South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s

by Kellie Jones

In South of Pico Kellie Jones explores how the artists in Los Angeles's black communities during the 1960s and 70s created a vibrant, productive, and engaged activist arts scene in the face of structural racism. Emphasizing the importance of African American migration, as well as L.A.'s housing and employment politics, Jones shows how the work of black Angeleno artists such as Betye Saar, Charles White, Noah Purifoy, and Senga Nengudi spoke to the dislocation of migration, L.A.'s urban renewal, and restrictions on black mobility. Jones characterizes their works as modern migration narratives that look to the past to consider real and imagined futures. She also attends to these artists' relationships with gallery and museum culture and the establishment of black-owned arts spaces. With South of Pico, Jones expands the understanding of the histories of black arts and creativity in Los Angeles and beyond. 

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, History, African American, Art History

416 pages, Paperback

First published March 9, 2017

About the author

Kellie Jones is a recipient of a 2016 MacArthur "genius" Grant and Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. She is the author of several books and exhibition catalogues, including South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s, Eyeminded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art and 1970sEnergy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction, 1964–1980; Basquiat; and (with Thelma Golden and Chrissie Iles) Lorna Simpson.