The Obama Portraits Make Their West Coast Debut at LACMA

A bright white wall at LACMA is made more vibrant by the arrival of “The Obama Portraits” in their West Coast debut, part three of a five-city tour that began in Chicago, stopped in Brooklyn, and will continue on to Atlanta and Houston in 2022.

These official portraits — depicting the 44th president and first lady, by artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, respectively — will be on display through Jan. 2 and are contextualized by a broader companion exhibit, “Black American Portraits,” which envelops them like a nesting doll, dedicated to the way portraiture has been used as a tool of power and self-determination throughout American history. “It’s an exciting moment in the long journey of these paintings to have the work shown in dialogue with so many of the artists who came before us and made this experience possible,” Sherald tells THR.

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Running through April 17 and co-curated by Liz Andrews, executive director of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, and LACMA’s Christine Y. Kim, “Black American Portraits” spotlights Black American subjects in a country where mainstream art has long flattened them into spaces defined by the dominant gaze — or omitted them altogether.

“I don’t think it’s possible for the United States of America to have voted a Black man into the presidency without seeing generations of images of Black people of their own making,” says Andrews. The exhibit begins with images by L.A.-based photographer Catherine Opie that document Barack Obama’s inauguration and the impact of that historic moment.

The portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama, both towering over six feet high, are installed thoughtfully on a gallery wall due north.

“We did that to conjure the idea and the history of the North Star,” Andrews shares. “The North Star, of course, is not the biggest or brightest star in the sky, but it is the star in the sky that does not move.” The curators’ choice of configuration becomes a symbolic embodiment of the hope and progress some Americans associated with President Obama’s ascent. Adds Andrews: “Thinking about that constant eye on the prize, keeping your eye toward freedom, and how much that influences placing Obama in the context of history.”

Also significant to Obama’s portrait coming to LACMA: Wiley was raised in L.A. But, as the artist recalled at the painting’s unveiling in 2018, he grew up going to museums without “images on the walls of people who happened to look like him,” Andrews says. “Part of the reason for him becoming an artist was to correct that omission.”

A version of this story first appeared in the Nov. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.