Exhibit Examines Mexican Influence on Black Artists

Two art museums, one in New York’s Harlem and the other in San Francisco, have joined forces in an exhibition on the influence of Mexican muralists on African American artists.

The California Afro-American Museum in Exposition Park will display more than 100 Mexican and African American artworks normally shown at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Mexican Museum in San Francisco. The show, said curator Lizzetta Le Falle-Collins, portrays the shared commitment of African American and Latino artists to presenting their cultures through images of struggle and heroic action.

At the show’s opening this week, Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas called the works “masterful,” saying they “reveal that we have much in common and that we need to take the time to discover and appreciate each other’s culture, history and experience.”

The exhibit will run through Aug. 8.