Before the Fire, 1965–1985, Mike Henderson’s first U.S. solo museum exhibition in 20 years and first museum retrospective, fittingly opens at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis, where the artist taught for over 40 years before his retirement in 2012.
The paintings and films in Before the Fire examine and offer new ideas about Black life in the visual languages of protest, Afrofuturism and surrealism. These works depict scenes of anti-Black violence, hetero-masculinity and abject social conditions as well as utopian visions and questions of self-making. Challenging the protocols and propriety of art-making in the 20th century, the works shown are a crucial, if rarely seen, contribution to the history of painting and filmmaking, radical Black politics and the story of California art.
Before the Fire is curated by Sampada Aranke and Dan Nadel, and is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalog of the same title, published by UC Press in association with the Manetti Shrem Museum. This first-ever monographic study of Henderson’s work includes texts by exhibition curators Aranke and Nadel, as well as scholars Bridget R. Cooks, Erin Gray, Carlos Francisco Jackson, and Justin Leroy; artists Ayanah Moor and Kambui Olujimi; and filmmaker and preservationist Mark Toscano.
Learn more at manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.eDU
