The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announced on Wednesday the details of the first exhibit of its upcoming season, “Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971.” Opening August 21, the exhibition explores the history of Black performers and filmmakers in the United States, from Sidney Poitier to Josephine Baker.
Co-curators Doris Berger and Rhea Combs said, “It has been a great honor for us to curate ‘Regeneration,’ a project that challenged us to do justice to the lives and work of nearly a century of Black filmmakers and the audiences they served. The legacies explored in these galleries were important in their own time, though too often neglected and marginalized, and remain vital today. We hope to heighten awareness of these films and film artists and encourage an appreciation of the many, many contributions that Black Americans have made to cinema.”
‘Regeneration’ will remain at the museum through April 9, 2023. The exhibition is made up of seven separate galleries: the political and social landscape for Black Americans at the dawn of U.S. cinema; Black representation in film from 1897 to 1915; independent Black filmmakers and “race films” made from the 1910s to the 1940s; Black music in American cinema, from “soundies” to Black musicals; Black film stars and icons; the freedom movements as captured in films; and the role of Black film directors during the civil rights movement.
The exhibition will feature rare excerpts from restored films, photographs, scripts, drawings, costumes and many more historic materials. “Regeneration” is co-curated by Berger, vice president of curatorial affairs at the Academy Museum and Combs, director of curatorial affairs at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, with the Academy Museum’s J. Raúl Guzmán, assistant curator, as well as Manouchka Kelly Labouba and Emily Rauber-Rodriguez, research assistants.