Emory Douglas: Bold Visual Language considers the legacy and diasporic impact of the visual artist Emory Douglas. As the Minister of Culture of the Black Panther Party and the graphic artist of the Black Panther Party Newspaper, Emory Douglas’ vision of black radical politics as a set of aesthetic concerns graphs a grammar of global struggle. Douglas’ imagery of anti-black police brutality and economic/housing discrimination is interlaced with American Imperialist projects and anti-colonist struggles happening globally. The enhancement and saturation of vibrant colors, figurative refusal, kinship, and border crossing visions of justice are the dialectics of possibility. The immediacy of global terror is call to resistance by everyday folks, who are depicted as active icons in the project for liberation. Bold Visual Language locates these initial concerns of Douglas in a contemporary discourse amongst visual artists and current social movements.

Emory Douglas: Bold Visual Language features Historical Black Panther Party Newspapers from the Southern California Library and re-mixed images of posters by artists Emory Douglas, Patrick Martinez, Juan Capistrán, Sadie Barnette, and embroideries of Zapantera Negra, a projected by the Woman's Zapatista Embroidery Collective in collaboration with Douglas, organized by EDELO (En Donde Era La Onu) [Where the United Nations Used to Be] and artists Caleb Duarte and Mia Eve Rollow, in Chiapas, México.

Emory Douglas: Bold Visual Language was originally organized by LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) and is co-curated by Essence Harden and Daniela Lieja Quintanar.

Photo by Essence Harden. Archives of Southern California Library