Art in the Ashes: Class, Race, Urban Geography, and Los Angeles's Postwar Black Art Centers

Abstract

“Art in the Ashes” uncovers the implications of race, place, and class in Los Angeles through an in depth exploration of urban black art centers. By examining a cross-section of creative spaces in the city, including the Watts Towers Arts Center, Compton Communicative Arts Academy, the Inner City Cultural Center, and Brockman Gallery in Leimert Park, this thesis probes the real and imagined meanings associated with these centers’ social, economic, and cultural geography. In doing so, the work redefines and refines current understandings of the black community in the postwar era, exposing the complicated racial and ethnic partnerships and pressures that grew out of art and activism in the 1960s. Through extensive archival research, secondary source analysis, and personal interviews, “Art in the Ashes” finds a vibrant and highly diversified black experience and identity in Los Angeles that closely follows issues of economics, geography, racial understanding, politics, and culture.