Emory Douglas at the New Museum

I managed to get to the New Museum last week to see two shows there before they closed. One was a survey of work by Emory Douglas, the Black Panther Party's Minister of Culture who transformed the Panther's revolutionary call and righteous fashion sense into the most recognizable visual vocabulary since the Russian avant-garde. Douglas's graphic elements are no doubt indebted to the experiments of the Soviet artistic vanguard ( the Bolsheviks sported the black-leather-jacket look, too), but he managed to parlay the Panther's political anger into a series of posters, illustrations, and newspaper layouts that are as focused, productive, and imaginative as the program it espoused.

It's hard not to be attracted to the Panther's ideals. Their focus on economic and political grievances ("Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice, Peace") among minority groups and their institution of social programs designed to alleviate poverty and a lack of health care are significant even now—and are still being debated today.