LOS ANGELES, CA.- On Saturday, March 23, The Broad opened Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983, the internationally acclaimed exhibition that celebrates the work of more than 60 Black artists made over two revolutionary decades in American history, beginning in 1963 at the height of the civil rights movement. The Broad, which attracted a record 815,000 visitors in 2018 (the museum’s highest annual attendance in its three-year history and a 12% increase from 2017), is debuting the exhibition on the West Coast.

Soul of a Nation examines the influences, from the civil rights and Black Power movements to Minimalism and developments in abstraction, on artists such as Romare Bearden, Barkley Hendricks, Noah Purifoy, Martin Puryear, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Alma Thomas, Charles White and William T. Williams. Featuring the work of more than 60 artists and including vibrant paintings, powerful sculptures, street photography, murals and more, this landmark exhibition is a rare opportunity to see era-defining artworks that changed the face of art in America.

Los Angeles-based artists appear throughout Soul of a Nation, and more deeply in three specific galleries, foregrounding the significant role of Los Angeles in the art and history of the civil rights movement and the subsequent activist era, and the critical influence and sustained originality of the city’s artists, many of whom have lacked wider recognition.

The work of pioneering Los Angeles artist Betye Saar is explored in a gallery that recreates a portion of the artist’s first survey exhibition in 1973 at California State University, Los Angeles. Another gallery examines the unique approaches to the graphic image by Charles White, David Hammons and Timothy Washington, focusing on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 1971 exhibition Three Graphic Artists that featured these artists, and which came out of the activist efforts of the Black Arts Council, an organization founded in 1968 by Cecil Fergerson and Claude Book, who were Black art preparators who worked at LACMA, to advocate for African American artists and to support their community. The Broad’s presentation includes additional works by Hammons and White, on view for the first time in this touring exhibition, including Hammons’ Spade (Power for the Spade), 1969 and The Door (Admissions Office), 1969, and White’s J’Accuse! No. 5, 1966.

The aftermath of the Watts Rebellion and its impact on the assemblage movement is explored in a gallery featuring the work of Melvin Edwards, Daniel LaRue Johnson, John Outterbridge, Purifoy, John T. Riddle and Saar. The Broad has expanded the gallery to include three additional works by Riddle and Johnson, adding depth to the display. Two of the pieces are Johnson’s early assemblage works, Dolless Hour, 1962 and The Big N, 1963, which emphasize the artist’s contributions during his formative years in Los Angeles.

The Broad is the only United States exhibition venue to show two important works from Tate Modern’s originating presentation: Icon for My Man Superman (Superman Never Saved Any Black People – Bobby Seale), 1969 by Hendricks and Watts Riot, 1966 by Purifoy. Watts Riot is on loan to The Broad from the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, the largest institutional lender to The Broad’s presentation with seven loans. In addition, The Broad is also the only United States venue to show works by Hammons and Saar that are being seen for the first time since the exhibition originated at Tate Modern, including Hammons’ Injustice Case, 1971 and Saar’s I’ve Got Rhythm, 1972. Injustice Case, 1971 is on loan from LACMA, where it was on view as part of the Three Graphic Artists exhibition and was a central image in the 1971 exhibition’s brochure.