African American Los Angeles in the middle decades of the last century was alive with militancy, movement, and creativity. Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960 – 1980, curated by Kellie Jones, captures this vitality while offering a nuanced survey of how visual artists in that community used the materials and ideas of the then-emergent post – abstract expressionist sensibility to shape a vital part of the Black Arts movement. In this review Geoffrey Jacques suggests how Now Dig This! can serve not only as a window into the particularities of the African American arts community of Los Angeles in the last century’s middle decades, but as a way of adding nuance to our ways of seeing art history, art making, and the art world generally during that period.
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Spring 2013
Review Article|
May 01 2013
Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960–1980
Geoffrey Jacques
Geoffrey Jacques
Geoffrey Jacques is a poet and critic based in Southern California. His most recent books include a collection of poems, Just for a Thrill (2005), and A Change in the Weather: Modernist Imagination, African American Imaginary (2009), a book of criticism.
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Nka (2013) 2013 (32): 138–141.
Citation
Geoffrey Jacques; Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960–1980. Nka 1 May 2013; 2013 (32): 138–141. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10757163-2142359
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