Yesterday, “Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts” opened at the Film Forum in
New York, the Laemmle in Los Angeles, and throughKino-Lorber’s Virtual
Cinema network <https://kinomarquee.com/>across the country. Traylor was
a self-taught Black artist born on a small-scale slave plantation in
Alabama in 1853 who did not make his first drawing until 1939, when at
the age of 86, he produced over a thousand in just over three years. He
died in 1948. Unlike a young artist professionally trained who comes to
New York or Los Angeles in their early 20s to “make it”, Traylor only
created such works out of some deep longing in his soul and arguably to
make sense out of a life that was that of the prototypical southern
slave and then sharecropper. Like William Blake or Vincent Van Gogh, the
drawings he created were tantamount to being dictated to him by some
divine presence.
In telling Traylor’s story, director Jeffrey Wolf and writer Fred Barron
also tell the story of the Deep South. If not for his art, Traylor would
have died in obscurity. By bringing his story to life, Wolf and Barron
bring to life the pains and joy of Alabamans who suffered through
slavery, Reconstruction, and the rise of Jim Crow. Despite it all, they
found ways to express themselves through religion, art and political
solidarity. Although obliquely, Traylor’s drawings chronicle that dark
history, with many insights into how Black people managed to make the
most out of meager circumstances.
full: https://louisproyect.org/2021/04/17/bill-traylor-chasing-ghosts/
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