Just in time for Black History Month, the California African American Museum announces its Spring 2020 lineup, which features four new exhibitions and an extension to Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century.
We eagerly anticipate this new suite of exhibitions, organized under the leadership of our new deputy director and chief curator, Cameron Shaw. Visitors will engage with works by both emerging and established artists that illuminate a range of subjects, including identity, history, and society.
George O. Davis, Executive Director of CAAM
Continue below for details from the museum’s press release.
CAAM’s new spring exhibitions are:
Sula Bermúdez-Silverman: Neither Fish, Flesh, nor Fowl February 28 – August 23, 2020
Los Angeles-based artist Sula Bermúdez-Silverman investigates and critiques social structures through a conceptual and multidisciplinary practice that examines economic, racial, religious, and gendered systems of power. In her first solo museum exhibition in Los Angeles, the artist unites several bodies of work created since 2014, including a new series of sculptures made exclusively for CAAM. Bermúdez-Silverman mines her personal and familial histories as a woman of Afro-Puerto Rican and Jewish descent, transforming genetic data into colorful pie charts that call to mind hard-edged abstractions. Elsewhere, she embroiders vintage doilies with her own hair to depict the human body, as well as language that references the legacy of colorism and passing in the African diaspora. In another series, she creates quilts of clear plastic grids filled with found trash fragments from neighborhoods where she has lived, which function as markers of specific times and geographical locations. In the works debuting at CAAM, Bermúdez-Silverman addresses early global trade, the beginnings of commodification, and economic hierarchies by taking molds of her childhood dollhouse and creating casts of it in sugar, a material whose history has dictated that of her ancestors.
Sula Bermúdez-Silverman: Neither Fish, Flesh, nor Fowl is curated by Mar Hollingsworth, Visual Arts Curator and Program Manager, CAAM, and presented in conjunction with afroLAtinidad: mi casa, my city, curated by Mariah Berlanga-Shevchuk and Walter Thompson-Hernández at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes.
Nikita Gale: PRIVATE DANCER March 18 – September 6, 2020
For Nikita Gale’s first solo museum exhibition, the Los Angeles-based artist takes the common, shared experience of music concerts as a starting point for questioning more abstract ideas of spectacle, desire, and refusal. Gale’s research-based practice frequently centers on readily available objects and ubiquitous consumer technologies assembled in unexpected ways. In the installation at CAAM, theatrical lighting trusses are transformed into sculpture and programmed lights “dance” to an unheard soundtrack of music by Tina Turner, an icon the artist has been referencing for over six years. By isolating the visual language of live performance in the gallery and separating it from the expectation of audio, Gale creates an uncanny experience that serves as a meditation on the limits of the body, the demands of celebrity, and silence as a political position.
Nikita Gale: PRIVATE DANCER is curated by Cameron Shaw, Deputy Director, and Chief Curator.
Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth. April 8–August 23, 2020
Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth. Profiles revolutionary men—including Muhammad Ali, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Kendrick Lamar—whose journeys have altered the history and culture of the country. Their achievements are woven within the legacy and traditions of the African American experience, becoming emblems of excellence in spite of society’s barriers. Through inspiring quotes, original works of art, dramatic photographs, and a dynamic space that encourages self-reflection, this innovative exhibition brings together the historical and the contemporary to illuminate the importance of these men within the context of rich community traditions. It invites visitors to consider predominant narratives of black male identity and engage in authentic stories from multiple perspectives. While these groundbreaking individuals made their mark in a variety of disciplines—politics, sports, science, entertainment, business, religion, and more—all understood the value of asserting their agency by owning their stories. Twenty-five contemporary artists were invited to reflect upon and celebrate the significance of these men through their own creative vision. These works of art serve as a counterpoint to sumptuously backlit photographs and evocative storytelling, and together they honor the truth of the African American experience in history and today.
Men of Change was developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and made possible through the generous support of the Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services.
Sanctuary: Recent Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection March 18–September 6, 2020
Sanctuary features recently acquired works that explore the concepts of safety and refuge as they relate to the African American experience. Whether real, staged, or imagined, the worlds depicted in these photographs and mixed-media works support complex narratives and assert the importance of claiming a place of one’s own. Each artist in the exhibition presents a unique perspective on the creation of space, inhabiting actual physical locations, evoking emotional ties and affiliations, or manifesting dream-like havens through digital manipulation.
In several instances, photographs are displayed alongside three-dimensional sculptural works by the same artist, forming expressive installations that speak to the artists’ material versatility and to the creative potentials of the media in which they work. For example, Gary Simmons’s photograph of an empty academic setting appears in tandem with one of his ghostly erased drawings of coniferous trees on a school chalkboard, while Janna Ireland’s impeccably staged self-portrait complements a small still-life assemblage that suggests the fragility of her own domestic construct.
Sanctuary includes works by Sadie Barnette, April Bey, Carla Jay Harris, Janna Ireland, Adia Millett, Yinka Shonibare, Gary Simmons, and Sam Vernon.
Sanctuary: Recent Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection is curated by Mar Hollingsworth, Visual Arts Curator and Program Manager.
Continuing
Due to popular demand, Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century has been extended through the summer of 2020.
Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century
Extended through August 23, 2020
The first exhibition to examine this groundbreaking brand, Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century marks the brand’s thirtieth anniversary by showcasing vintage textiles, media footage, and rare ephemera that illuminate how Cross Colours—known for its boldly hued, geometric looks and social justice messaging—has permeated popular culture and how fashion can be used to tell history anew.
This exhibition is curated by Tyree Boyd-Pates, Associate Curator of Western History, Autry Museum of the American West, and Taylor Bythewood-Porter, Assistant History Curator, CAAM.
