Representing the performative aspect of Johnson’s practice,The New Black Yoga (2011) is a short film depicting an enigmatic scenario in which five African-American men perform choreographed movements on a deserted beach. Their gestures alternately appear balletic, athletic, and martial, conjuring a range of potential narratives that ultimately remain elusive. Johnson’s 2016 installation Antoine’s Organ is included in the New Museum’s current exhibition Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America.
Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary @ California African American Museum
Charles White was a prolific painter, printmaker, muralist, draftsman, and photographer whose career spanned more than half a century. His portrayals of black subjects, life, and history were extensive and his emotional works struck a particular chord with his viewers. Plumb Line features contemporary artists whose work resonates with White’s profound and continuing influence. From abstraction to figuration, the artists of this exhibition find conversation with White through their expressive renderings of black skin and black community, as well as the treatment of black past and presence in both epic and intimate ways.
Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary is on view through August 25 at the California African American Museum 600 State Dr, Los Angeles, CA. photographs courtesy of the California African American Museum
The Skirball Cultural Center Presents Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite in Los Angeles
Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite is on view now at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. The exhibition features over forty photographs of black women and men reclaiming their African roots with natural hair and clothes. This is the first-ever major exhibition dedicated to this key figure of the second Harlem Renaissance. In collaboration with the African Jazz-Art Society and Studios (AJASS) and Grandassa Models, Brathwaite organized fashion shows featuring clothing designed by the models themselves, took stunning portraits of jazz musicians, and captured the black arts community in a series of behind-the-scenes photographs. Brathwaite’s work challenged mainstream beauty standards while celebrating black beauty, instilling a sense of pride throughout the community. On view through September 1 at the Skirball Cultural Center 2701 N Sepulveda Blvd, Los Angeles. photos courtesy of the Skirball Cultural Center
Read Our Interview Of Lauren Halsey On The Occasion Of Her Funkadelic Installation At MOCA Los Angeles →
Lauren Halsey’s dream-world is cosmic, funky, carpeted, and technicolored; an atemporal, fantastical, and hyperreal vision of black liberation which she conjures via site-specific installations that celebrate her childhood home. Click here to read more.