John Outterbridge has been an L.A. artist for a long time. He moved here in 1963, after stints as an Army corporal and a Chicago bus driver. In the mid-1960s, on NBC, he confronted L.A. Times art critic William Wilson for not going to see shows at the minority-focused Brockman Gallery in Leimert Park. “My interest is not necessarily guided in that way,” Wilson replied. Outterbridge’s art — assemblages that are nearly always anthropomorphic, sometimes earthy and sometimes militaristic — hasn’t been featured in a significant L.A. solo show since the 1990s. Ideally, his current solo show at Art+Practice in Leimert signals a shift, and the 83-year-old artist’s work will be more on the art-viewer radar in 2016.
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