Visual Arts Curator Essence Harden, who organized Deborah Roberts: I’m, is joined by Leigh Raiford, Professor of African American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, to discuss Roberts’s practice and works on view at Art + Practice. Harden and Raiford previously co-curated Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary at CAAM in 2019, which featured work by Roberts. This talk takes place at Art + Practice in Leimert Park.

In Conversation: Essence Harden and Leigh Raiford

Artist Justen LeRoy offers insights into Lay Me Down in Praise, his three-channel film installation at Art + Practice that asks how the scream, moan, and melisma—also known as the vocal run— provide a sonic route toward Black environmentalism.

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Artist Walkthrough: Justen LeRoy

On opening day of Helen Cammock: I Will Keep My Soul—the North American debut of the UK-based, Turner Award-winning artist—experience a live musical performance by Cammock and Roshanak Kheshti, UC Berkeley Associate Professor of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. The exhibition’s two-channel film, performance piece, poetry, and print series draw from Cammock’s research in the archives of the Amistad Research Center (New Orleans) about artist Elizabeth Catlett’s struggle for agency, creative autonomy, and support throughout her 1976 commission for the Louis Armstrong sculpture in New Orleans’s Armstrong Park.

HELEN CAMMOCK @ ART + PRACTICE

Nest Global x Art + Practice Panel Discussion at Hauser & Wirth

"Finding Soft Ground," Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s exhibition at Art + Practice (A+P), considers the conditions, precarity, and imaginative determination of safety for Black women. Utilizing the three galleries of A+P, Fazlalizadeh transforms each space into distinct installations examining the street, home, and natural world in relation to terror and refuge.

In Conversation- Tatyana Fazlalizadeh And Essence Harden

 Tru Sound for an intimate sonic response to J. Yolande Daniels: To A Future Space-Time. Centered on Leimert Park, this live experience explores the mapped autonomy of Black communities through sound, space, and memory.

Using site-specific field recordings, reinterpreted dictionary plates, and archival material, Tru Sound creates a layered listening session that reimagines how Black life resonates within and beyond architecture.

ARCHITECTURAL LISTENING WITH TRU SOUND

Artist and filmmaker, Arthur Jafa,  is joined by multidisciplinary sound artist, Justen LeRoy for an intergenerational conversation centered around Jafa’s latest catalogue, Live Evil. This catalogue explores the wide range of Jafa’s practice, including historical, philosophical, and artistic offerings, through essays and conversations.

In Conversation: Arthur Jafa and Justen Leroy

Memory, communication, and storytelling lay at the heart of archival practices. Julien James weaves these elements together in his introspective photobook, I Love You Always, All Ways. Join us for an evening of legacy, archival practice, and storytelling through photographs with James as we dive into his book and work. 

This program is presented by Art + Practice and LORE Leimert Park as part of the Behind the Page program series.

I Love You Always, All Ways is a tender, introspective photobook about fatherhood, legacy, and becoming. Told in three acts and framed by handwritten letters from father to son, the book offers a layered meditation on time, memory, and the quiet inheritances we carry. Shot over several years, it weaves together portraits, still lifes, ephemera, and fragments of family life to explore the liminal space between being a son and becoming a father.

The structure moves like a film—part bildungsroman, part memoir, part love letter. This isn’t a singular story, but rather a layered one, a nonlinear unfolding of joy, grief, softness, and survival. The power of the book lives in its restraint: the pauses, the glances, the everyday moments made sacred through attention. Old snapshots live alongside new ones. Time loops. Memory folds. And through it all, love stays—always, all ways.

BEHIND THE PAGE: PRESERVING FAMILY MEMORIES WITH JULIEN JAMES

January 17, 2018

Pilar Tompkins Rivas: Intersectionality, Transnationalism and Conceptualism: The Matrices of Latinx Art

Vincent Price Art Museum Director Pilar Tompkins Rivas will focus on evolving discourse relative to Latinx Art, exemplified through recent curatorial models, expanded theoretical frameworks, and artist-driven measures that have broadened our understanding of the field to account for intersectionality with other academic and art disciplines, transnational exchanges, and conceptual traditions.

