Thursday, February 14, 2008

Black Panther art at MOCA

Black Panther: The Revoluntionary Art of Emory Douglas is on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art's Pacific Design Center through February 24, 2008. Douglas's artwork helped define the visual style of the Black Panther's newspapers, posters, and pamphlets. His substantial body of work exists as a powerful record of the Black Panthers' legacy, reflecting their development and mission to improve the lives of African Americans by calling for resistance and change, as well providing social services to their communities.

"You can jail the revolutionary, but you can't jail the revolution."

"We had an office in East Oakland when César Chavez and the United Farm Workers were marching from the valley to the state capital. The toxins being used on produce, particularly on lettuce, were causing all kinds or health problems for the workers and their families. They happened to be marching by our office so we saw them and started talking. They were hungry. We called and made arrangements to take them down to the community school because it had a big cafeteria and party members worked the kitchen. We marched with them from the office to the school and ate lunch with them. After that, they continued on with their march. We did this paper in solidarity with their struggle. There were pictures inside that showed some of that march.” – Emory Douglas, August 18, 2007

MOCA's Pacific Design Center is located at 8687 Melrose Avenue Design Plaza G102, West Hollywood, CA 90069.