Funny as it goes. Onli was asked to do an illustration of Sun Ra.  Not that Onli ever thought a lot about Mr. Sun Ra's works over the years. If fact Onli felt that compared to the musical works of his former spiritual advisor, Turiya......y'all know her as Alice Coltrane.....that Mr. Ra was very over-rated and a bit of a crude cult leader. He was good friends with a member of Ra's band.  

Talk about stories! But those will wait for Onli's interview with the National Enquirer! 

 But a gig is a gig. And Onli is still a professional illustrator.  Sort of like being a serious session musician.  Have gig will rock!  It will be published in the coming print and web editions of Roctober.

Considering that when Onli was 21 he illustrated an album cover freely applying his early future-primitif Rhythmistic flair..... for two of Ra's more serious contemporaries and musical competitors..Anthony Braxton & Joseph Jarman...entitled "Together Alone" on Delmark Records...this may be a step done way too late to be of importance.  But then...its a gig!

 October has been declared "Black Fine Art Month"  That is spectacular and amazing.  Eventful to set up a month to celebrate and embrace the works of various Black Artists.  Amazing that it omits so many.  As shown when the powerful works and enduring legacy of B.A.G. members and more so the founder of The Black Arts Guild plus the creator of the growing Black Age of Comics, (which aided in setting the table for Marvel & Disney to produce its Black characters and creators), is over-looked. Totally!  

2020 is the 50th anniversary of the launch of B.A.G.  The Black Arts Guild was self sustaining and lasted until 1978.  It spawned careers and innovated genres.....yet is so seriously marginalized in so called Black Art Circles.

The designated mainstream Black Curators such as Naomi Beckwith of the Museum of Contemporary Art or the Los Angeles Art Expo based Hamza Walker....and even Theaster Gates who hosts an annual Black Artists Retreat....and many more...all seem to exclude the B.A.G. alumni and phenomenon.

Well!  Prof. Turtel Onli M.A.A.T. typically says, "When they exclude you they confirm your exclusiveness!"  Followed by, "How Black was all of this in 1970?"

 Oct. 2nd

This month is being declared the 2nd Annual Black Fine Art Month.  

Its theme centers around the works of Black Female Artists.  Plus its founders are pushing their taste as Queen-makers in the visual arts.  It tends to be another way to limit the positive recognition of Black People as a whole.  It denies the overarching connections of all Black genders in the visual arts and more.  But then the power brokers here are Black Women with a certain agenda.

From its founding through its amazing legacy B.A.G. , The Black Arts Guild, was founded with female and male members and equally supported and honored the incredible work of all genders.  Not one over the other. Nor looking to marginalize anyone's expressions or market potential. 

Little wonder why no members of B.A.G. were included in this annual celebration of Black Art.

Aren't you glad this blog exist?

 Onli is nearing the end of his Summer Flex Residency at the vital Hyde Park Art Center.  Here Onli has pivoted away from his 5 decades of experimenting with Rhythmism and all of its future-primitif assets in fine and commercial art. Often with intense oversight. 

 Now he enters the affirmed phase in the vintage masterful stage of his career artistic practices.

When has the Visual Artiste ever named a genre of classification of an art movement?

Onli has named two. "Rhythmism".  "Then the Black Age of Comics".  Both being bold genius level acts of self determination in the face of tremendous orthodoxy. This was like telling parent you will be naming yourself. Usually critics, historians or the art-world press names the genre.  They rule the labeling and the status.  And of course we know that if a Black man names it others will not embrace it.  Hmmmm?

Who named the current trend of "Afrofuturism"?  Not to mention, "Post Black"?  Were these terms acts of self-branding or accepted celebrations of being anointed by the rulers and branding mechanisms of the lamestream?

 In Onli we have something rare....almost unique.  An intelligent visual artist who in his late teens decided on two pathways to visual arts practices. No mentor. No patron.  Just Onli.  With the help of a few amazing artists and visual explores along the way.  He put his money and other resources where his practice and concepts were.  

Onli has influenced thousands through his years of teaching. therapizing, publishing and exhibiting his Rhythmistic explorations.  His acolytes abound.  Thought nameless to most...clearly apparent in style and practices.  Denial on this grand scale is like the powerful river in Egypt.

 Now we have Rhythmism and its manifest of the future-primitif pathways to artistic expression.

Above is an Onli Rhythmistic design treatment for a published textbook for Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

In this assignment he worked with the marketing team. art direction along with a grpahic designer.  Rhythmism ruled the day.  What a triumph for Rhythmism's commercial potential.

Below a recent Residency image and a review of one of his dynamic experimental solo Rhythmistic Fine Art exhibition.  It is of note that the Black nor the mainstream artworld came to witness the full power and impact of this work.  They were invited. 

 But this shared filter of orthodoxy seems to control them as they avoid the self determination expressions of this brilliant, educated, prolific openly-hetero Black male artiste. All to their lost and that of true lovers of dynamic visual art that is not based on the branding and censoring politics of a select few.

RHYTHMISM Lives!  

There is no force like an idea whose time has come!

  What time it is??! 

