To coincide with the arrival of the Obama portraits, LACMA has staged this complementary exhibition of Black American portraiture. A mix of mostly paintings with some photographs and sculptures mixed in, the 140 or so works on display all feature Black subjects, dating from as early as 1800 through emancipation, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights and Black Power eras and into today.
The salon-style assembly is dense (and mostly pulled from the museum’s own collection), but “Black American Portraits” has no shortage of stop-you-in-your-tracks pieces: The colors in a pair of Kehinde Wiley paintings pop off the wall; Bisa Butler’s Forever quilts Chadwick Boseman into a lush Wakandan paradise; Renee Cox’s ultrawide photograph The Signing imagines the ink drying on the Constitution with an all-Black caucus; and Titus Kaphar’s Behind the Myth of Benevolence hides a Sally Hemings stand-in behind a cut-off canvas of Thomas Jefferson. The subjects, too, are often familiar, from Frederick Douglass to Patrisse Cullors to Grace Jones to Kobe Bryant.
Though “Black American Portaits” debuts with “The Obama Portraits Tour,” it’ll extend past that exhibition’s January bow and stick around into the spring. Access is included with a general admission ticket.
