ArtDrunk (Gary Yeh)

Inside This LACMA Exhibition on Forgotten Histories

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new show, The Day Tomorrow Began, by Tavvaris Stron, interrogates the layers of Black history that have been systematically omitted from mainstream narratives. Framed as a series of rooms—a black‑painted barber shop, a monochrome wash house, and a speculative monument space—the exhibition blends unconventional materials, from paintings made of human hair to ceramic reproductions of 1930s‑40s Black hair‑care advertisements, to spotlight the invisible. Key elements include a portrait urn of Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., NASA’s first Black astronaut, and dual quotations from James Baldwin and an inverted Mark Twain that probe heroism and collective memory. A shadow cast by Henri Kristoff’s installation, a field of scented grass, and hand‑painted word‑search grids embed hidden words related to Black cultural practices, turning the unseen into visible forms. The exhibition’s sensory tactics—woody, earthy aromas, stark lighting that creates dramatic shadows, and the tactile presence of hair—invite visitors into a dream‑like, out‑of‑time experience. Stron’s use of the barber shop, traditionally a male communal hub for news exchange, underscores how everyday spaces can become archives of suppressed stories. By reimagining monuments and employing immersive, multisensory art, the show challenges museums to confront historical erasure and to consider new ways of commemorating marginalized figures, potentially reshaping public discourse around cultural memory.