Afrofuturistic Couture / Design in South Afrika 2019

 The above illustration was done by Turtel and the one below was started by Kenneth then evolved into a visual jam-session with other B.A.G. members adding.  Both were to satirize B.A.G. members
in a playful manner.  Circa 1973

On Rhythmistic Art

The art of Turtel Onli is African Centered. Many who have seen it appear to be confused by it. The culture conscious African Americans find it unacceptable because it does not bespeak the “traditional” Africa that they have come to know and love.  The middle-class find it difficult to accept because it is too African and not like what they have been told is “good art.  The Rhythm & Blues...... Hip-Hoppin’ Black Americans do not know about him or his work.

As I stated earlier, his work is African-Centered. He has termed his style Rhythmism.  He coined the term in 1974 and rightly so.  The paintings, wearable art, Graphic Novels. illustrations and performances he creates are alive with RHYTHM.  His work is demonstrative in its force.  The colors appear to dance before you.  The eyes, the lips, the styles of hair pull you, cajole you, take you in, 

The colors are bright, vibrant, steamy as they vaporize into a thin layer of white heat and back the vibrantly charged colors.  The colors dare you to laugh, to play, to join in the high energy of life.  Life on a higher plane. Life in a new Africa, a futuristic Africa with a neo-tradition that does not deny itself but digs down into itself to bare yet a new fruit for the future.  This future fruit, a Rhythmistic one, is an universal fruit to embellish the entire fabric of humanity.

Universal is mentioned because the reference to Onli’s work being African Centered and not generally accepted in that community is due to its power and influence being misunderstood.  There is another community into which Onli has yet to be accepted and that is the White Art Community.

 Onli is representative of a new age, a forward-thinking age. An age that has a vision of an Africanization of the future by an Africa that is viable in the world scheme of things.  And a world unified by its universal values.

The disparities between Blacks and Whites and specifically between White and Black males stumbles blindly over into the Art World.  The continuance of this practice inhibits the flow of contributions by Black artists, creating voids of sterility.  This disparity curtails the universals that we as a culture look for in the world of innovative artists like Onli. 

The works of artists like Turtel Onli must be reviewed because their universals will rhythmically pull at the ancestral memories that continue to make us human.  We can no longer afford the limitations of Euro-Centric Art as the only contemporary modernistic approach to unleash the potential power of Art.  Onli and his Rhythmistic movement give the art critics, patrons, and makers the opportunity to expand their concept of the universal.

1990: Marcia Hicks, PhD.

LINK to Rhythmistic Residency Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago.

LINK TO AFROFUTURIST / RHYTHMISTIC E-BOOKS FROM ONLI STUDIOS

 Rhythmistic Heroes masked up for your wellness efforts. 

Putting a healthier future in your "Afro"!

 Per our Sheltering In Place Corona-Virus transitions I decided to share via this post my four recent B.A.G. tribute paintings. Each is 30"W X 40"H. acrylics on canvas or linen.

 The first one is a redo of a poster designed by Dalton Brown for a B.A.G. group exhibition in 1972 at the AFAM Art Gallery that was directed by Jose Williams. 

Brown's concept links the iconic watermelon via its life-giving stem, to the continent of Africa.  His treatment of the logo and slogan, "The Seeds Within" by Onli, were included along with images of B.A.G. members.

 The next one is a collaboration from Smoote & Hunter that was drawn during
 B.A.G.s' internship period at the One of A Kind Studio with Robert E. Paige.  

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The next was drafted from a logo design Hunter did for his poster design when B.A.G. exhibited at the South Side Community Art Center in the Bronzeville District of Chicago in 1972.

The final one is derived from a treatment designed and drawn by Greg Broils during the One of A Kind days with B.A.G., Though Broils was a professional fashion designer & tailor, he could really draw as well.

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 Below we see them being critiqued in a precious staging that evaluates their being true to the vintage early B.A.G. esthetic, scale and visual impact as an homage along with astutely appraising their collector's value.

Prof. Onli adjusting his newly completed series tribute to B.A.G.. 

This homage includes four Black and White, 30"W X 40"H, museum-profiled canvases.

These interpreted images were derived from icons created by Greg Broils, Kenneth Hunter, Dalton Brown, Jim Smoote and Turtel Onli in the early active period of B.A.G. Circa 1970 - 1973.

 Each B.A.G. member had pioneered this esthetic independently as teens in high-school, before the founding of B.A.G. by the then 18 year old Onli.  They were all pleasantly shocked during a early meeting when each shared their high-school sketch-books to discover each were already doing similar visual stylizations and treatments.

 This homage is a tribute to that wonderfully fertile creative  epiphany.

Auction Link: Swann per the Ebony Magazine / Johnson Publishing Company Collection

 In 1970 Turtel Onli directed a tutoring program for at risk urban youth at the historic South Side Community Art Center whose Executive Director at the time was Herbert Nipson, who was also the Executive Editor of Ebony Magazine.  Nipson strongly suggested Onli submit slides to Johnson Publishing to be considered for its emerging collection of important fine art by African Americans.

At the next B.A.G. meeting Onli asked Smoote to take slides of his works and explained to Smoote the opportunity.  Ultimately this led to both of them having works included in this landmark collection of amazing fine art from the minds and talents of practicing Black Artists.

 At the time Onli and Smoote were barely 20 years old.

 "Provenance"  This is one of Smoote's watermelon themed works that led B.A.G. to embrace the iconic watermelon as its logo and transitional object.

The above works of innovative fine art are included in the January 2020 Swann Galleries auction of 100 works from the fabulous Johnson Publishing Company Art Collection.