Mr Dial has Something to Say

This film investigates the current historical problems of classism and racism in the elite American visual art world by following the dramatic and disturbing story of Thorton Dial, a 79 year-old African American artist from Alabama’s Black Belt, a region still populated by families of former slaves. The film explores Dial’s art and life and his ‘discovery’, in the 1980s, by William Arnett, a white art historian. As Dial’s work was about to explode onto the art scene a catastrophic, defamatory profi le appeared on the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes leading to death threats against Arnett and cancellations of every Dial xhibit planned around the world. Through this documentary journey, questions arise: What is the meaning and history of this movement? Who are the artists and why do they create? Has African-American improvisational visual art been isregarded by the mainstream art world as less important? Have terms such as “outsider”, “visionary,” “primitive,” “folk,” “self-taught,” and “naïve” – all of which have been applied to this particular style – downgraded the importance of this art? An incredible soundtrack, produced by local artists and available online, accompanies the film.