Black In Place-Art Opening

Angels Gate Cultural Center (AGCC) located at 3601 S. Gaffey Street is pleased to present Black in Place, a new group exhibition guest curated by Naomi Stewart. Countering erasure, this exhibition interrogates the living contradictions of existing while Black, invoking ancestral and indigenous wisdom to explore how Black artists cultivate dreaming through making. Black in Place opens at AGCC with a free public reception on Saturday, January 25th from 2pm to 4pm, including a performance by artist Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja.

Black in Place includes artists Leslie Duboi-Adkins, Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja, Denise ‘deLaSNP’ Coke, Dea Jenkins, Steven A. Johnson II, Denese King-Ashley, Kandy G. Lopez, Rosalyn Myles, Cheyann Washington, and Fallon Williams. Their art practices reflect journeys of cultural enunciation and recontextualization of Black expression, particularly in white-dominated spaces. Through audio, portraiture, painting, digital/Augmented Reality, fiber art, poetry, drawing, and installation, the artworks engage hidden narratives, ancestral wisdom and unbridled expression to both sow and assert Black existence.

The opening reception will include a performance of Ancestral Libation by Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja. Through movement and intention, Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja invokes connection, reverence, and healing, grounding the opening of Black in Place with ancestral presence and sacred energy. This performance invites the audience into a moment of reverence and unity, honoring the ancestral spirits who guide and inform the Black collective memory.

Guest curated by Naomi Stewart, this exhibition holds space for invocation, re-memory, and unbridled Black expression. Remedying erasure that historically fueled what esteemed African-American collectors Bernard and Shirley Kinsey refer to as the “myth of absence,” artworks in Black in Place dispel the notion that what is unseen does not exist. The paradox of existing while being rendered invisible is an ongoing reality for the Black Diaspora, particularly in the West. This exhibition interrogates the living contradictions of existing while Black, invocates ancestral and indigenous wisdom, and explores how Black artists cultivate dreaming through making.

Naomi Stewart is an independent curator, creative, and consultant working primarily in the greater Los Angeles region. Stewart received her BA in Anthropology with concentration in Art History from Hawaii Pacific University; and her MBA from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School. Past curatorial projects have included No Song Unsung (Brea Gallery, 2023), a time to tear, a time to mend (Wonzimer, 2022), Into the Deep, Unto the New (Inbreak, 2021), Borderline (AGCC, 2021), and Emergent (SuperCollider, 2020) . Through a lens of identity, collective healing, and somatic ecology, Stewart’s curatorial research and practice challenges the erasure of Black histories while emphasizing African indigenous knowledge systems and insurgent memory to elevate marginalized voices and establish connections to ancestral roots.

Black in Place will be on view in the gallery through March 29th, 2025 with free public visiting hours Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, from 10am to 4:30pm. Inquiries regarding private tours or artist/curator interviews can be scheduled by contacting gallery@angelsgateart.org.

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