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Black Arts at Oxy

John Outterbridge, Alonzo Davis, and Dan Concholar (1971) - from LA Object

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John Outterbridge
John Outterbridge (b. 1933 Greenville, NC) is a Los Angeles based artist working primarily in assemblage. Outerbridge has been an influential educator, community activist, and participant in the Black Arts movement in Southern California throughout his ongoing career. He took up this role soon after moving to Los Angeles upon graduating from the Academy of Art in Chicago. Much of Outterbridge's work deals with oppressive realities the black community faced (and continues to face) in Los Angeles, including quickening impoverishment as a result of deindustrialization, police brutality, job discrimination, and a deficit of educational and artistic resources. The Watts Rebellion which broke out in 1965 greatly influenced Outterbridge particularly because of his relationship to Noah Purifoy whose work in the exhibition 66 Signs of Neon marked the beginning of a public commitment to community building and his assemblage work.
In the early 1970’s Outerbridge worked with the city of Compton to develop an arts education program called Compton Communicative Art Academy (CCAA) which received state and local funding to teach community classes in art of all disciplines. After working at the CCAA, Outterbridge took up the role of art director at the Watts Towers Art Center in 1975 succeeding Noah Purifoy.
Community involvement meant that Outterbridge was not distantly connected to black radicalism. Education was a contested arena as proven by the shooting of Southern California Black Panther Party president Alprentice Carter at UCLA by another black radical organization when he was helping coordinate leadership for a new Black Studies Program. Outterbridge has said of his involvement in arts education programs in Compton and Watts, “‘in a way, we were all panthers.’”
While in many ways Outterbridge’s work as an educator fit neatly within revolutionary nationalist constructs of community organizing and empowerment, his actual work, with its African motifs and references to black mythology/spiritual practice, aligns more closely with cultural nationalism. The division between revolutionary and cultural nationalism was a source of conflict and debate within the black community in L.A. and nationwide; however, the distinction between the two was somewhat artificial. Outterbridge assumes a unique place at the junction of revolutionary and cultural nationalism. His career and work reveal a symbiosis between these two branches of black activism at the time.
John Outterbridge Interview
m (CAAM). Outterbridge, an innovative assemblage artist, is also well known and venerated as a teacher and arts administrator.
   Outterbridge, served as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center from 1975 to 1992. Prior to that, he was artistic director of Communicative Arts Academy in Compton. He was an art instructor and fine arts installer at the Pasadena Museum of Art from 1967 to 1972. He also has taught at Cal State Dominguez Hills, Pasadena City College and is founder of GOCART (Gallery of Children’s Art).
   Known primarily for his sculpture using recycled materials and for frequently addressing social and political issues, Outterbridge credits his father with teaching him to value discarded materials. He began painting while in the army. After leaving the service, he attended the Chicago Academy of Art and the American Academy of Art, also in Chicago. A native of Greenville, North Carolina, Outterbridge left Chicago for Los Angeles in 1963. He gave up painting for sculpture after settling in Los Angeles. Exhibited and recognized throughout the world, Outterbridge has received numerous awards, including the 1987 National Conference of Arts Educators Award; a 1988 Fulbright Fellowship; and in 1994, he received the J.R. Hyde Visiting Artist Fellowship at the Memphis Institute of the Arts, J. Paul Getty Fellowship for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and an honorary doctorate from
   Mark Steven Greenfield currently serves as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
   Admission to this lecture and all CAAM events and exhibitions is free. CAAM researches, collects, preserves and interprets for public enrichment the history, art and culture of African Americans. Located at 600 State Drive in Exposition Park, the museum is open to the public Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm, and Sundays 11am-5pm. For information, call 213.744.7432 or visit www.caamuseum.org.
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John Outterbridge, Alonzo Davis, and Dan Concholar
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