basically slept the whole time. If he wasn’t sleeping he was eating. Along with the pen, I also concealed some Oreos,” said Art Negro in a 2001 interview.

He is said to have visited Martin Luther King, Jr. the night before the historic March on Washington in 1963. In Martins hotel room, Arthur Negro proof read his speech and made the most significant change to a speech formerly titled, “I Have an Idea!”  In fact, on the only known hand-written draft of the speech shows various corrections made in another handwriting style. Clearly, the word “Dream” is written the crossed out lower case word, ‘idea’.  Handwriting experts determined these corrections to be written in ‘a style identical to penmanship examples attributed to one known as Arthur Negro‘.  Historians shutter to think of the impact the Martins version would’ve had on the course of the civil rights movement.

Power Broker

Art Negro was also a known covert adviser to the Black Muslim movement that came to the fore in the early 1960s. Malcolm X, a vital force in the Black Muslim’s rise in popularity, was quoted as saying, “If it were not for the council of Art Negro, I doubt that much of what the Black Muslims, or myself as an individual in the struggle for Negro equality, would have accomplished very much. The odds were so greatly stacked against the so-called Negro, that the ideas and strategies he devised were, at the time, revolutionary. He inspired many of us to continue fighting for the rights of our people.” Two weeks after giving this quote in an interview in the February 1965 issue of Jet Magazine, Malcolm was shot and killed in New York City. “I didn’t believe in separating movements by religion, personal politics, money or geography,” said Art Negro, “The goal was freedom and equality. The minutia of our differences was not to overwhelm that single objective. I finally got Malcolm and Martin to agree to that. They even shook hands on it. There is a picture of the informal meeting. It is the only time the two were ever photographed together,” he said with a wink.

Likeness of Arthur Negro as he may have looked circa 1934.

The Realization of a Dream

After a few years of retirement, Art Negro came to a cross roads in his soul. His dilemma: Return to the front lines and assist in new, more contemporary platforms for fighting racism and discrimination, or stay retired. One day, he was over heard saying the words, “why be on the front line, when I can be on the front nine?” And so his golf and country club was born.

By Money Means Necessary

With money set aside over the years from a combination of donations never spent, thefts from various white-owned properties and countless speaking engagements here and abroad, Art Negro bought 300 acres of land on which to build his unique facility. He was determined to build the course “by any means necessary,” a popular phrase coined by Art Negro in 1963, but attributed to Malcolm X. Art Negro never took credit for even his most universal ideas. In fact, Martin Luther King’s original draft of his famous “I have a dream” speech was titled “I have an idea” until Art Negro did some rewriting the night prior to the historical March on Washington.

Among the many published texts, appearing under another name were, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, Go Tell it on the Mountain, Barack Obama’s Audacity of Hope and the lyrics to the ground breaking 1989 Public Enemy album Fear of a Black Planet. He revealed his funny side when he penned the material for Richard Pryor’s third album, That Niggers Crazy. In the mid-nineties he designed the Former Black Militant Golf and Country Club’s 18-hole championship layout course, relying on all black-owned landscaping companies to build his vision. The club opened for play in late 1997.

Club Dues? I don’t think so.

The first few years were lean, but more and more former militants began taking up the game, primarily due to impact of Tiger Woods, or as PGA Tour player Fuzzy Zoeller described him “that little black boy,” As the game grew in popularity so too did the number of curious former militants looking for ways to spend their non-militant golden years. Word of the new club circulated and membership continues to grow at an astonishing rate.

Out of respect for those who lost their lives, a wall of names was installed in the clubhouse and stands in memory to their ultimate sacrifices. Today, there are 64 members. Their dues have been paid with the blood, sweat and tears of their dissident days. Art Negro does not accept or require any monetary dues from his members. As he said in late 1998, “These people have paid their dues. It would be an insult to their legacy to ask for even one dime.”

