African American artists were taught about Africa by German Expressionists, who had sought kinship through woodcuts, and sometimes sculpture, as well as often raping it of its cultural heritage, bad artists simply refining African forms into meaninglessness. Few African Americans ever capture what is essentially African in the visual Arts. Romare Bearden did, Charles Alston, though his best works were through George Braques example of world heritage, with an extremely African feel. Just as in jazz one can take a showtune and turn it from the Great White Way into the depths of the South, and a cultural heritage, while being about all of humanity. See John Coltrane’s, My Favorite Things.

Africans arts seldom last, there are few permanenet materials in the continenet, only in Zimbabwes ancient architecture, Benin bronzes, clay of Sudan and timbuktu. little survives of the past. And building in solid form, not biodegradable as in woods and fabrics with natural textures, unexplored, and never fully developed. Which Puryears works are always like, undeveloped ideas of the other. Not built of ones emotional experience, to trigger pluralistic passions in the viewer. Kinda neurotic stuff. Too personal for art. Which is about mind, body and soul, all of humanity. Not ones own desires, fears, and neurosis. Thats academic “art”. And so.

art collegia delenda est