Act on It! Artists, Community, and the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles

Showcasing a collection of work from Black artists once featured at the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles.

Featuring with the m\other exhibition at MOAH.

Samella Sanders Lewis, Children's Game, 1968/1982, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Stephanie Blackmore Vahn, the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation, Beverly Hills, CA, and the Prints and Drawings Council, © Estate of Samella Sanders Lewis, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

In 1967, brothers and artists Alonzo and Dale Brockman Davis opened the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles, likely the city’s first Black-owned and operated art gallery. Motivated by the cultural renaissance occurring in the wake of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, the brothers built a crucial space for emerging artists of color. Act on It! Artists, Community, and the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles brings together dozens of works from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s collection, showcasing the range of experimental approaches to painting, printmaking, and sculpture featured at Brockman. Organized around six key themes–Roots, Material Experimentation, Body & Identity, Common Ground, Civic Engagement, and Uplift–this exhibition celebrates the Davis brothers’ courageous endeavor. Featuring work by artists including the Davis brothers, David Hammons, Betye Saar, Charles White, La Monte Westmoreland, and Carrie Mae Weems,Act on It! illuminates the transformative potential of art to expose injustice, raise consciousness, and shape culture.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in collaboration with the Lancaster Museum of Art and History; Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College; and California State University, Dominguez Hills.

Local Access is a series of American art exhibitions created through a multi-year, multi-institutional partnership formed by LACMA as part of the Art Bridges Cohort Program.