WHAT IT IS

The Former Black Militant Golf and Country Club imposes few rules on it’s members however one mandate that is strictly enforced and voluntarily observed (without descent) is Article 1.96 – 4 in the clubs’ bylaws: no baggy pants shall be worn below the waste so as to expose one’s buttocks and/ or undergarments of any kind. The consequences include an immediate forfeiture of ones rights to membership. There is 100% compliance with the rule. (The Reverend Jesse Jackson is said to have been seen in front of a full-length mirror within the men’s locker room ‘modeling’ a pair of baggy, low-worn jeans with exposed rainbow boxers in what appeared to be a moment of ‘serious consideration of real change’.  The club considered revoking his membership but after a long session on the matter, elders determined that’ because Mr. Jackson was never seen outside of the men’s locker room in such attire, that the committee cannot say that a rule was broken’. The Reverend remains an active, if not overly cautious, member).

Lets tee it up.

Arthur Negro –” Playing Thru” 2000

Most of the clubs cash flow and operating expenses comes from donations. Among those contributors who have given permission to print their names are: Oprah Winfrey, Samuel L. Jackson, Charles Barkley, Emmett Smith, The Estate of the Late Richard Pryor, Orenthal James, J. Simpson, Dave Chappelle, Bryant Gumble and the late Tookie Williams.

And a setting such as this would not be complete without the contribution of the legendary former militant, Bobby Seale, whose barbecue recipes are proudly served at the club’s grill room and restaurant. Copies of the cookbook, Barbecuing with Bobby Seale are also sold in the clubs proshop. Mr. Seale in an honorary member – he doesn’t golf.

Arthur Negro, the clubs first and only Golf Brofessional, has fulfilled his dream of creating a secluded and tranquil place where former black militants can focus on things more personal to them; A place where the daily pressures of changing the world can be left to young people who have the energy, the eyesight and the time to televise the revolution.

Arthur Negro II as seen in a rare photograph during a 2001 rally for new members. Photographer is unknown.

The use of the word Mulatto in the title of this new piece is used tongue-in-cheek. I have always found it to be an offensive and an absurdly applied word that has traditionally implied ‘other than’. It is a word that we tend to hear less often (if at all), but one that I heard regularly in my developmental years into my teens and 20′s. If one uses the word today it is a blatant public admission of an obsolete belief system on the subject of race.

Children of unions where the parents are of two different ethnic lineages, often do not understand or perceive race in the same way as people belonging ‘exclusively’ to one or the other, black or white. It is an intellectual phenomenon that can only be wholly understood if experienced – it is a unique vantage point from which to see life and people, behaviors and beliefs.

At the top most portion of this brand new bag, in a flat panel (I usually refer to this area as the ‘podium’ section – its where the dialogue begins, the tone is set here) there is a picture of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) from Star Trek in a passionate embrace with co-star Uhuru (Nichelle Nichols). The controversial scene marked the first time an ‘inter-racial’ kiss ever appeared on a television broadcast.

Below that there is a brief, but rather large, pictorial reference to Tiger Woods but probably more due to his recent troubles than to his relationship to being the product of an ‘inter-racial’ or more specifically ‘inter-ethnic’ marriage.

I have done only one other bag with an obvious use of Tiger as a central visual theme. Using him is too easy a reference point so I try not use his image at all. However, if I do it is usually a more addition that is woven into the bags’ theme. In this instance, it seems almost irresponsible of me not to include him in a piece that is so directly examining the inherent pathology in the notion of ‘mixed race’ individuals. People who adhere to such a belief develop a self-perpetuating phenomenon I call ‘the dog chasing its tail syndrome’. This understanding of race is irrational, illogical and eventually serves only to paint ones self into the proverbial corner when trying to justify the position. The intellect begins to create lies to explain an otherwise fundamentally flawed conviction on the subject.

On the opposite side of the bag near the main handle there are two images, rather large, of a black man and a blonde white woman circa 1960… the image reminds me of what my parents may have looked like around the same period. These two images set the tone for the rest of the bag.

As I’ve worked on the bag I’ve found imagery that I wasn’t necessarily looking for, but was glad to find since it seemed fitting for the content… A stark black and white image of the late writer James Baldwin, juxtopposed with a buxom, red-lipped platinum blonde woman is one example. Other imagery includes the similar expressions of a vintage photograph of a bearded Frederick Douglas facing an equally nostalgic photograph of a sultry blonde from the vintage (soft focus) erotica era. The bag is adorned with Amiri Baraka, Thomas Jefferson, Scarlett (Vivien Leigh ) and Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) from Gone With the Wind and a recent still image of the Prince and Princess from the 2010 version of the Princess of the Frog. The over all feel of the piece is one that requires examination if its all implied relationships.

