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| Jeffrey Henson Scales, In a Time of Panthers 14, Bobby Seale, Chairman of the Black Panther Party, Speaking to Media, Oakland, CA, 1969 (negative) and 2022 (print). National Gallery of Art, Washington |
The Getty is hosting a large, ambitious photography show organized by the National Gallery of Art. Building on recent acquisitions by the NGA and Getty, "Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985" conjoins photojournalism, agitprop, and advertising as well as photography-as-art. Its point of departure is the Black Arts Movement, a literary and political zeitgeist centering on poet, playwright, and essayist Amiri Baraka and his circle, c. 1965 to 1975. The exhibition expands that timeline to a full three decades and of course, centers on visual expression. Many of the activists, writers, and performers of the era recognized the importance of photography in crafting public personas and promoting social change.
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Anthony Barboza, Watts, Los Angeles, 1970s. Getty Museum. (c) Anthony Barboza
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As shown here the result is occasionally unfocused. There's not much sense of chronology, which is after all useful for organizing historical narratives. Instead, objects are displayed according to themes so open-ended that it's hard to keep track of them. On the art-for-art's-sake side, the show has multiple inventive artists who are far from overexposed (Anthony Barboza, Adger Cowans, Louis Draper, Ming Smith, etc.) I found myself wishing their works had been displayed together. A handful of big, colorful mixed-media works tend to upstage the smaller B&W prints that are the show's core.
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| Listening station |
One clever bit that works is a listening station for period jazz, funk, and soul, with original album art.
"Photography and the Black Arts Movement" is at the Getty Center through June 14, 2026. It travels to the Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, July 25–Nov. 8, 2026.
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| Barbara DuMetz, Kraft Foods Avertisement, 1977 (negative) and 2025 (inkjet print). Courtesy of the artist |
Barbara DuMetz was one of the first Black women to achieve success in advertising photography. This image was used in an ad for Kraft's "Natural Cheese" that ran in the March 1978 issue of
Ebony.
Despite the exhibition's DC-LA connection, the show has only a couple of images from the Johnson Publishing Company (Ebony, Jet) archives, now preserved by the Getty Research Institute and the Smithsonian's Museum of African American History and Culture.
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| Kwame Brathwaite, Untitled (Portrait, Reels as Necklace), about 1972 (negative). National Gallery of Art |
Ben Jones, Stand/Funk Elegance, 1975 (image)
Kwame Brathwaite popularized the "Black is Beautiful" catchphrase with images of elegant Black women, upending the editorial standards of white fashion. A male counterpart is Ben Jones'
Stand/Funk Elegance, a 1975 screen print. Pan-African colors frame three images of dancer Larry Sanders in a soul-era paragone.
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| James Van Der Zee, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1982. Dr. Kenneth Montague | The Wedge Collection, Toronto |
Harlem Renaissance portraitist James Van Der Zee was 96 when he photographed 22-year-old Jean-Michel Basquiat in the latter's "best" creative year, 1982. Van Der Zee died the next year; Basquiat had only six more years.
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| Barkley L. Hendricks, Self-Portrait with Red Sweater, 1980 (negative) and 2023 (print). National Gallery of Art. (c) Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks |
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| Frank Dandridge, Martin Luther King Jr. Watches as President Lyndon B. Johnson Addresses the Events That Unfold in Selma, 1965 (negative) and 2025 (print). The LIFE Picture Collection |
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| Harry Adams, Protest Car, 1962 (negative) and 2024 (inkjet print). Harry Adams Archive, Tom & Ethel Bradley Center at California State University, Northridge (c) Harry Adams |
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| Ulysses Jenkins, Two Zone Transfer, 1979. Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York |
R.I.P. Ulysses Jenkins.
Comments
> according to themes
> so open-ended that it's
> hard to keep track of them.
If the exhibit were at LACMA, would it have been slotted into a gallery near where Benin bronzes or other objects from Africa are located? If so, that would be a variation of the old saw of, "some of my best friends are black."
