Résumé

This paper provides a critical framework to discuss the history of Black Film traditions in contemporary visual art. Since production of video art started in 1960, Black video and video performance artists had until now little visibility, were unrecognized and under-researched as they should have been. The paper aims to show the role of the Canadian video artists: Stan Douglas, Sylvia D. Hamilton, Michele Pearson Clarke; Brazilian artists: Ayrson Heraclito, Renata Felinto; and the South Africa Filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah; in redefining black identity. The works of these artists are very important to addressing black aesthetics in contemporary art films and video art in the present times of social change, black activism and Post-blackness philosophical movement. These artists discuss blackness, diversity, diaspora, and deconstruct a white Eurocentrism narrative and explores the complexity of the contemporary art scenes of Africa and video art of the Americas. This is of paramount importance to the role of black Films in the arts, as well as to decolonize artistic institutions, in addition to showing the importance of black video art and film. I will present a discourse on the works of the above mentioned artists, as they are engaged with political culture, and they make references in their oeuvre to African roots, race, gender, politics, society, and culture. These artists raise the social practice and contemporary issues for black people. It is important to emphasize their black video art contributes to this rise in the reshaping of black identity in art and in Film studies.