Sam Durant: A Discussion of Recent Work

Los Angeles–based Sam Durant is a multimedia artist whose work engages a variety of social, political, and cultural issues. Often referencing American history, his work explores the varying relationships between culture and politics, engaging subjects as diverse as the civil rights movement, southern rock music, and modernism.

Durant studied at the Massachusetts College of Art and the California Institute of the Arts. He has exhibited extensively and internationally at venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Dusseldorf; S.M.A.K, Ghent; and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Zealand. His work has also been included in the Panamá, Sydney, Venice, and Whitney Biennales. Durant was a finalist for the 2008 Hugo Boss Prize and has received a United States Artists Broad Fellowship and a City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Grant. In 2006, he compiled and edited a comprehensive monograph of Black Panther artist Emory Douglas's work and recently curated an exhibition titled Black Panther: the Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the New Museum in New York City.