MS01.01.03.B01.F13.004

to a visible presence. Secondly, there are those
visual forms that have been made by Americans of African
descent with the conscious effort in mind of imitating
the surface reality of a functional form from Africa with-
out adhering to any cultural principle governing the making
of such forms in African societies. These forms sanction
and affirm the symbolic presence of Afr0-American cul-
ture in the visual arts and illustrate the firm historical
roots of black heritage even in our own time. It is in
the latter trend that one finds the adherence to a formal
style of making in art that has become popularly known as
"Black Art". Those visual forms which are grounded in this
concept of a symbolic presence achieve a new formal expres-
sion in format similarly to that art produced by European
artists who saw African art for the first time at the turn
of the century, at which time, the formal dynamics of
African art were copied without regard for traditional
societal and symbolic function. It is now evident that the
Afro-American artist, by relying upon the formal dyna-
mics of African art as the sole pattern for his new ico-
nographic expression, also creates a new symbol by exercising
what the late Dr. Alain Locke referred to as "the return to the
ancestral arts of Africa". This return must then be under-
stood through the symbolic presence of Afro-American
culture as a whole and not equared with a physical presence of AFrican
art in America.
History reveals to us that the black man brought with
him from Africa an amazing number of skills that could be