Mark Bradford’s Art + Practice is on a Mission to Change Lives

Art + Practice is presenting “The Beautyful Ones,” Njideka Akunyili Crosby‘s first exhibition in Los Angeles. Awarded the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s 2014 James Dicke Contemporary Artist Prize, Nigerian-born Akunyili Crosby lives and works in Los Angeles. Curated by the Hammer Museum, the exhibition features a new body of work that “explores intimacy and interiority in her depictions of domestic life.”

On view Sept. 12-Nov. 21, the show is an example of the nonprofit’s ambitious exhibition program, but represents only a part of its mission.

Co-founded last year by artist Mark Bradford, philanthropist and collector Eileen Harris Norton, and social activist Allan DiCastro, Art + Practice (A+P) “encourages education and culture by providing life-skills training for foster youth in the 90008 ZIP code as well as free, museum-curated art exhibitions and moderated art lectures to the community of Leimert Park.”

EsoWon Bookstore, a longstanding black-owned business in the neighborhood, has joined the organization, relocating to A+P’s site, offering a curated selection of art tomes in addition to its wider selection of books, and directing A+P’s lecture series. There is also an artist-in-residence program.

Art + Practice is seeking to enrich the neighborhood and change lives with a focus on the community’s foster youth.

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