Any Day Now: Toward a Black Aesthetic
Larry Neal and Allie Biswas
"The Black Arts Movement is radically opposed to any concept of the artist that alienates him from his community. Black Art is the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept. As such, it envisions an art that speaks directly to the needs and aspirations of Black America." — Larry Neal
Growing up in Philadelphia, Neal was surrounded by Bebop music and writing. He culled inspiration and teachings from Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, and the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance. After studying folklore at the University of Pennsylvania, Neal became a prolific poet and critic, and he served as the arts editor for the Liberator where he published many of his essays about art.
Neal encouraged artists to produce work that was not only politically engaged but also unapologetically rooted in the Black experience, and this message reverberated through African American literature, theater, music, and visual arts. He probed the notion of the Western art historical canon and challenged Black artists and writers to reshape artistic traditions. Deeply invested in cultural and personal understandings of the artist's intentions and experiences, Neal argues that to properly create and critique a work of art one must invest in the history of the artist's culture.
With an introduction by the writer and researcher Allie Biswas, this publication celebrates and memorializes the great writings of a powerful and influential activist and artist.
Cultural critic and playwright Larry Neal was a leading member of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s. He was born in Atlanta in 1937 and grew up in Philadelphia, earning a BA in English and history from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He also studied folklore as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. His collections of poetry, Black Boogaloo: Notes on a Black Literature (1969) and Hoodoo Hollerin Bebop Ghosts (1971), show the influence of vernacular speech and folklore.
Allie Biswas is a writer and researcher based in London. She is coeditor of The Soul of a Nation Reader: Writings by and about Black American Artists, 1960–1980 (2021). She has published interviews with artists including Rashid Johnson, Julie Mehretu, Meleko Mokgosi, Zanele Muholi, Adam Pendleton, and Wolfgang Tillmans. She has written catalogue essays for monographs on the work of Rina Banerjee, Arcmanoro Niles, Serge Alain Nitegeka, and Hannah van Bart. Forthcoming publications include a catalogue about the US Embassy’s art collection in London and interviews with Lubna Chowdhary, Theaster Gates, and Ibrahim Mahama.
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