01.17.17 Pilar Tompkins Rivas at Art + Practice

February 17, 2015

The first in the series of artist in residence public talks at Art + Practice includes Dale Brockman Davis and Alonzo Davis, the founders and proprietors of Leimert Park’s Brockman Gallery and Brockman Productions, which exhibited celebrated artists such as David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, and Charles White early in their careers. While in residence at A+P, Brockman Davis will archive the records and ephemera of the Brockman Gallery and Brockman Productions, a process that began during the research for the 2011 Hammer exhibition "Now Dig This: Black Art and Los Angeles 1960–1980," and will culminate in a living, digital archive and exhibition. This public program will examine the challenges of archiving and locating materials related to a particular history, the implications of such undertakings for art historical scholarship, and how this initiative can impact and serve a larger community.

02.17.15 In Conversation: Dale Brockman Davis and Alonzo Davis with Naima J. Keith

In this dynamic event, MOCA Director of Education and Public Programs and curator Amanda Hunt and black feminist performance artist and writer Gabrielle Civil will investigate each other’s work, the legacy of Senga Nengudi, and the urgency of black women’s performance. How can embodied gesture question and answer identity/ politics? How can black women’s performance liberate and transform? Incorporating dialogue, this event will also feature images and audience interaction. Come ready to play.

8.22.18 In Conversation: Gabrielle Civil and Amanda Hunt

As an emerging Los Angeles-based artist, May Sun performed with Senga Nengudi, Maren Hassinger and Ulysses Jenkins, amongst others, in the 1980s. These artists were in each other’s performance pieces and together, they experimented with movement in space in choreographer Rudy Perez’ workshop Art Moves, which took place in Ulysses Jenkins’ Other Visions Studios.

At Art + Practice, Sun will relive her collaborations with her life-long friends as well as explore select works from her multi-media large scale installations focusing on the first wave of Chinese immigrants to California. Additionally, Sun will present her and collaborator/filmmaker Juri Koll’s short film titled “Meltdown: Weapons of Mass Construction,” a film responding to the ongoing murders of innocent people across the United States and the immediate need to reform gun control legislation. Join Art + Practice for this artist talk, screening and conversation.

08.16.18 Artist Talk: May Sun With Juri Koll

Los Angeles-based artist Rafa Esparza, whose rigorous practice often involves performance and sculpture as a way to explore identity, migration and colonization, will participate in an artist talk at Art + Practice. He will consider artist Senga Nengudi’s practice as a theme for further describing and understanding the choice of materials that he often incorporates in his works of art. Furthermore, Esparza will discuss his use of Brown matter, examining his performance works and recent paintings.

07.11.18 Artist Talk: Rafa Esparza

Barbara McCullough is a director and producer whose work seeks to “tap the spirit and richness of her community by exposing its magic, touching its textures and trampling old stereotypes while revealing the untold stories reflective of African American Life.” Join Art + Practice for a conversation between Ms. McCullough and Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) Associate Curator of Media and Performance Art Thomas J. Lax. On the occasion of Maren Hassinger: The Spirit of Things, Lax and McCullough will discuss Hassinger’s exhibition as well as where Ms. McCullough is situated within contemporary art, performance art, film and ritual practices.

04.05.18 In Conversation: Barbara McCullough and Thomas J. Lax

In their respective works, painter Njideka Akunyili Crosby and filmmaker and video artist Akosua Adoma Owusu explore their experiences as African artists living and work in the United States. Akunyili Crosby creates complex, large-scale, mixed media works that incorporate references to her Nigerian heritage through images and textiles, while considering the social and personal effects of living abroad. Owusu uses an experimental, cinematic language to visualize what she has termed “triple consciousness,” an adaptation of sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois’s conception of black American identity after emancipation, extended to the experience of African expatriates. On the occasion of their exhibitions, Njideka Akunyili Crosby: The Beautyful Ones and Two Films by Akosua Adoma Owusu, the artists will reflect on their own and each other’s work, in conversation with Jamillah James, assistant curator at the Hammer Museum, and organizer of their exhibitions at Art + Practice.

