Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983 @ The Broad Museum In Los Angeles

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power shines a bright light on the vital contribution of Black artists made over two revolutionary decades in American history, beginning in 1963 at the height of the civil rights movement. The exhibition examines the influences, from the civil rights and Black Power movements to Minimalism and developments in abstraction, on artists such as Romare BeardenBarkley HendricksNoah PurifoyMartin PuryearFaith RinggoldBetye SaarAlma ThomasCharles White, and William T. Williams. Los Angeles-based artists appear throughout Soul of a Nation, and more deeply in three specific galleries, foregrounding the significant role of Los Angeles in the art and history of the civil rights movement and the subsequent activist era, and the critical influence and sustained originality of the city’s artists, many of whom have lacked wider recognition.

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power is on view through September 1st at The Broas Museum 221 S. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary @ California African American Museum In Los Angeles

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. The exhibition is on view through August 25 at the California African American Museum 600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of CAAM