CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/19/2023

On Juneteenth, Black excellence and joy in 'Black American Portraits'

Bisa Butler's riveting "Forever" (2020)—a textile portrait in tribute to Chadwick Boseman—is reproduced from Black American Portraits. Presenting more than 140 works from the LACMA collection, this is a celebratory, kaleidoscopic chronicle of the many ways in which Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves over the past two centuries—from the earliest aspects of the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter. "Each time you return to this volume," Naima J. Keith writes, "we challenge you to interrogate the systems and injustices that have made—and continue to make—this work necessary and important. We hope the myriad of diverse and moving pieces allows you to imagine a future where Black excellence and joy are not simply responses to the brutal and needless murder of Black people, but standard features of our collective daily existence."