09.24.15 In Conversation: Njideka Akunyili Crosby an Akosua Adoma Owusu with Jamillah  James

New York-based artist Kevin Beasley (b. 1985) transforms personal and familial artifacts into sculpture and sound performances, influenced by house music, hip hop sampling, and the post-industrial decay of once prosperous urban centers, such as Detroit, where Beasley lived for a number of years. Beasley is a recent alum of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s residency, and participated in the 2014 Whitney Biennial. He has performed and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Queens Museum, New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, among others.

04.11.15 Artist Talk Kevin Beasley

Join Art + Practice on November 8 for a talk with Bahamian raised, LA-based multidisciplinary artist and educator April Bey. Bey will discuss the ideas addressed in her Made in Space series, which explores female and queer afrofuturistic millennial entrepreneurialism via social media and the Internet. Blerdy in nature, juxtapositions of Star Trek and hip-hop culture also manifest in this series. Looking to the future acts as a therapeutic excretory practice in dealing with current day issues around race and discrimination globally. She will touch on the British colonization of West Africa and The Bahamas in comparison to the current Chinese colonization of black countries.

This work is a focus but is part of a generalized exploration of the actual resilience of women as they navigate through high-impact experiences of the body, psyche and demands of womanhood. There’s an ironic hypocrisy in the expectations of women and specifically black women to be sovereign and robust while at the same time inept and emotionally weak/unpredictable when leadership roles are sought.

Artist Talk: April Bey 11.08.2018

Join Art + Practice for an exhibition walkthrough of Time is Running Out of Time: Experimental Film and Video from the L.A. Rebellion and Today with artist, educator and independent filmmaker Ben Caldwell and The Broad’s Program Manager Jheanelle Brown.

Time is Running Out of Time Exhibition Walkthrough with Ben Caldwell & Jheanelle Brown 2.26.19

Artists and filmmakers Alile Sharon Larkin, Cauleen Smith, and dana washington, speak with Jheanelle Brown, Programs Manager at The Broad and co-curator of Time is Running Out of Time: Experimental Film and Video from the L.A. Rebellion and Today on the occasion of the exhibition. Larkin, Smith, and washington represent three generations of artists and filmmakers in Time is Running Out of Time. With Brown, they will discuss their aesthetic and sociopolitical concerns, the construction and deconstruction of form, their varied artistic and filmmaking practices, and the role of memory and representation in their work.

This program is organized on the occasion of Time is Running Out of Time: Experimental Film and Video from the L.A. Rebellion and Today, which is on view at Art + Practice through September 14, 2019 and is presented in conjunction with Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983, on view at The Broad through September 1, 2019.

Time is Running Out of Time is presented by Art + Practice in collaboration with The Broad, and is curated by The Broad’s Jheanelle Brown, Programs Manager and Sarah Loyer, Associate Curator and Exhibitions Manager.

In Conversation: Alile Sharon Larkin, Cauleen Smith and dana washington with Jheanelle Brown 3.27.19

Multidisciplinary artists Alima Lee and Kya Lou join Art + Practice on April 25 to discuss their individual practices as well as their process and experiences documenting Black life in Los Angeles. Lee and Lou will discuss their commitment to analog filmmaking and photography, the influence of music on their practice, the hyperlocal nature of their work, and the gendered dynamics embedded in the production of their work.

Documenting Los Angeles: A Conversation with Alima Lee and Kya Lou 04.25.19

Zeinabu irene Davis and Barbara McCullough share the multi-dimensions of experiences of women filmmakers identified as part of the LA Rebellion. They worked in experimental, narrative and documentary genres and subverted those genres to tell stories of African American life. Strong themes of female identity are present in their individual works underscoring a distinct relationship to the Black female experience. As storytellers, both additionally documented the contribution of those who were unknown - fellow artists and media makers whose contributions to the cultural fabric of Los Angeles and African American culture were under-recognized except for the works done by McCullough and Davis. Their conversation will reflect their evolution from film school-the LA Rebellion, academia, and the professional world. This conversation will be moderated by Desha Dauchan.

