An immense collection of art generated from those of African descent, that was the goal that Victoria L. Valentine had in mind when she began to digitize all of her comments on Black Art. In the three years that Culture Type has been running, it has become more than a woman’s dream. It now has book and exhibition reviews, exclusive interviews with up and coming artists and conversations with experts about the intersection between art and culture. Culture Type gives quasi-scholarly insights that could only be drawn from Black Art and the rich history behind it.
The main page of the blog is similar to the New York Times in structure; a nice header, various menu bars to choose what specific area a reader may be looking for. The latest entry is a film review on “Southside with you”, and the blurbs on each entry displayed on the front page give a great synopsis of the full text and a hint as to the level of depth you can attribute to each post. There aren’t any ads on the main page, but each article has small ads that we can assume are used for revenue purposes. There are a large amount of postings per week, but that is all dependent on what work is done in any given amount of time.
Based on the articles I looked at, the journalist(Valentine writes it all,I don’t know man) holds herself to a higher standard. Each article goes through the subject like its a newborn baby. Traipsing through the complexities of its birth and what it could be in the future. Reflecting on its creation but also understanding that there was something before, an intertwining of various ideas that were needed in order for everything to come together in the right way. People often comment their amazement at the idea of the website which is something you can take however you want.
As someone who has never been attracted to art as one of those “hmm this piece speaks to me” or an “this piece took so much emotion out of me, Im wasted” art people because, honestly, that’s scary. These articles are taken care of as well as I had expected from Valentine.
The variety of the articles are just as vast as the African Diaspora. There is such a wealth of knowledge contained in these pages and honestly, isn’t that the beautiful thing about Black Art?
Its still Art.
-Megan Jean Louis