A few quotes appear: “I never really think of you as Black because you’re only half Black.” The second one, which I will praphrase is from the 1960 movie “I Passed for White” starring Sonya Wilde and James Fransiscus. “If you see me in the street, don’t speak to me. Dont call upon me… from this point on I am white. You have to give me up.”

This not just a line from a movie. This is a reality that has been spoken aloud or assumed privately by countless individuals who either internally adopt a certain ‘racial’ mentality that distinguishes them from one group or another. Or, they deny themselves a cultural indentity in order to ‘marry’ into another, more acceptable group. They are either more easily acknowledged or better welcomed by one group or another or, they are shunned as ‘too white’ or not ‘black enough’ by one or both groups. This is just one of the dilemmas that confront the so-called mixed race child. They must either claim allegiance to and champion of their ‘blackness’, deny their mixed ethnic heritage and side with the predominant group or do neither and embrace the two special realities which in many ways define America’s ongoing examination of its self.

The ubiquitously applied (and accepted) definition of race can best be revealed in the following scenario:

A white woman gives birth to a child by a black man. The child is more ‘black’ in appearance but is genetically a mix between the Caucasian mother and African-American father. However, the child is neither as dark as the father , nor as light as the mother. Years later, the mother remarries a white man and gives birth to a 100% pure Caucasian child. Despite the age difference the two children are raised together and are considered siblings. Now, according to the popular notion of race as being distinguished and determined by skin color, the two children from both marriages are different races even though they share the same mother! It is wholly absurd when you think of it this way. But this is the more acceptable version of what race truly is – race is skin color not biology, physiology or genetics. It is reduced to opinion without evidence and it is no wonder why there has been such a convulsion of opposition from every corner to this country’s first black (mixed, Mulatto, half-breed, oreo, high yellow, only half-black with “no Negro dialect”) President.

To be clear, ‘as a legal or census definition, “mulatto” meant not just the product of a union of a white parent and a black one, but also of the union of a black and a mulatto. The child of any slave who had one white grandparent, whether by a white or black spouse, would be a mulatto’ (Online Etymology Dictionary). So it would seem that from these circumstances the “mulatto” designation would have naturally come with a high degree of public shame to one parent (and the child) and denial in the other. Shame and denial as the origin of one’s existence.

“My Eyes! My Daughter in the Arms of a Negro!” is a quote also used on the bag and borrowed from a vintage broadway poster from the turn of the musical, Thoroughbred by Ralph Lumley. Perfectly acceptable advertising at the time and a phrase that spoke volumes of the fear of miscegenation and led to anti-miscegenation laws across the land that “banned interracial marriage and sometimes sex between members of two different races. In the United States, interracial marriage, cohabitation and sex have since 1863 been termed “miscegenation.” Contemporary usage of the term “miscegenation” is less frequent”.

Turn of the century miscegenation propaganda. This is one example of what was perfectly acceptable entertainment which coupled as advertising to the masses. Remnants of this kind of thought are rampant in todays media.

A few hours later I had my first golf bag piece called The Lynch Bag. I had no idea of inclination that I would ever make another. Twelve years later I am assembling 18 collaged golf bags for Baggage.

Over the 12 years I have come to see the bags as headless and limbless human torsos, each one with a specific story to tell. The torso could recollect the shape of a charred, lynched corpse hung from a tree in the deep south.  The notion of bag could mirror the bails of cotton slung over the shoulder of many an unpaid slave laborer.  The bag’s stitching and hardware echo the straps and buckles that held people in bondage against their will.

The bags speak to the role of servitude – the black caddy of days gone by who walked many a golf course in the role of ‘boy’, of servant, of an invisible man.

The bags are human figures, speaking to human history, human conflict and the unresolved and ever murky issues of race and social differences.

They employ satire, historical documentation, fact, fiction, black, white, male, female, tragedy and comedy. They require examination in order to find the visual and contextual ‘DNA’ that binds everything, with everything else.