How art gives shape to cultural change - Thelma Golden

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Thelma Golden, curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, talks through three recent shows that explore how art examines and redefines culture. The "post-black" artists she works with are using their art to provoke a new dialogue about race and culture -- and about the meaning of art itself.
Talk by Thelma Golden.

[@BrianODonohue]

To say that this video was anything short of extraordinary would be a gross deviation from any form of reality as you understand it. What a powerful explanation of Arts power! I'm happy to report that my greatest take away from this class has nothing to do with Art, except to associate it to the power of its influence to move a culture. The true take-away for me in much more a sociological one than an artist one. But, in my own analysis of this class, I've discovered the importance of Art (in its many forms) to change a world for positive, healthy, love of mankind reasons, and that is so much more than any particular piece of artistic expression and it's aesthetic beauty.

[@waynehedd]

Cool story bro...

[@FeliciaFollum]

I love this!! thanks! I create "cultural/multicultural art" and was looking for other artists who do the same thing...this was a great find

[@williamheard811]

soooooo good i liked this alot.

[@BCAICulturalArtsHumanities]

This is exactly what I needed!!!

[@zy5992]

This was helpful for my studies

[@EnordAreven]

...We are made of a wide variety of culture, we need to remember that and embrace it, that we are children born of many wolrds colliding, bringing new things into this world because of this mixture. The matrix is based on anime fight scenes, anime comes from astro boy, that manga comes from western comics, which are a visual variation on books, book massproduced version of scripture and that a written adaption of local legends.we're all human, countries are just lines drawn in sand with a stick

[@DapperDragon]

I think a lot of people commenting are too blinded by the fact that she's talking about black art and black artists to realize that that is the purpose of the video. She's using black art as the example on how culture changes. And don't treat it as if different races have the same culture, because they don't. It's not racist, it's fact. She is simply exploring the progression of black culture through art. You could easily do the same thing about whites, indians, chinese, japanese, etc.

[@leoelliondeux]

This was an awesome lecture!

[@jayjay577rs]

me too

[@cynsen]

All these comments on the speaker being racist are false. Good job Thelma!

[@DapperDragon]

She's giving an example to prove her point. What better way to talk about how culture changes through art than going into detail on her own and how it has changed? The reason she uses race/nation to talk about culture is because her race does have a developed culture of it's own. I have to simply disagree on where you see her focus and emphasis. She points you to focus on what people are in an effort to explain why they do/make something.

[@DapperDragon]

And you don't think there are numerous other nationalities among the other groups as well? If you insist: Irish German Italian Polish Russian French Swedish Danish Greek Spanish Armenian Albanian Austrian British Belgian Bulgarian Finland Georgian Iceland Dutch Portugal Turkish Croatia Czech Latvia Iran Slovakia Ukraine Romania Norway Lithuanian Scottish Or any other fucking group that I haven't mentioned or made a reference to. Sorry if I generalized to far for you to understand what I meant.

[@DapperDragon]

I don't think I've heard that parable before. Interesting. Are you referring to someone? Or are you just sharing that with us?

[@asdasdasdasd61932]

i think its the other way around. cultural change shapes the art created instead of vice versa, art just reflects the sentiments

[@rogeliocanales1500]

but in some cases it's the art that sparks the cultural change

[@Saint.questions]

LOL this comment section.... I dont agree with every single thing stated here... But you know what it was super interesting and i was able to see it in the lense of "this is a talk about and a specific culture"..... and thats ok... in fact the title of this is a pun... lol

[@EnordAreven]

yes but art changes inidividual knowledge into public knowledge, instead of one artist feeling they hate bankers, suddenly everyone knows everyone else is sick of bankers and that means we have enough people to rebel.

[@keg2014]

Their voice is so perfect sounding, it almost doesn't look like it comes from them!! Though I never understood why people have to split things up into "black" this or "hispanic" that (especially since if there was a "white" catigory it would be 'racist' to most people), they didn't do that bad of a job.

[@CandidateKev]

Can't tell if trolling or stupid.

[@asdasdasdasd61932]

i disliked because i think its the other way around. How cultural change shapes the art created instead of vice versa, art just reflects the sentiments

[@DapperDragon]

I think they're held in different locations, but I'm not 100%. :3

[@lacoybuckner1982]

#iWAAOG

[@cpoterry]

I just feel like there is no need to look at race as something to should be split, no one deserves more attention then the next. We are all living beings and should try and cherish each other as equals. Just my opinion though.

[@dabomb1357]

You seem to be confusing black with the n word, Im guessing theres a lot of things you have no idea about

[@DapperDragon]

Ok. I just thought your first two comments seemed a little....racist. But that's just my thought. You seem to at least have an argument for why you feel the way you do, so I agree in that this probably won't go anywhere. I hope the best and good luck!

[@dabomb1357]

Then you would probably be studying European art from the 1500s onwards. Oh look, race can be used to talk about culture. Gasp.

[@togbakollie225]

Because thats their race and if you aren't one of them, then you should watch out what say about them or other races.

[@Alegiance]

I gotta agree somewhat. Its good to look at eachother as equals, but this isn't really about race. More about the culture and how its displayed. Either way I am neutral to this talk. Rather uninteresting.

[@scarlettthedragoneye]

Well, not all of them get mad and a lot white people get more mad then the black ones

[@DapperDragon]

1). You did not mean that. You didn't talk about that at all. You just went headfirst and declared something false that wasn't even mentioned in the video. 2). Smh. 3). When did I say what the topic was? You're not making any sense at all. I simply said that what you thought the topic was isn't the correct interpretation of her talk. Look at the title of the video if you really want to know the topic. 4). Watch it again. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

[@VertigaDesignMEDIA]

The TED forum is too large to touch upon such topics.

[@DEATHSCOPE123]

Racists actually watching TED talks? I'm impressed

[@rickross22]

Wow the blatant ignorance in the comments.

[@Intronetz]

What is I said I study White Art?

[@iamtheonewhoyoulove]

i really have no idea why afrikan americans can blatantly say black, but when someone else does they get mad

[@videobrooke54]

Damn i thought we were in the 21st century.....But i guess not because there are tons of racist neanderthal commenters here

[@VictorFr0st]

yawn.

[@TylerMontana]

Art is Shit.

[@tombweisner]

don't care much for art

[@Psyadin2]

"whites" really? half the world has the same culture? you were racist in your explanation :p you should have used names like "Nordic Europeans, Celtic/British, Latin Europeans, Indians, eastern Asians (or more specific), etc." as "whites" have like 30-40% of all the DIFFERENT cultures in the world