Obsidian Arts

Obsidian Arts seeks to be a new breed of black cultural arts organizations suited for a socio-intellectual environment that maintains neither the strict barriers to or the distinct pro-generators of what is deemed black culture.  Specific to the arts Obsidian Arts seeks to participate in the global dialogue about black art and the artists that create it.  We push the artists, historians, and curators that we collaborate with to be more innovative.  (Note: "Black visual culture" is the term we use to describe the range and/or touchstone points used as source material for our outputs.)

                Obsidian Arts annually produces four to six visual arts exhibitions, three to four community art history workshops, and supports an artists' development network for emerging artists of color, mostly black.  

Our focus is the use of art (exhibition concept development through the call for artists through the exhibition) to invite the broader community to dialogue about issues that have been over-looked or shunned in the conversation-line of mainstream black communities.  A number of the exhibitions we have developed have been the first time the subject-matter has been examined through the lens of a visual arts exhibition.  These include: Afrofuturism: Artists Vision the Cyber-techno future and its impact on black visual culture; HangTime-Sagging the enduring, endearing trend; and Exploding Language: Mining the black arts movement to create new visual text.  

Through art we seek to promote dialogue of under-examined social realities.