ART REVIEW : ‘Homecoming’: Urgently Authentic Memories

The Watts Towers Arts Center celebrates its 25th anniversary with an exhibition called “Homecoming.” Modest but gratifying, it includes works by 31 artists associated with the little outpost of L.A.’s Cultural Affairs Department. Like any proper reunion it comes freighted with a lot of memories.

The center stands a few paces from Simon Rodia’s magical towers. At the moment those pinnacles are encased in scaffolding. Being restored again, they testify to a creative dream realized by an Italian immigrant laborer who wanted to leave something beautiful to thank the land that gave him shelter.

The city responded by first trying to demolish the towers, then neglecting them. That has been put right, but early idiocy did enhance the towers’ status. First they were just an aesthetic miracle. Now they are one that triumphed over the odds.

Much of that spirit resides in the exhibition. Many of these artists work with firsthand memories of the hopes kindled by the civil rights movement, the disasters of the Watts riots and the Rev. Martin Luther King’s assassination, the promise of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty and the disaster of the L.A. riots.

Through it all the artists just went on trying to beat the odds. Few have managed but all, evidently, have learned to appreciate the rewards of doing something you love for its own sake. There’s a sense of urgent authenticity here rarely found in uptown galleries.

Betye Saar is an exception. She has achieved a larger career without sacrificing integrity. Here she’s represented by a collage titled “Grandmother’s House.” It’s sparse in substance but rich in nuance.

A while back John Outterbridge had a retrospective at the California Afro-American Museum proving he deserves a larger place in the annals of Assemblage. Here he’s seen in an untitled niche of bolted metal. It contains what looks like a shoeshine boy’s foot-rest eloquently juxtaposed with some military paraphernalia.

Others apparently work mostly with a determination to do their thing right, their way. Charles Dickson has carved exquisite black female nudes for decades. Located stylistically somewhere between Gaston Lachaise and Robert Graham, the works have a very special power. The present one, named Mae, is carved from clear Lucite.

Timothy Washington’s oval reliefs seem inspired by the encrustation of the towers, while Noah Purifoy’s “Egg and I” masks formal sensitivity behind homey subject matter.

Not surprisingly, there’s a healthy dose of social satire on view. Alonzo Davis proposes a commemorative postage stamp to Malcolm X. West Gale does an Expressionist variation on Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People.” His version, placing blacks on the barricades, is called “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”

Works in the exhibition are a melange of Euro-American styles and African art. Richard Wyatt and Cedric Adams work in a heroic figurative manner. Artists such as Dale Davis, Anthony Cox and Elliot Pickney mirror the totemic sculpture and musical instruments that make art integral to the life of traditional African peoples.

Much on view derives its interest from reflecting the African American experience. A few strike a note that is more personal, enigmatic and universal. Dan Conchalar’s “Hollywood Mask Man” seethes with angry amusement. John Whitmore’s finely detailed drawing depicts two black men in suits looking at European antiques in a dimly lit room. Titled “It’s Hard to See in the Dark,” it achieves the rare status of a philosophical drawing. Masud Kordofan brings a new intensity to deadpan presentation in “Close Your Eyes and See the Light.”

* Watts Towers Art Center, 1727 E. 107th St., (213) 847-4646, through April 30, closed Mondays.