African American Heritage Month

This moving, seminal visual arts project was conceptualized and developed by the Watts Towers Arts Center Director, Rosie Lee Hooks, who commissioned 13 artists from the community to use shovels as a canvas to honor the legacy of our ancestors. Each of the world-renowned master artists who accepted the challenge has a history of building art institutions in Watts and in the greater Los Angeles area.

This installation features some of the many forms incarceration has taken in the American West over time, in conversation with a new photo series taken in a California state prison by fine art photographer Pep Williams. Located in the jail cell area of the Autry’s firearms galleries, the installation brings past and present into dialogue.

Adults – $14, Students (with current ID) and Seniors (60+) – $10, Children (3–12) – $6

Tuesdays – Fridays 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Saturdays – Sundays 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

George Washington Carver was a pioneer of plant-based engineering and one of the nation’s earliest proponents of sustainable agriculture. In the early 1900s, he built his “Jesup Wagon,” a moveable school to share soil and plant samples, equipment, and other agricultural knowledge with farmers. Carver’s then-radical ideas—including organic fertilizers, crop rotation, and plant-based medicines, and construction materials—are now recognized as the forerunners of modern conservation.

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist whose practice considers Black image making as a site of protest, contestation, affirmation, and possibility. At CAAM, Fazlalizadeh will present a series of portraits of Black Angelenos wheat-pasted across the atrium’s monumental walls. Based on photographs and conversations that took place this spring while the artist was living in Los Angeles, the portraits ask how safety is inferred, built, and felt for the city’s Black residents.

Ben Caldwell envisioned cinema as an instrument that could heal and emancipate. In 1984, he opened KAOS Network, the media arts hub that has helped steward Leimert Park Village’s traditions of Black artistry, fellowship, and love for over four decades. This multimedia exhibition explores Caldwell’s varied practices of photography, film, video, music, performance, community-based design, and interactive media and celebrates the creative life and communities of KAOS Network.

The Boyz N the Hood gallery explores the movie’s groundbreaking depiction of Black life in South Central Los Angeles and its lasting impact on popular culture. It spotlights the cast and crew–including Cuba Gooding, Jr., Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, Laurence Fishburne, Nia Long, and Angela Bassett–showing the pivotal role the film played not only in their careers but also for a new generation of Black talent in Hollywood.

The PAFF ArtFEST showcases over 100 established and emerging artists and craftspeople from around the world, focusing on artistic expressions rooted in Africa and its Diaspora. Featured works include oil paintings, watercolors, ceramics, jewelry, fashion, home decor, and more, highlighting both fine art and unique crafts.

The Compton Art & History Museum opened to the public this year, just months after its two founders, the husbandand- wife duo Abigail Lopez-Byrd and Marquell Byrd, came together with a vision for the space. “We have archives from Compton from the 1960s and 1970s that the youth can now come and see without having to go to neighboring cities or somewhere deep in LA that don’t represent who they are or where they come from,” says Co-founder Marquell Byrd.

A one-woman show highlighting the cumulative work of Robin Strayhorn using various mediums. Strayhorn is a multidisciplinary artist residing in Los Angeles for the past 40 years. Some other most recent work reflects time spent living and studying in India. There will be an Artist Talk/Reception on February 9, check the website for details.

Cuban-born Campos-Pons creates vivid photographs, watercolors, installations, and performances that explore the cultural and personal impacts of migration and memory. Her work reflects the histories of labor affecting her family, emphasizing resilience and honoring her Nigerian and Chinese ancestors. This 35-year survey highlights the interconnectedness between people and their environments, offering a rich, sensory experience.