The California African-American Museum (CAAM) recently announced the presentation of four new exhibitions that will be on view this summer, all of which have deep connections to Los Angeles.
“April Bey: Atlantica, The Gilda Region,” through Jan. 17, 2022. In April Bey’s first solo museum exhibition in Los Angeles, the Bahamian American interdisciplinary artist presents an immersive installation that taps into Black Americans’ historical embrace of space travel and extraterrestrial visioning— a cultural movement dating back to the late 1960s and later termed Afrofuturism.
“Rights and Rituals: The Making of African-American Debutante Culture” through Feb. 27, 2022. With a focus on the 1880s to the transformative decades of the 1950s and 1960s, “Rights and Rituals” looks specifically at how Black debutante culture developed in the West and offers a new perspective on its participants’ contributions, both visible and invisible, to the fight for civil rights.
“Sanford Biggers: Codeswitch,” July 28 – Jan. 23, 2022. As the artist researched the history of the Underground Railroad, he was intrigued by the long-debated narrative that quilts doubled as signposts along escape routes throughout the nineteenth century. Inspired by those stories, Biggers created his first quilt-based works.
“Cassandra Press: An Unfolding, Sanford Biggers and the Amistad Research Center,” July 28 – Feb. 13, 2022. Los Angeles-based artist and Cassandra Press founder Kandis Williams is creating an installation that mines the archives of the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans. Comprised of text, sound recordings, and found images, the project offers a paratextual reading of the materials and themes on view in Biggers’s exhibition, including quilting and craft, song and rhythm, movement and migration.
Admission to the CAAM is free; reservations are required and can be made online at caamuseum.org. Call 213-744-2084 for additional assistance. Capacity is reduced per public health and government guidelines. Masks and social distancing are required. No large bags are permitted.
