Lonnie Holley Is Trending

Lonnie Holley, African in a Cage Gasping for Air, about 1990s. LACMA, gift of Gordon W. Bailey

Birmingham-born artist and musician Lonnie Holley was recently profiled in the New York Times, has an exhibition at the Parrish Art Museum, a new album, and is set to have a gallery show at Blum & Poe, L.A., in 2022. Meanwhile, one of his works is featured in LACMA's "View From Here: Recent Acquisitions." 

Holley became an artist at the age of 29, after carving tombstones for two nieces who died in a fire. The LACMA piece, African in a Cage Gasping for Air, was conceived as a statement on the slave-like working conditions of African diamond miners. It has taken on new resonance with George Floyd's murder and the politicization of mask-wearing.

African in a Cage is a gift of L.A. collector Gordon W. Bailey, who's been donating strategic groups of works from his trove of self-taught Southern art to museums nationwide (most recently, the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum, Biloxi, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art). Other Holley works from the Bailey collection are now at the Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Speed Art Museum (Louisville).

It's not unusual for an artist to be in a band. It is unusual for an artist's music to be any good. Holley is almost unique in being no less appreciated for his music. He's been compared to Sun Ra, Tom Waits, and Gil-Scott Heron. If you want a place to start, try "I Woke Up in a Fucked-Up America."

LACMA installation view with Betye Saar, Domestic Life (2007, promised gift of Steve and Lizzie Blatt) and Lonnie Holley's African in a Cage Gasping for Air