The California African American Museum (CAAM) and Art + Practice (A+P) are pleased to host esteemed author, curator, and Associate Professor in Art History and Archaeology and African American Studies at Columbia University Kellie Jones, who will discuss and sign her new book South of Pico.

In South of Pico Kellie Jones explores how artists during the 1960s and 1970s in Los Angeles's black communities created a vibrant, productive, and engaged activist arts scene in the face of structural racism. Emphasizing the importance of African American migration, as well as Los Angeles's housing and employment politics, Jones shows how the work of black Angeleno artists such as Betye Saar, Charles White, Noah Purifoy, and Senga Nengudi spoke to the dislocation of migration, Los Angeles's urban renewal, and restrictions on black mobility. Jones characterizes their works as modern migration narratives that look to the past to consider real and imagined futures. She also attends to these artists' relationships with gallery and museum culture as well as the establishment of black-owned arts spaces. With South of Pico, Jones expands the understanding of the histories of black arts and creativity in Los Angeles and beyond.