DCA Arts and Cultural Calendar
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January 2019
Gary Simmons: Fade to Black
Artist Gary Simmons references film, architecture, and American popular culture in paintings and drawings that address race, class, and memory. Much of Simmons’s work centers on his signature erasure techniques. Hours: Tuesdays – Saturdays 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Sundays 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
February 2019
Power of Pattern: Central Asian Ikats from the David and Elizabeth Reisbord Collection
Power of Pattern showcases over 60 examples of visually dynamic Central Asian ikat robes and panels. Organized by motif, the exhibition examines how the region’s textile designers, dyers, and weavers used improvisation and abstraction to create textiles truly unique to this region. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Fridays 11:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m., Saturdays & Sundays 10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. Adults – $15, Seniors – $10, Members, Students with valid ID, and Children – Free,…
Adia Millett: Breaking Patterns
Adia Millett cycles her imagery through a variety of media, including collage, assemblage, photography, textiles, and painting, creating multilayered representations of deconstructed structures and imaginary interiors that stand in for the human experience and provide a dwelling place for a black aesthetic. Tuesdays – Saturdays 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Sundays 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Life Model: Charles White and his Students
Presented at the original Otis Art Institute campus where Charles White was the first African American faculty member, this exhibition illuminates the artist’s impact as a teacher. The show features artwork in diverse media and modes of expression, alongside sketchbooks, photographs, and archival footage that illuminate his pedagogy. The gallery is open to the public every Saturday afternoon from 1–4 pm
March 2019
Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary
A prolific painter, printmaker, muralist, draftsman, and photographer whose career spanned more than half a century, Charles White’s artistic portrayals of black subjects, life, and history were extensive and far-reaching. Plumb Line features contemporary artists whose work in the realm of black individual and collective life resonates with White’s profound and continuing influence. Tuesdays – Saturdays 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Sundays 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
The Liberator: Chronicling Black Los Angeles, 1900–1914
The Liberator: Chronicling Black Los Angeles, 1900–1914 sheds light on the expansion of the city’s African American community, its challenges in a post-Reconstruction era, and its hopes and accomplishments, as captured in the newspaper’s pages. More than a century since The Liberator’s final issue, this exhibition includes rare ephemera, photographs, and artifacts that offer a unique study of the narrative of black Los Angeles. Tuesdays – Saturdays 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Sundays 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
MOCA Mural: Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Akunyili Crosby is the second artist to create an outdoor mural designed specifically to wrap the exterior of MOCA Grand Avenue, a new initiative that invites views both by pedestrians and through the windows of moving cars on Grand Avenue. Her work transforms the museum itself into a canvas for explorations of scale, texture, pattern, intimacy, and a multiplicity of perspectives. Hours: Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays, 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., Saturdays & Sundays, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.,…
Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983
Soul of a Nation celebrates the work of Black artists made over two decades beginning in 1963, at the height of the civil rights movement. The exhibition devotes individual galleries either to groups of artists working in a particular city — with three galleries dedicated to artists living and working in Los Angeles – or to a different kind of art production. The exhibition showcases communities engaged in robust artistic dialogues, while also revealing disagreements about what it meant to…
Lightscapes: Re-envisioning the Shanshuihua
Lightscapes: Re-envisioning the Shanshuihua presents works from Nick Dong and Wu Chi-Tsung, two Taiwan-born contemporary artists. Re-imagining the philosophies of Chinese landscape paintings, the exhibition brings forward new media works and immersive light-based installations that are not often explored within this genre. Tuesdays – Sundays 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Adults – $3, Seniors and Students – $2, Museum Members – Free
Indian Country: The Art of David Bradley Opens to the Public
For the past three decades, David Bradley (Minnesota Chippewa, born 1954) has been a recognized voice from Indian Country, confronting through his art questions of identity, self-determination, and self-representation, as well as definitions of “traditional” Indian art. Drawing influence from diverse sources such as Santa Fe–style painting of the 1930s–40s, Renaissance art, pop culture, advertising, and film, Bradley’s work is at once serious and fun, historical and contemporary.