POWER
March 28–June 10, 2017
Los Angeles
Beverly Buchanan
Elizabeth Catlett
Sonya Clark
Renee Cox
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Karon Davis
Minnie Evans
Nona Faustine
LaToya Ruby Frazier
Ellen Gallagher
Leslie Hewitt
Clementine Hunter
Steffani Jemison
Jennie C. Jones
Simone Leigh
Julie Mehretu
Sister Gertrude Morgan
Senga Nengudi
Lorraine O'Grady
Sondra Perry
Howardena Pindell
Faith Ringgold
Betye Saar
Joyce J. Scott
Emmer Sewell
Ntozake Shange
Xaviera Simmons
Lorna Simpson
Shinique Smith
Renee Stout
Alma Woodsey Thomas
Mickalene Thomas
Rosie Lee Tompkins
Unknown
Kara Walker
Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller
Carrie Mae Weems
Brenna Youngblood
Work By African American Women From The Nineteenth Century To Now
Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, is proud to present POWER, an exhibition curated by Todd Levin that surveys the work of African American women artists from the nineteenth century to now. Titled after the 1970 gospel song by Sister Gertrude Morgan, the exhibition begins with artists born soon after the Civil War and continues to the present, weaving together fine and folk art traditions to explore how artists have engaged issues of race, gender, and class against our evolving cultural and artistic landscape. The 37 artists in POWER draw into focus their struggle to establish themselves as equal players on the uneven field of the American republic.
The exhibition traces two artistic threads that entwined to produce groundbreaking and evocative works across a range of mediums, which continue to influence artistic dialogue today. The first approach, rooted in American history from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, grew out of the horrific repression of slavery, when little formal education was available to black people living in the United States. Americans of African descent—and particularly black women—managed to preserve the culture of their ancestry, often at their own peril, by passing their histories down through craft-based folk traditions.
