Colony Little, Culture Shock Art

From the L.A. Times:

“Njideka is an artist who has the capacity to really bring together worlds that may not stand in unison. Which is to say the continental African experience and that of black folks living in diaspora,” says Jamillah James, curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 2015, when James was at the Hammer Museum, she gave Akunyili Crosby her first solo museum exhibition, and she organized a concurrent show of Akunyili Crosby’s work at Mark Bradford’s Leimert Park gallery and social services complex, Art + Practice.

I featured Crosby in 2016 after seeing her solo show curated by Jamillah James. Since then she has had numerous solo exhibitions and won a 2017 Macarthur Foundation Genius grant. While in Downtown Los Angeles today I saw her incredible mural that covers the entire Grand Ave side of MOCA. It’s a layered tableau that stays true to her artistic style and engages the community beyond MOCA’s patrons.