Willie Birch: Stories to Tell / California African America Museum
- LA Art Documents
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Willie Birch: Stories to Tell
California African America Museum, Los Angeles
May 5 - October 21, 2026
The first-ever career retrospective of renowned artist Willie Birch, this exhibition brings together groundbreaking works from 1968 to the present that chronicle his unique vision of Black American life and the interconnected nature of global art forms. Born and raised in New Orleans and trained in Europe, Baltimore, and New York, Birch often speaks about “retentions,” a term he uses to describe evidence of one culture’s narratives and traditions within another. Throughout his career, Birch has explored particularly how African traditions have been retained in music, art, and culture in America as part of the Black experience and beyond.
The exhibition is organized chronologically and in three major sections, beginning with Birch’s earlier work in the 1970s, continuing through his shift toward papier-mâché in the 1980s, and closing with his more recent large-scale charcoal and acrylic works on paper. Through his work across decades, as an artist, community organizer, and cultural provocateur, Birch questions why certain things are retained and others not, unearthing uncomfortable truths about American identity, but also offering possibilities for greater cultural awareness, aesthetic innovation, and expansiveness in the stories we tell.
