Last week I had the opportunity to look at incredible installation of Black Panther Party art at Cornelia Bell’s Black Bottom Gallery in Oakland, CA. The range of work in the exhibition is impressive: Marcel Diallo’s use of decades-old political prints remixed and re-interpreted to carry on their revolutionary message ranges from the deeply inspiring to the deeply disturbing, and take center stage in the front rooms. Eesuu Orindide, who I got the chance to speak to, has a number of truly beautiful paintings up; you could just feel the power in them, and his use of color is amazing. There’s also a range of sculptures made of found materials from abandoned and destroyed houses in the neighborhood, which brings the setting into sharp relief.
The Gallery itself is housed in a converted residence, a small house with its floors and appliances stripped, making a perfect home both for the work and its message and bringing home the notion of the art’s relevance to the immediate community.
It’s right at home, there in a house, with none of the sterility or pretension of many other galleries–it’s clearly a place where people work and move about, where you don’t feel guilty for moving. The invitation to inhabit the space is irresistible. I could have stayed a lot longer, and continued to get something out of it with each new moment.
This is an exhibition worth seeing, and I don’t know how much longer it will be there. If you’re in the Bay Area, you should check it out. I’d link to more of it, but most of the links are on Myspace and hard to get to; you’ll have to see it for yourself. That and support your local art scene.