Samella Sanders Lewis, Children's Game, 1968/1982, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Stephanie Blackmore Vahn, the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation, Beverly Hills, CA, and the Prints and Drawings Council, © Estate of Samella Sanders Lewis, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
SEPTEMBER 27, 2025 – JANUARY 18, 2026
OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Please note: The museum will be closed during regular operating hours on Saturday, September 27 in preparation for the exhibition’s opening reception.
Launched by brothers Alonzo Davis and Dale Brockman Davis in the wake of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, the Brockman Gallery in South L.A. was central to the development of the Black Arts Movement in Los Angeles. Act on It! brings together works by artists who exhibited at the Brockman Gallery (1967–1990), which served as a critical nexus for emerging artists of color and contributed to a growing network of Black-run spaces and collections. The exhibition features work by artists including the Davis brothers, David Hammons, Betye Saar, Charles White, La Monte Westmoreland, and Carrie Mae Weems, among many others.
Act on It! showcases dozens of works from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) collection, capturing the aesthetic, political, and social statements encountered by Brockman Gallery visitors and underscoring the reach and lasting significance of the Davis brothers’ project. The exhibition is organized into six major themes that are significant to the history of the Brockman Gallery—Roots, Material Experimentation, Body & Identity, Common Ground, Civic Engagement, and Uplift.
This presentation also includes a selection of works by Black and Chicano artists from VPAM’s permanent collection, further emphasizing how the Brockman Gallery amplified the reach of artists across the region.
This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in collaboration with the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College; Riverside Art Museum; Lancaster Museum of Art and History; and California State University, Northridge, Art Galleries.
Local Access is a series of American art exhibitions created through a multi-year, multi-institutional partnership formed by LACMA as part of the Art Bridges Initiative.
All exhibitions at the Vincent Price Art Museum are underwritten by the Vincent Price Art Museum Foundation and East Los Angeles College.