Big Bird’s minor upset: Frank Bowling’s prize-winning entry to the 1966 Premier Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres

Abstract

This essay examines Big Bird (1965) by Frank Bowling in the context of its first-prize victory in the category of painting at Tendances et Confrontations, the exhibition of contemporary work by African-descended artists at the 1966 Premier Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres in Dakar, Senegal. Prior literature has examined the content and style of Big Bird, like other works created during the artist’s time in London, primarily with reference to the artist’s biography. This article argues, however, that by re-contextualizing visual tropes associated with well-known American abstractionists, the painting reflects critically upon the ways in which relationships between artistic identity, form and power create meaning. Drawing upon Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s conceptualization of minority, I argue that Big Bird and Tendances et Confrontations play off of one another to upset the perceived stability of the social, racial and intellectual connotations of form and style.

Keywords:

• Frank Bowling
• abstraction
• colour field painting
• FESMAN
• Premier Festival Mondial des Arts Negres
• Negritude

Acknowledgements

This article’s content was first influenced by conversations and graduate coursework with George Baker. I am grateful for his guidance and encouragement. I am also thankful for the thoughtful feedback of Steven Nelson, and the perpetual aid of Mary Nooter-Roberts, Andrew Apter, Saloni Mathur, and David Murphy. Earlier versions of this article appeared as conference presentations in Tallahassee, Florida (‘The Performance of Pan-Africanism: From Colonial Exhibitions to Black and African Cultural Festivals’; 20–22 October 2016) and Dakar, Senegal (‘Colloque Commémoratif du Cinquantenaire du FESMAN’; 7–10 November 2016). I appreciate the contributions of symposium participants on both occasions, whose comments have benefitted me greatly.

Notes on contributor

Lauren Taylor is a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History with a specialization in African Art at the University of California, Los Angeles and the 2017–2019 Andrew W. Mellon Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington, DC. Her research interests include francophone West Africa, the historiography of African art, and global modernism. More specifically, her current work investigates the international networks of exchange animating artistic programming at the 1966 Premier Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres in Dakar, Senegal.

Notes

1 Archival sources indicate that organizers had also considered a category called ‘Technique Traditionelle, Expression Moderne’ but ultimately opted not to distribute the prize (‘Grand Prix Des Arts Plastique’).

2 In the view of Cedric Vincent (2017), the display ‘did not result in a monolithic affirmation of Négritude as a unifying Black identity. In this sense, the exhibition did not fulfill its mission, and was perhaps overly inclusive in the way it was organised, but it undoubtedly constituted the most profound expression of the festival’s role as a form of laboratory in which one could question, defy, debate and explore – rather than simply asserting or passively accepting a global Black identity/community and the artistic and cultural manifestations that might represent it. Instead, the festival became a forum in which the various actors could negotiate their own understanding of Black culture and its art in complex and often contradictory ways’ (101).

3 See also Abdou Sylla’s (2006) reflections on the effects of an ‘ethno-esthétique’ upon Senegalese art.

4 The content and titles of Bowling’s own ‘twin’ works, Swan I and Swan II (both 1964) support the possibility that Bowling was interested in Rauschenberg’s Factums and keen to play with their underlying premise.

5 In the early 1990s, in fact, Bowling consulted with Greenberg in his pursuit of American citizenship. Bowling, Frank. Letter to Clement Greenberg. 24 January 1993. Getty Research Institute, Clement Greenberg Papers, 1928–1995. Box 13, Folder 1.

6 Kobena Mercer discusses this dynamic in Discrepant Abstraction (2006, 202).

Additional information

Funding

This article was completed through the generous support of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art.