![Getty, NYU, UCLA to Host Black Portraiture[s] Conference on Black Built Environment](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Deborah_Willis.jpg)
The Facts
On September 22, 2026, the Getty announced the upcoming conference Black Portraiture[s]: Los Angeles: The Black Built Environment, cohosted with New York University and UCLA. The three-day convening, running September 28–30 in Los Angeles, will bring together conversations on architecture, urban planning, and visual culture to examine the Black built environment both literally and conceptually. The Getty Library has placed related publications on its Plaza Level reserve shelf, including the 25th-anniversary edition of Deborah Willis's 'Reflections in Black' and 'Black Curators Matter,' edited by Kellie Jones and Tumelo Mosaka. The conference and reading list coincide with a broader institutional push to highlight Black curatorial and artistic contributions.
The Signal
The convening arrives as museums face renewed scrutiny over representation, and the Getty's choice to foreground scholarship by Black curators and photographers signals an institutional commitment beyond token display. For collectors and curators, the conference and the library's reading list frame Black visual culture as a field with its own canon—from Bearden and Saar to Willis and Weems—rather than a niche subcategory. The emphasis on the Black built environment also connects art-historical practice to questions of urban planning and community space, a direction that may shape future acquisitions and exhibition programming.
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- Artists: Deborah Willis, Albert Chong, Lorna Simpson, Hank Willis Thomas, Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Kwame Brathwaite, Carrie Mae Weems, Betye Saar, Charles White, Noah Purifoy, Julie Mehretu, James Van Der Zee
- People: Evan Nicole Brown, Kellie Jones, Tumelo Mosaka, Lowery Stokes Sims, Franklin Sirmans, Ashley James, LeRonn P. Brooks
- Museums: Getty, Getty Research Institute
- Locations: Los Angeles
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