Editorial
December, 2019
- The Continuous Thread: Celebrating Our Interwoven Histories, Identities and Contributions
- James Tissot: Fashion & Faith
- Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983
- November Theater Roundup
- Immersed in Light at Grace Cathedral
- At Minnesota Street Project, the Sky’s the Limit
- Introductions: Tenderloin Museum
November, 2019
October, 2019
September, 2019
August, 2019
July, 2019
June, 2019
May, 2019
April, 2019
March, 2019
- Lauren Yee’s Multi-Layered Play is a Chinese Puzzlebox
- MoAD Hosts Exhibition from Harlem’s Studio Museum
- New Asian Art Exhibition Spotlights Kimono
- New Opera Reimagines “Howards End”
- British Light Artist Bruce Munro Illuminates Montalvo
- Berlin & Beyond Showcases German Film
- Matthew Goudeau Takes Helm of Grants for the Arts
- Art-making From a Trans/Queer POV
February, 2019
January, 2019
December, 2018
November, 2018
October, 2018
September, 2018
August, 2018
July, 2018
June, 2018
May, 2018
April, 2018
March, 2018
February, 2018
January, 2018
December, 2017
November, 2017
October, 2017
September, 2017
- Cunning Sociopolitical Tale Premieres at Crowded Fire
- Why Citizenship? YBCA Invites Artists to Ponder the Question
- Margaret Jenkins Dance Opens 43rd Season
- One-Woman Play Captures Yearning for Home
- Poignant Ballet Examines Homelessness
- Edvard Munch: Between the Clock and the Bed
- Degas: A Tip of the Hat to Milliners
August, 2017
July, 2017
June, 2017
May, 2017
April, 2017
March, 2017
February, 2017
- “The Blues Project”: A Performance for Our Time
- Faith-Based Play Explores Compassion, Belief, Community
- Photo Exhibit Captures a Lost Generation of Syrians
- Noche Flamenca Brings Passion, Soul to “Antigona”
- The Tale of Two Afghan Women at Heart of New A.C.T. Play
- Feb Film Fests: Eclectic, Compelling
- Cal Performances: A Home Away From Home For The Trocks
January, 2017
December, 2016
November, 2016
October, 2016
September, 2016
August, 2016
July, 2016
June, 2016
May, 2016
- Beethoven Pops Up All Over Town
- The San Francisco Symphony Brings Bernstein Classic to the Stage
- Activism Takes Center Stage at SF International Arts Festival
- Ojai at Berkeley Celebrates Josephine Baker, Simone Weil
- SFDanceworks Debuts Inaugural Season
- Bringing the Blues Forward
- CJM Hosts Bill Graham Retrospective
April, 2016
March, 2016
February, 2016
January, 2016
December, 2015
November, 2015
October, 2015
September, 2015
August, 2015
July, 2015
June, 2015
May, 2015
April, 2015
March, 2015
February, 2015
January, 2015
December, 2014
November, 2014
October, 2014
September, 2014
August, 2014
July, 2014
June, 2014
May, 2014
April, 2014
March, 2014
February, 2014
January, 2014
December, 2013
November, 2013
October, 2013
September, 2013
August, 2013

It is an ironic moment. Black art has never been more en vogue, but the Black people being displaced at breakneck speed are not.
In the 1970s, as African and Afro-diasporic communities around the world were in the midst of the Black Power Movement, Black people comprised 13% of the population of San Francisco. Forty years later, with the showing of “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983” at the de Young Museum, the city’s Black population hovers around 5%, one of the lowest of all major cities in the United States. The Wikipedia page titled “African-Americans in San Francisco” offers a bleak single sentence forecast: “San Francisco's African-American population is projected to continue to decrease in the future.” The historically Black Bayview-Hunter’s Point neighborhood and Fillmore District are being purged of their residents as gentrification strong-arms longtime residents from their homes and community stomping grounds. Urban renewal is no more than Negro removal, James Baldwin famously quipped. There isn't a more perverse or more timely moment for this show’s arrival in the Bay Area than the present.

“The Hero” (1979) by Phillip Lindsay Mason
Many familiar comic book heroes were created by Jewish artists whose visions and minoritized experiences have since informed contemporary sensibilities of heroism, social values, and quintessentially American identities — Joel Simon and Jack Kirby made Captain Marvel, Stan Lee created Captain America, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the Black Panther. Given Mason’s extensive time spent living and working in the Bay Area, the birthplace of the Black Panther Party who famously flouted American anti-blackness to spread their revolutionary program, how could his superhero not be Afro-ed and Black?
It is an ironic moment. Black art has never been more en vogue, but the Black people being displaced at breakneck speed are not. The catalogue of the exhibition — edited by Zoé Whitley and Marc Godfrey, the exhibition's creators — discusses the Whitney Museum’s April 1971 show, "Contemporary Artists in America." Protests, criticisms, and condemnations by the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition led to the withdrawal of twenty-four of the seventy-eight invited artists including John Dowell, Melvin Edwards, Sam Gilliam, Richard Hunt, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Joe Overstreet, and William T. Williams. The incredible breadth of this show necessarily engages their prognostic, which is also explicitly presented in the catalogue: “…[is] it acceptable for a white curator to organize a survey of ‘Black Artists,’ or [is] an African-American curator necessary in order to bring an informed perspective? Are identity-based shows by definition ‘socially driven’ or can they be conceived for ‘aesthetic’ reasons?” The events surrounding that show 50 years ago are an effective rebuttal to the ahistorical idea that Black art is experiencing some present renaissance, and speak far more to a correction of both a historical negligence and a newfound marketability of Black work (both cynical and earnest).
In considering what it means for this exhibition to come to the Bay Area and specifically to the de Young Museum, we ought to remember when Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones brought the Black Panther Party to the museum with their exhibition Black Panthers: A Photography Essay 50 years ago. The show engaged the quiet minutiae and community care of the Party, a stark contrast to the unequivocal militant threat with which their all black uniforms and immaculately choreographed public presence were commonly associated. Responding to the images, Eldridge Cleaver enthusiastically asked the pair: “Why do your photographs have [a] feeling [that] none of the work I’ve seen of us by other photographers has?” Despite the show illustrating a national survey of Black artists of the time, special curatorial attention has been paid to Bay Area connections with art made for Bay Area shows or by Bay Area Artists.
The local mythos of Summer of Love and flower power peace, love, and acceptance may have been lost on the Black Panthers and on local Black communities alienated from resources and social support. But with this show, de Young curators Timothy Anglin Burgard and Lauren Palmor engage the critical need for art institutions to be honest about treatments and representations of Black art both in the assimilation of external criticism and internal self-awareness within institutions. The distinction between belated appreciation and contemporary recognition of market value is razor thin, but shows that embrace community engagement and accessibility—as this one will—are the beginning of critical corrective and transformative treatments of art history methodology. Museums are not sanctuaries where aesthetics are appreciated in a vacuum away from the muck and messiness of “the real world” nor are they spaces within which certain blacknesses should be brought because of particular expectations of how they might perform inoffensively for audiences. While many institutions have failed to embrace their potential as vanguards for cultural challenge and evolution, this iteration of the show — which will also train its focus on living artists in hopes of furthering the commentary around the Bay Area as an epicenter of Black radical sociality and art-making — hopes to buck the trend of coddling artistic and cultural hegemony. Black art can and will speak for itself if you allow it.
November 9 → March 15
de Young Museum