I recall contemporary art from people based in South Korea shown several years at LACMA. Their style, format and technique weren't all that different from contemporary art produced throughout America, Europe, the world. Yet LACMA's curator(s) of Asian art (or contemporary? Or both?) felt it should be displayed not in BCAM - where the works of presumably 20th-21st century artists are located - but on the second level of the now demolished Hammer wing.
"Some of my best friends are Korean."
I guess the flip side of that is a work from artist Kehinde Wiley (who happens to be both black and American) in the Huntington's gallery devoted to paintings from 18th-century British artists like Thomas Gainsborough and his Blue Boy.
Wiley also happens to be gay too.
"Some of my best friends are queer."
--- J. Garcin
As for some of the artistry-engineering in ancient Egypt, the level of craftsmanship is so sophisticated that even modern people and modern machinery would have trouble duplicating it----theories of extraterrestrial aliens being on planet Earth centuries ago aren't necessarily far-fetched.
By the way, the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo tells the Geffen Galleries in LA, "Hold my beer."
But within the human species alone, it's patronizing and condescending to think the amazing skills of any segment of it has to be segregated or categorized based on race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality. At least to the point of ridiculous self-consciousness.
Again, mindless.
> and contrasts.
> why not just throw
> everything into a bingo
> wheel and display
> innumerable artworks
> helter-skelter.
One person's "thoughtful" is another person's "helter-skelter." Or one person's "helter-skelter" is another person's "thoughtful."
LACMA's director and curators don't mind installing contemporary next to older forms and styles of artwork. How many galleries of any art museum in any city - including the one on Wilshire Blvd in LA - will insert, for example, 16th- or 17th-century artworks into sections of otherwise contemporary art?
Why can't the current exhibit at the Getty have, as another example, works like Thomas Gainsborough's Blue Boy shown next to contemporary works from artists who just so happen to be black? Although the painting done by Kehinde Wiley (a gay, black person who's American) at least isn't a wildly abstract, non-figurative portrait. From that standpoint, the "Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens" isn't too helter-skelter.
However, their exhibiting next to older British art a variety of live Philodendrons and items from Barnes and Noble might be pushing things.
The facade is pure camp. The triangle motif was inspired by the pyramids. But it so overdone that it verges on Jack-o'-lantern. Along those lines, one critic had this to say: "One civilization used geometry to construct meaning; the other is more concerned with branding."
The entrances to the museum (with their lighted canopies) seem more apt for a Las Vegas casino than a serious museum.
On that note, part of the fist level is literally a mall with stores that are not museum-related.
Only a rube would think that the Grand Egyptian Museum is a remarkable building.
--- J. Garcin
Well, yes, so you say. Words, words, words, meaning nothing.
LOL. Okay, so you are the same person who on occasion has posted comments without a sig line but that has a similar ring. I don't post my identity, so whether you post or don't post yours is fine with me. I've just sometimes wondered if there has been a fourth regular (or semi-regular) user of this forum, beyond "Ted G," "J Garcin" and me. This blog deserves lots of visitors and active postings from them.
> Words, words, words
Yep. Walk into any book store or library and be overwhelmed by how many millions of volumes of words exist out there, much less things like the famous ancient Alexandria library over 2,000 years ago. Plus, the owner of this blog spends time creating words, so his readers should return some of the favor.
In comparison, I guess you've been the one who has argued repeatedly in favor of Zumthor's building. If the GEM is overdone, the Geffen is underdone, particularly its squared-off corners. Those were originally going to be round instead of meeting more at a 90-degree angle. I'm sure Zumthor himself thinks that design change looks clunky.
However, LACMA has always looked like it doesn't enough money or run out of it. The Pereira/Hardy-Pfiffer buildings - certainly the outdoor (or semi-outdoor) pathways between them - were reminiscent of a so-called dead mall. A setting not helped when attendance hasn't been exactly booming.
