LOS ANGELES — A set of watercolors by two-year-old Micah Zuri Davis-O’Connor is likely one of the first works to greet viewers as they enter the south gallery of the California African American Museum (CAAM). The work are summary, carefree, and bursting with coloration; they instantly conjure a toddler splayed on the ground, exploring the distinct human pleasure of controlling limbs to create photos. Davis-O’Connor was born in 2022 in Altadena, one of many first bastions for Black middle-class households within the Los Angeles space and residential to many lauded artists and entertainers. These work have been made the 12 months earlier than his neighborhood could be ravaged by a fireplace that left little in its wake. CAAM’s group exhibition, Ode to ‘Dena: Black Artistic Legacies of Altadena, curated by Dominique Clayton, acts as both an exercise in reverence and a declaration of resilience for Altadena’s inventive neighborhood. Beginning with Davis-O’Connor’s work sparks a way of innocence and prompts the questions: “What will he do next? What will he become?” It’s a means of not solely desirous about the long run, however believing in a single.
The present has a twin thesis: It acknowledges the tough, racist circumstances that have been overcome to create this neighborhood, and it highlights the depth of expertise that the town borders nonetheless nurture. The roster incorporates a assortment of 25 intergenerational, multimedia artists who’re related by Altadena — some who’ve handed on and plenty of who’ve misplaced their houses, studios, and/or life’s work to this 12 months’s blaze. A chilling assemblage of the Black civil rights wrestle by John Outterbridge (“REVIEW/54-Outhouse,” 2003) stands close to Marcus Leslie Singleton’s oil portray “Monk, Closing Act” (2025), which seems towards a charred quartz sound bowl from musician and artist Grandfather — the one merchandise recovered from the burn web site of his residence. HRDWRKER’s eponymous video work, commissioned by CAAM for the exhibition, depicts varied artists ruminating independently and collectively about Altadena’s legacy and the way it feeds their apply.
Watercolor work by Micah Zuri Davis-O’Connor
Some literal lineages are discovered within the gallery house. Mom and daughter Betye and Alison Saar are represented with a collaborative mixed-media set up (“House of Gris Gris,” 1989). Keni “Arts” Davis has quite a few watercolors, many made after the hearth to commemorate areas that have been misplaced (“Beauty from the Ashes,” 2018–25). Mildred “Peggy” Davis, an lively member of the Alta/Pas quilt circle and spouse to Keni, has two quilts within the present. Mildred and Keni’s daughter, the well-known artist Kenturah Davis (mom to Davis-O’Connor), is exhibiting two works as effectively. One combines weaving together with her signature textual content/drawing compositions, but it surely additionally features a picket vessel turned from a tree at her residence that not exists. It’s one of many few items that she and her mother and father have been capable of salvage.
The mixture of location-specific artworks and generational references drives residence the truth that Altadena is an actual place that accommodates actual lives. The present as an entire emphasizes the need of collective reminiscence, not solely within the presentation of artifacts, however within the act of constructing Altadena’s Black legacies experiential. Each customer turns into an extension of the reminiscence of these locations, these items, these individuals. Learn the wall texts, maintain the story.
The present helps reframe artwork as greater than an train in human creativity, empathy, and expression. Artwork is proof. Artwork is documentation of an existence that resonates and ripples past the confines of 1’s personal life, that breathes life into these of others, into people’ methods of being and of being seen. This isn’t a requiem for Altadena. It’s an ode to Altadena. A poem of reward for a spot — a bedrock for hundreds of lives — that also exists. It deserves our care and safety.
Betye Saar and Alison Saar, “House of Gris Gris” (1989)
Grandfather, “Sound Bowl” (2025)
John Outterbridge, “REVIEW/54-Outhouse” (2003)
Set up view of Ode to ‘Dena on the California African American Museum with artworks within the foreground by Dominique Moody
Marcus Leslie Singleton, “Monk, Closing Act” (2025)
Kenturah Davis, “volume V (marcella)” (2024)
Photograph mural in Ode to ‘Dena on the California African American Museum
Mildred “Peggy” Davis, “Patience Corner” (2015)
Ode to ‘Dena: Black Creative Legacies of Altadena continues at California African American Museum (600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los Angeles) by way of October 12. The exhibition was curated by Dominique Clayton in neighborhood with Larry Earl, Kenturah Davis, Arianne Edmonds, Dylan Joyner, and V. Pleasure Simmons, MD.
