A career retrospective of a singular voice in contemporary American art, featuring six decades of artwork that chronicles his vision of the Black American experience
New Orleans-based artist, community organizer, and cultural provocateur Willie Birch (b. 1942) has dedicated his career to storytelling. His incisive work across a wide variety of media—including paintings, large-scale drawings, wood and papier-mâché sculpture, and public works—explores his unique vision of Black America and draws on sources as diverse as Egyptian numerology, American folk art, and jazz music.
This book showcases more than one hundred of Birch's artworks alongside essays by eminent scholars and curators. Russell Lord provides an introduction to the artist's life and work; Lowery Stokes Sims writes about Birch's use of papier-mâché, for which he garnered acclaim during his time in New York City, and situates Birch within the New York art scene of the 1980s and '90s; Grace Deveney considers the ways Birch gives visual form to the complex relationship between Black Americans and mass media; and Leslie King Hammond discusses how the city of New Orleans—its history and its communities—has shaped Birch's work.
Published in association with the American Federation of Arts
Exhibition Schedule:
California African American Museum, Los Angeles
May 5-October 4, 2026
New Orleans Museum of Art
March 20-September 5, 2027
Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, University of North Florida
October 28, 2027-May 14, 2028
Hudson River Museum
September 22, 2028-January 14, 2029
