Artwork that is truly revolutionary- LATimes

WHEN you enter the show "Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas," opening Sunday at the Pacific Design Center, one image is sure to stand out. A woman wielding a spear and carrying a rifle on her back stands poised as if ready to fight, a reddish sunburst exploding in the background. A caption reads: "Afro-American solidarity with the oppressed People of the world."

Originally created by Douglas as a poster, the image has been reproduced as a 20-foot-tall mural as part of MOCA's tribute to the agit-prop graphic artist. Douglas spent the late 1960s and the '70s creating posters for the Black Panthers, and this exhibit will feature about 150 lithographs culled from his body of work.
"Everything Douglas did was handmade," says show curator Sam Durant. "He was trained as a commercial artist and worked in drawing and collage."

For the show, the museum chose to create the wall mural because the image embodies Douglas' overall visual aesthetic.

"The sunburst pattern in the background was a trope Douglas used in a lot of his posters -- a beatification of the figure," Durant says. "You also have the figure of a female revolutionary. The Black Panthers were quite a macho group, but they also were one of the few organizations that had women in positions of authority. Women were part of the revolutionary struggle for them."