Exhibition

Due to Overwhelming Demand: CongoSonic Exhibition Extended!

The 17th Annual African American Composers’ Series: CongoSonic — Bantu Beats Across the Americas

The rhythms still resonate—and now, they’ll play on even longer. We’re thrilled to announce that the current exhibition at the William Grant Still Arts Center has been extended beyond June 14 to August 1 due to overwhelming public response!

CongoSonic: Bantu Beats Across the Americas isn’t just an exhibition—it’s a cultural movement. Featuring immersive displays, rare musical artifacts, and videos from the Congo, this year’s series traces the powerful journey of Bantu-rooted rhythms across the Atlantic. From Congolese rumba to hip-hop, jazz, cumbia, salsa, and beyond, discover how sounds born of resilience and migration continue to shape the global music scene.

Presented in partnership with Friends of the Congo and Basandja Coalition, CongoSonic dives deep into both the legacy and the present-day reality of the Congo. While you explore vibrant sonic traditions, you’ll also gain critical insight into the ongoing humanitarian crisis affecting the region today.

Haven’t visited yet? Now’s your chance. Already came through? Come again—there’s always more to hear, see, and feel.

More film screenings and programs coming soon.

Free admission | William Grant Still Arts Center

Now extended – Closing August 1

After June 14, we will move to a Monday-Friday 12-5pm schedule for viewing due to summer programs.

Don’t miss the sound of a movement that continues to shape continents.

Screening Thursdays | 7:00 p.m.

The Rumba Kings, April 10, 2025
Neptune Frost, May 1, 2025
When We Were Kings, June 5, 2025

Questions? Please contact WGSAC at (323) 734-1165 or wgsarts@lacity.org.

This exhibition showcases experimental works of modern and contemporary calligraphic art, highlighting innovations in the art form. The exhibition explores the evolution of pictographs, the relationship between content and form, the development of new scripts, and the abstraction of the written word. It is accompanied by a scholarly exhibition catalogue.

Mark Bradford’s 150 Portrait Tone, a mural-size composition that contains elements of both abstraction and realism, is based on an idea for a work that the artist conceived after the fatal shooting of Philando Castile by a police officer in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in July 2016. Castile, a nutrition services supervisor at an elementary school, was shot after being pulled over in his car—an incident that was livestreamed on Facebook by Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him.

The painting features excerpts of Reynolds’s dialogue from the video. The title, 150 Portrait Tone, refers to the name and color code of the pink acrylic used throughout the painting. Like the now-obsolete “flesh” crayon in the Crayola 64 box (renamed “peach” in 1962), the color “portrait tone” carries inherent assumptions about who, exactly, is being depicted. In the context of Bradford’s painting, the title presents a sobering commentary on power and representation.

Justice in our Barrios, Paz al Mundo: A Moratorium on War and Carrying the Legacy Forward, the inaugural exhibition of the Lincoln Heights Youth Arts Center (LHYAC). The exhibition features the personal archive of Rosalio Muñoz, peace activist, social justice organizer, youth mentor with roots in Lincoln Heights and Highland Park, and a Co-Founder of the Chicano Moratorium. Muñoz life’s work underscores the importance of asking ourselves how we can continue building people power and agency and that, together, we can bring about the changes needed in our world today. The exhibition is the culmination of a nine-week summer youth internship that the Center recognized as the Summer 2024 Youth Leaders.

The opening reception of Justice in our Barrios, Paz al Mundo: A Moratorium on War and Carrying the Legacy Forward takes place on Saturday, September 21, 2024, from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. The event will be held at El Pueblo de Lincoln Heights Art Gallery at Lincoln Heights Youth Arts Center, located at 2911 Altura Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031. The opening reception and gallery are free and open for all to attend.

Rosalio Muñoz’s knowledge, lived experience, and personal archive ephemera including photographs, newspaper and magazine articles, campaign materials, artworks, and government documents provide the cornerstone from which this exhibition chronicles the historiography of the growing presence and empowerment of Mexican American people starting in the 1920s. Justice in our Barrios emphasizes the Chicano Moratorium’s multigenerational, intercultural, and national grassroots mobilization efforts whose anti-war 2 mission played a critical role in bringing an end to the Vietnam War. Further, it highlights the Chicano Movement’s priorities and accomplishments that took shape and continued after the post-war era towards creating an improved quality of life for all people, particularly the poor and undocumented in Los Angeles.

In addition to the historical timeline, the exhibition showcases contemporary works of art including painting, drawing, photography, and mixed media, that embody peace, justice, and solidarity. The contemporary collection is of emerging and established artists, from LHYAC visual art students to renowned artivists, exemplifying the vibrant spirit and rich history of Los Angeles’s Chicanx resilience and resistance, and reflect the Chicano Movement’s legacy and relevance to the global conflicts of today. Artworks were selected from an Open Call for Art and carefully chosen by the Youth Leaders themselves.

Featured artists include Rafael Cardenas, Colorsoner, Dare to Struggle, Hailey Deniz, Emma Deniz, Jennaya Dunlap, Paz Fernandez, Mina Ho Ferrante, Yulu Fuentes, Bobby Gordon, Kalli Arte Collective, Lilia “Liliflor” Ramirez, Pola Lopez, Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta commissioned by Coyotl + Macehualli, Arturo Meza II, Andrea “Mextica” Ramirez, Josiah O’ Balles, Dara Oum, Sol Itzel Ramirez, Melanny Rivera & Brenda Ceja, Re:sister, Joanna S., and Miki Yokoyama.

The contemporary artworks will be on display until December 14, 2024, and the historical collection will continue through February 2025. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Information on public programming is forthcoming.