By Carolyn Hefner
The Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) presents Vivian Browne: My Kind of Protest, the first comprehensive museum retrospective of the artist, activist, and educator Vivian Browne (1929–1993). The exhibition highlights Browne’s contributions to 20th-century American art through her distinctive approach to color and form, her challenging of traditional categories of abstraction and figuration, and her work at the intersections of art and social commentary.
Bringing together 45 paintings and works on paper across several key series, including previously unknown works and ephemera from the artist’s estate, the exhibition uncovers the depth of Browne’s four-decade-long career and her enduring commitment to activism and education. The exhibition will be on view at the CAC from January 31 through May 25, 2025, followed by its presentation at The Phillips Collection from June 28 through September 28, 2025.
With an expressive hand and expansive worldview, Browne navigated the Black Arts and Feminist movements with passion and purpose, joining artist groups that advocated for inclusion. Informed by what Browne described as “emotional landscape(s),” her paintings and prints address the politics of race and gender, respond to her international experiences, and reflect on her love of nature and ecological concerns.
My Kind of Protest assembles works inspired by Browne’s extensive travels, including in China, Africa, and California. Her journeys are documented in a visual travelogue of paintings and drawings, with her African Paintings series evoking a dual sense of yearning and estrangement from ancestral lands. Politically charged pieces such as her Little Men series from the late 1960s offer a poignant portrayal of whiteness and patriarchy. The series, consisting of 100 works, 70 of which still survive, uses grotesque and humorous exaggeration to reveal the sinister nature of racism and toxic masculinity through satirical portraits of white men as irritable and infantile.
Featured Image: Vivian Browne in her studio with Little Men and Africa Series, 1974. Photo: Jeanie Black. Courtesy of Adobe Krow Archives, Los Angeles and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York