On that note, it has been argued that one of the fundamental preoccupations of architecture is squaring the circle. We see it in Renaissance churches with their square bases and domes. We can trace back the preoccupation to antiquity. It was one of the legendary constructions problems. (There were three.)
As in antiquity, for Renaissance architects, there were sacred implications to these problems. Squaring the circle is an architectural means of approaching unity/divinity.
Consequently, I do NOT think the Geffen is underdone with its squared-off corners. I think the concession or compromise made the building better. It adds another metaphysical layer to a building that Zumthor has already suggested was inspired by a spiritual typology, a monastery.
--- J. Garcin
Oh, please say more.
(1) doubling of the cube (altar in the form of a cube) which was proposed as a cure for the plague; and,
(2) the trisection of an angle (the number three represented harmony in Pythagorean mysticism)
In a monastery, the cloister (the courtyard open to the air) is typically a square and there is either a circular fountain in the courtyard or the courtyard itself is surrounded by a circular walkway (ambulatory).
As such, monastic architecture provides an architectural solution to the problem of squaring the circle, to the problem of circumscribing infinite (divine) space.
In the past, I described how Zumthor's plan inverts the layout of a monastery by putting the cloister/ambulatory on the edges of the plan (terrace galleries). Zumthor even repurposes the existing tower to the south as a kind of bell tower.
It's a remarkable building.
--- J. Garcin
> is underdone with its
> squared-off corners.
Be honest. If GEM were sitting on Wilshire Blvd and the Geffen were located in Cairo, you'd flip around your opinion. In my case, I'd still describe the squared-off corners next to the curved concrete roof as looking clunky.
As for coming straight from the horse's mouth, Peter Zumthor himself has said (to paraphrase) his design for LACMA no longer has certain features he'd want or favor.
Regardless, the essence of a Zumthor building is all there:
the monastic model
the block (cell) plan
the materials (concrete/stone, glass, brass)
the way the building is designed inside-out, so that the facade seems almost unnecessary
the emphasis on the bones of the building (infrastructure as architecture)
the likeness of the building to a ruin (without the glass, it has the same sense of permanence as the Basilica Julia in the Roman forum)
the way the light/shadow dematerializes form/corners
the unique sense of contextuality, predicated as it is on environmental factors (light at certain times of the day/year, shadows from adjacent buildings)
the atmosphere/experience that is immersive (shadow) and spiritual (light/shadow)
The other stuff is just carpentry.
--- J. Garcin
> referring to the
> "squared-off"
> corners.
If your source is the NY Times article, then in regards to Zumthor's disappointment over LACMA's completed project, I recall wondering what specifics he was thinking of. If they were the doors, however, they're barely visible from a distance. By contrast, the squared-off corners, as seen from thousands of feet away. stand out like a sore thumb.
I recall a critic mentioning that Pereira's buildings of 1965 were visually off because their exterior columns were way too narrow. Before that, I took them in stride. But after reading the article, I could never unsee what it had referenced.
However, even after critiques like that or comments of a visitor from Minnesota comparing LACMA unfavorably with her town's Minneapolis Institute of Art, I recall in 2020 still thinking the original campus shouldn't have been torn down. Meaning that while familiarity is known to breed contempt, it also may breed complacency.
(1) Over time, it would have looked dated (a parametric artifact), arising not so much from Zumthor's own preoccupations, but rather those of the parametric architects with whom Zumthor might have felt he was competing. All these curved buildings are not going to stand the test of time because the curves are more or less an exercise in pure, computational form.
(2) A curved floor plate was not consistent with Zumthor's primary preoccupation, the monastic model. As I explained above, there you have a metaphysical interplay between squares and circles.
I think it made sense early on for him because he was also working with the idea of the tree model and wanted both the floor and roof plate to look like the canopy of a tree. But he made the right choice in the end to square off the corners.
... By the way, the tree model and the monastic model are somewhat isomorphic. Louis Khan, for example, designed a place of worship using the tree model.
--- J. Garcin