In Conversation: Zeinabu irene Davis and Barbara McCullough with Dasha Dauchan

Film Screening: Brick by Brick and 
Discussion with Jheanelle Brown and Yusef Omowale
August 13, 2019

Co-curator of 'Time is Running Out of Time: Experimental Film and Video from the LA Rebellion and Today' and The Broad’s Programs Manager Jheanelle Brown and Yusef Omowale, Library Director of the Southern California Library, discussed Shirikiana Aina’s 1982 film 'Brick by Brick'. Brown and Omowale discussed the film’s resonance and importance as a historical document, the importance of the parallels between what is represented in the film and the contemporary moment, and the political urgency of Black documentarians.

Film Screening: Brick by Brick and Discussion with Jheanelle Brown and Yusef Omowale 08.13.19

Artist Talk: Kenturah Davis
December 12, 2020
A+P Public Program Space

Artist talk with Los Angeles, New Haven and Accra (Ghana) based artist Kenturah Davis. Through a multidisciplinary practice that includes drawings, textiles, sculpture and performances, Davis’ work uses text as a point of departure, exploring the fundamental role that language has in shaping human understanding. At A+P, Davis will discuss how her recent work has been influenced by thinking about ways of “seeing in the dark.” manifesting in text based drawings that are intentionally blurry and objects whose qualities are veiled in mystery to highlight an awareness of things at the edge of our perception.

This program was organized on the occasion of A+P’s exhibitions Stephen Towns: Rumination and a Reckoning and Ramsess: The Gathering.


Image: Kenturah Davis during a public program at Art + Practice. 12 December 2019. Photo by Leah Case.

Artist Talk: Kenturah Davis 12.12.19

An intimate conversation between artist Amy Sherald and the Hammer Museum associate curator Erin Christovale. Sherald’s work is featured in Collective Constellation: Selections from The Eileen Harris Norton Collection which was curated by Christovale. Sherald and Christovale discussed topics relating to the evolution of Sherald’s practice, themes present in the exhibition, the importance of figurative painting and portraiture in representation and the ways in which Sherald’s work communicates with other artists in the exhibition.

This program was organized on the occasion of Collective Constellation: Selections from The Eileen Harris Norton Collection on view at Art + Practice through August 1, 2020.

Collective Constellation: Selections from The Eileen Harris Norton Collection is presented by Art + Practice in collaboration with the Hammer Museum and organized by their Associate Curator Erin Christovale.

Photo: Amy Sherald and Erin Christovale at Art + Practice Public Program Space, Leimert Park. Photo: Leah Case

In Conversation: Amy Sherald and Erin Christovale 02.10.20

6° is a single-day virtual symposium bringing together six L.A. non-profit art organizations. Tune in for individually presented programs from each institution, as we aim to begin a collective and open conversation around racial inequalities in the art world. 
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What are the systematic inequalities in relation to L.A. arts education? How and when do they show up? Three arts professionals involved with various levels of arts education in the city —  K-12, University, and continuing and adult-focused education — will have an informal conversation to showcase their work and personal experience that attempt to overcome these inequalities. Through sharing their own efforts and observations, the panelists will discuss possible tools and strategies others can implement to make arts education more accessible and inclusive for all. A+P’s Exhibitions and Public Programs Manager, Joshua Oduga, will moderate the discussion.

Speakers:
Karina Esperanza Yanez
noé olivas
Rebecca Renard-Wilson

6°: Making L.A. Arts Education More Equitable

The second installment of Bookmarked!, a series from A+P highlighting literary artists of LA, welcomes Walter Thompson-Hernández, multimedia journalist for the New York Times and author of the new book 'The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America’s Urban Heartland'. A+P’s Nereya Otieno spoke with Thompson-Hernández about women of color who have been sources of inspiration through his writing journey.

A focus of Thompson-Hernández’s work is to highlight Los Angeles culture, often showing sides that lack awareness in larger cultural conversations. In this program, Otieno and Thompson-Hernández connects important women of color in his life and literary growth to themes and ideas present in A+P’s exhibition Collective Constellation: Selections from The Eileen Harris Norton Collection.

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