Heroines of the Montgomery Bus Boycott celebrated in new exhibition
Lava Thomas: Homecoming, on view April 29 through July 24 at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, is the most comprehensive exhibition to date of this contemporary artist’s drawings and installation works that address the relevance of African American history to our current moment.
Using a variety of drawing techniques, Thomas creates large portraits inspired by photographs of remarkable African American people in order to tackle issues of representation and memorialization. Her multidisciplinary practice includes painting, photography, sculpture, and site-specific installations. Across media, Thomas focuses on ideas that amplify visibility, healing, and empowerment in the face of erasure, trauma, and oppression.
The exhibition centers on three bodies of work, including Looking Back (2015) and Decatur (2022), a new set of drawings and prints that will debut in the exhibition. Of particular resonance to Montgomerians are thirteen drawings from Thomas’ revelatory series Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (2018–). To pay tribute to the women in Mugshot Portraits and recognize members of the depicted women’s extended families, the exhibition will also include an online component that features the women’s family members speaking about their relatives.
Regarding the exhibition, MMFA Curator of Art Jennifer Jankauskas says, “Thomas’s images not only shine a light on the strength and character of many women who changed the course of our country’s history but also provide a guiding light to future generations, demonstrating that our voices and actions can change the world.”
Director Angie Dodson continues, “Lava Thomas: Homecoming is one of a series of exhibitions presented by the Museum to create a place for individual and collective memory and reckoning. We take to heart our responsibility to be a place where art and artists are recognized for their capacity transform the thoughts and actions of people and communities. Our hope is that time spent in the Homecoming galleries will both be a time for honoring the past and sorting out what is each of ours to do as we move together towards a more inclusive and opportunity-filled today and tomorrow.”
Board President Cathy Martin adds, "We are delighted to have Dr. Bridget Cooks—a female, African American scholar—guest curating this exhibition and sharing the stories of these remarkable women of color—the artist, Lava Thomas, and the heroines of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Also important is the inclusion of the voices of the descendants of these remarkable women in history. It is important to bring this exhibition ‘home’ to our community. And, we could not be more pleased that members of this community have invested both in the presentation of Homecoming here in Montgomery this spring and summer but also in its presentation at Atlanta’s Spelman College Museum of Fine Art this fall.”
As Martin noted, the exhibition is curated by Dr. Bridget R. Cooks, Associate Professor of African American Studies and Art History at the University of California, Irvine. The presentation is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalog edited and designed by Vivian Sming of Sming Sming Books and including essays by exhibition curator Dr. Bridget R. Cooks, Dr. Jennifer Jankauskas, Curator at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and Dr. Bertis English, Professor of History, Alabama State University.
The MMFA is grateful for the generous support of this exhibition by lead foundation sponsors The Ford Foundation and Alabama Power Foundation. Additional support was provided by lead sponsors David and Pamela Hornik, Southern Poverty Law Center, Lamar, and The Reparations Project; sponsors Mr. Will Hill Tankersley and Dr. Kristin Tankersley; and co-sponsors AmeriFirst Bank; Ronnie and Gwen Anderson; ASE Credit Union; Balch & Bingham, LLP; Lori and LaBarron Boone; Judge (ret.) Delores R. Boyd; Mr. and Mrs. Marvin H. Campbell II; Dr. Myrtle E. Goore and Mr. Milton D. Davis; Ms. Camille Elebash-Hill and Mr. W. Inge Hill, Jr.; Mr. Octavius Jackson; Samuel and Cathy R. Martin; Mr. and Mrs. L. Daniel Morris, Jr.; Dr. and Mrs. Alfred J. Newman, Jr.; Mayor and Mrs. Steven L. Reed; River Bank & Trust; Dr. Patricia and Attorney Jeffrey Robinson; Toy and Stacia Robinson; Mr. Steve Russell; Dr. Nichole and Attorney Mr. Robert Thompson; Warren Averett, LLC, and Valley Bank.
After debuting at the MMFA, the exhibition will travel to the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA, in Fall 2022.
About the Artist
Lava Thomas was born in Los Angeles, CA, and studied at UCLA’s School of Art Practice, where she received a BFA from California College of the Arts. She is a recipient of the 2020 San Francisco Artadia Award and a 2019–2021 Lucas Artists Fellowship Award at Montalvo Arts Center. Thomas has participated in artist residencies at Facebook Los Angeles (2020), Headlands Center for the Arts (2018), and the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. In 2015 she received the Joan Mitchell Grant for Painters and Sculptors. Her work is included in the National Portrait Gallery’s triennial exhibition, The
Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today. It has been exhibited in various institutions, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., the International Print Center, New York, NY; the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA; the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA; and the California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA. It is held in the permanent collections of the United States Consulate General in Johannesburg, South Africa; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; the M.H. de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, and the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA. Thomas's work has been written about in Artforum, Hyperallergic, SF Chronicle, The Guardian, KQED Arts, The Art Newspaper, and LA Weekly.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Heroines of the Montgomery Bus Boycott celebrated in new exhibition
