Outliers at LACMA

Another year, another moment of looking back and thinking about the future. Whether your leanings are left, right or center — as the KCRW show puts it — there is little doubt that these past few years have been tumultuous. It is a time when much is being reconsidered, which transforms the culture of today and views of culture past. Such reappraisal is startlingly clear in the exhibition Outliers and American Vanguard Art at LACMA on view through March 17.

Betye Saar, Indigo Mercy, 1975, mixed media, 42 × 13 × 13 in., The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, gift of the Nzingha Society, Inc., © Betye Saar

Horace Pippin, Interior, 1944, oil on canvas, 24 1/8 x 30 3/16 in., National Gallery of Art, Washington, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Meyer P. Potamkin, in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art

Joseph Yoakum, Briar Head Mtn of National Park Range of Bryce Canyon National Park near Hatch, Utah U.S.A., c. 1969, pen and colored pencil on paper, 20 x 24 in., National Gallery of Art, Washington, gift of the Collectors Committee and the Donald and Nancy de Laski Fund

Rosie Lee Tompkins, Untitled, 1996, cotton, cotton flannel, cotton feed sack, linen, rayon, flocked satin, velvet, cotton-synthetic blend, cotton-acrylic jersey, acrylic double-weave, cotton-polyester, polyester double knit, acrylic and cotton tapestry, silk batik, polyester velour, rayon or acrylic embroidery on cotton, wool, needlepoint, and shisha-mirror embroidery (quilted by Irene Bankhead in 1996), 88 × 146 in., Collection of Eli Leon, photo by Sharon Risedorph, courtesy of the Eli Leon Trust

Marsden Hartley, Adelard the Drowned, Master of the "Phantom", c. 1938–39, oil on board, 28 × 22 in., The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, bequest of Hudson D. Walker from the Ione and Hudson D. Walker Collection

Outliers and American Vanguard Art is another leap forward. No looking back.