January 2020
LA Blacksmith
For decades black artists in Los Angeles have worked with metal for its historic and symbolic significance, as well as for other sociocultural, political, and practical considerations. LABlacksmith highlights this tradition, from historic Los Angeles metal sculpture that signifies the durability of West African metalsmithing aesthetics to contemporary explorations of iron and steel alloys, bronze, copper, tin, aluminum, and gold. Beginning with Beulah Woodard’s homages to African mask making, LABlacksmith examines how the Watts Rebellion and other political and aesthetic ideas…
Timothy Washington: Citizen/Ship
Los Angeles–based artist Timothy Washington (b. 1946) has crafted a visionary display of mixed-media works in his Leimert Park residence for over fifty years. A prominent figure during the Black Arts Movement—a key moment in the 1960s and 1970s when African American artists and writers collectively celebrated black culture— Washington has been a pioneer of socio-politically charged work ever since, exhibiting both locally and nationally with renowned fellow artists, such as Charles White and David Hammons. In the late 1970s,…
Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century
In 1990, on the first season of the hit primetime television show The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, lead actor Will Smith wore a series of boldly hued and geometric looks designed by a young Los Angeles–based urban apparel line named Cross Colours. African American-owned, founded by Carl Jones and T.J. Walker, the brand quickly skyrocketed, securing a plethora of orders across the country and breaking color barriers in the field of men’s apparel. The commercial success of Cross Colours,…
Making Mammy: A Caricature of Black Womanhood, 1840–1940
One of the most pervasive stereotypes constructed during the post-Civil War era, and arguably the most enduring image from the days of Jim Crow, the mammy was a staple caricature in the romanticization of the Antebellum South. Popularized into the twentieth century by characters such as “Mammy” in MGM’s hit film Gone with the Wind (1939), this archetype of black domestic servitude was often depicted as good-natured, overweight, and loud. Presenting an ahistorical view of black womanhood within southern plantation…
Dust My Broom: Southern Vernacular from the Permanent Collection
Featuring the largest selection of works by Southern vernacular artists ever displayed at the California African American Museum, Dust My Broom: Southern Vernacular from the Permanent Collection examines the remarkable reach and legacy of arts traditions from the American South. The region’s vernacular manifests itself in assemblages and quilts, as well as sculptures, paintings, and drawings, executed from found or repurposed objects by largely selftaught artists who spent their careers excluded by the mainstream art world. Reflecting themes associated with spirituality,…