The Black Arts Movement, framed at the Getty
Through a lens, darkly “Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-1985” by Bondo Wyszpolski The ‘50s, the ‘60s! Turbulent times in America, especially for the African American community still repressed and largely segregated. But people had cameras, and they were taking pictures. In this wide-ranging show at the Getty Center, through June 14, there are over 150 works created by more than 100 artists, and the era sharpens into focus. The Black Arts Movement, a term which links those who were central figures with those on the periphery, was born “in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 1954 school desegregation ruling,” in the words of Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where this exhibition began, a show curated by Philip Brookman and Deborah Willis. “I Am a Man, Sanitation Workers Strike, Memphis, Tennessee” (March 28, 1968), by Ernest C. Withers; gelatin silver print; National Gallery of Art, Washington. © Dr. Ernest C. Withers, Sr. courtesy of the WITHERS FAMILY TRUSTHowever, as Brookman writes, “The constitutional crisis precipitated by the desegregation ruling went unenforced in many communities ten years on, giving artists and…
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