Museum scrambles to open timely ‘Soul of A Nation’
Landmark exhibition explores what it meant to be an African American artist during turbulent ’60s and ’70s
During a week when it feels more timely than ever, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is preparing to install “Soul of A Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” in record time. The landmark exhibition, which explores what it meant to be an African American artist during the 1960s and ’70s, will be on view in Houston June 27-Aug. 30.
Originally scheduled to open in April as the last stop on a three-year national tour, “Soul of a Nation” was stranded at San Francisco’s de Young Museum during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Organized by the Tate Modern in London, the show features work created by more than 60 black artists during the revolutionary decades of American history that began with the Civil Rights movement and extended to the emergence of identity politics in the early 1980s.
Its 12 thematic sections emphasize aligned groups in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. For example, Romare Bearden was among members of New York’s 15-member Spiral collective, which formed in response to the August 1963 March on Washington and regularly met to discuss concepts with a black aesthetic. Around the same time, Roy DeCarava directed the
Kamoinge Workshop, a group of black photographers in Harlem.
On the other side of the country, Los Angeles’ Watts Rebellion in 1965 sparked a burst of creative responses by artists such as Noah Purifoy, whose assemblage work incorporated debris. The Chicago collective AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) formed in 1968, declaring a uniquely black art movement based on a shared sensibility that diverged from American and European models of Pop Art, Realism and Abstraction.
The MFAH is adding a gallery of works from its own collections that will include works by John Biggers, Kermit Oliver and Carroll Harris Simms, all of whom contributed to Houston’s dynamic art scene. “This new section contributes to a more comprehensive representation of Black American art during the same era and celebrates an important legacy of art making in Texas,” said the show’s Houston curator, Kanitra Fletcher.
“Soul of A Nation” will be on view in the Beck Building, 5601 Main. Timed entry tickets are recommended, and pandemic safety protocols are in place; $12-$19; children 12 and under free; free to all on Thursdays; 713-639-7300, mfah.org.