The Black Arts Guild

2020 is the Anniversary of the Launch, Life & Legacy of the Founding of B.A.G.

*(l-r) Kenneth Hunter, Photographer Roy Lewis, Espi Frazier and Turtel Onli at Howard University in 1973 at the Annual National Conference of Artisits Convention. Photo: Jim Smoote*

In 2018, Onli had just gotten the go-ahead to pursue a grant proposal from the Terra Foundation to plan a program featuring the launch, life & legacy of B.A.G.: The Black Arts Guild.

He was a student at the new Olive-Harvey College in Fall of 1970 when he started B.A.G. This unique self-sustainable artist-guild was active from 1970 until 1978 as a youthful exponent of what is now called the “Black Arts Movement”. Their logo was the almighty watermelon. Why? Because it was Red, Black and Green. B.A.G. often did entire exhibitions featuring its re-contextualization of this powerful icon.

Looking to meet the deadline and terms of this grant offer, Onli sent out written proposals asking a host of non-profit arts related organizations would be interested in being the funded partner and administrator in this showcase per the requirements expressed by the Terra Foundation.

These proposals were sent out to arts institutions from Chicago to New York, to California, to Miami and not one taker. Not the Studio Museum of Harlem, The South Side Community Art Center, nor the Krannert Museum. None! That was in 2018, and this is 2020.

In our Nation’s current troubled social era where most major arts organizations are claiming that “Black Lives Matter” and that they are so very committed to resolving their internal reality of unfairness or systemic racist practices, they all missed securing the B.A.G. celebration show. This exhibition would have come to them totally funded, presented this year. But that same lack of vision that led Onli to found that youthful guild in 1970 fueled the present day logic to say “No” or say nothing to this offer. Therefore, the grant option was rescinded and there was to be no B.A.G. tribute showcase to experience and document.

Chicago is often called the “Second City”. Meaning thinking things unique to Chicago are of lesser value than the similar types of things should they happen in New York.

B.A.G.: The Black Arts Guild was very Chicago based, and some of its former members are still very active in the creative arts today.

Dalton Brown currently has fine art on display at the Great Frame Up in Chicago. Obie Creed has active connections with the CopyCat Center on the South Side. Espi Frazier is a retired arts educator in Baltimore and still doing amazing wood-graphics along with other profound works of art. Turtel Onli, the founder of B.A.G., is a professor at Harold Washington College, publisher of indie Graphic Novels along with being a leading advocate of Rhythmism as a genre during his current residency at the Hyde Park Art Center. Jim Smoote is a retired Chicago Public School Arts educator, along with being a leading advocate and producer of textile art and contemporary quilts. In other words, B.A.G. still lives. Its members were prodigies in 1970 and went on to be life long professionals in the visual arts.

This begs the question as to why art curators, critics and historians still tend to ignore or omit B.A.G. and its members when the idea of celebrating or adding value to the legacy of the “Black Arts Movement”. This idea of not speaking the total truth about this type of far-reaching innovation nexus of creativity, culture, and commerce is like not talking about how Chicago is the “Home of Gospel Music”!

Hopefully, there will be the arrival of dynamic writers and more open-minded arts researchers to address this omission. B.A.G. needs to be elevated to its rightful status as one of the most active and important visual artists groups to emerge from the 1960s original and successful Black Cultural Revolution.

In the overview, the plan was to curate this 50th Anniversary exhibition & program on B. A. G.: The Black Arts Guild. It was founded as a guild of talented, young, Black, and forward thinking visual artists in 1970 to bridge the divide between student & professional in the arts while bringing forth fine-art or applied art images that were derived from the newly emerging Black Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s.

1972 collaboration by Greg Broils, Jim Soomte and Kenneth Hunter.  Kenneth and Greg both died in the mid 1980s. — *1972 collaboration by Greg Broils, Jim Soomte and Kenneth Hunter. Kenneth and Greg both died in the mid 1980s.*

This group exhibition would have been so on time and on point during this era of social justice related protests and upheaval. Totally a missed opportunity.

B.A.G. started in 1970 and was decommissioned in 1978. Then on to the future, which is now.

It had a retrospective exhibition in 1991 at the Prairie Avenue Gallery. Several of its members had solo exhibitions at the Younger Gallery, along with having illustrations published in the “‘zine Future Funk”!

This was a unique youthful guild that was about bringing artistic ideas from the overall Black Cultural Revolution into the mainstream arena while being at-one with the community.

B.A.G. was not limited to cultural propaganda and romantic revolutionary–like protest statements alone. It was about the nexus of creativity, culture, and commerce in a career serving context.

This included earning degrees, working for the likes of ESSENCE Magazine, Ebony Jr, PLAYBOY, and WGN along with a host of group exhibitions, showcases and workshops. Some members taught at the Chicago Public Schools, at colleges and even practiced professional Art Therapy.

A lot has happened in those 50 years since its founding.

Its former members benefited from their decades long contributing relationship with the South Side Community Art Center, the School of the Art Institute, E.T.A., the DuSable Museum, The Hyde Park Art Center, the George Pompidou Centre in Paris, launching the growing Black Age of Comics Movement and so many others.

Related Blog: www.afrofuture.blogspot.com