Hey everybody, this week I wanted to talk about a running exhibit called “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983”. This exhibit runs until September 1st at The Broad in Los Angeles, CA.

The Broad’s website writes that “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 decades, beginning in 1963 at the height of the civil rights movement. Soul of a Nation explores how social justice movements, as well as stylistic evolutions in visual art (such as Minimalism and abstraction), were powerfully expressed in the work of artists including Romare Bearden, Barkley Hendricks, Noah Purifoy, Martin Puryear, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Alma Thomas, Charles 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”.

Although the topic is very emotional and the history and meanings behind these works can be difficult to talk about, I would like to think that these works are cathartic in a way that the artists are recognizing the Civil Rights Movement and the pain black America went through in fighting for their rights. It’s incredibly powerful stuff and I encourage you to either check the exhibit out for yourself in you’re in L.A. or to even read more about the exhibit here: https://www.thebroad.org/soul-of-a-nation .