A comprehensive retrospective of Nancy Buchanan's work at The Brick gallery in Los Angeles showcases more than five decades of politically engaged art that remains strikingly relevant to contemporary issues. The exhibition, titled "Truthfully, Nancy Buchanan: A Retrospective," presents a sprawling and diverse survey of the LA-based artist's work that mirrors the complexity of the city she calls home.
Buchanan's artistic journey began at the University of California, Irvine, where she studied from 1965 to 1971 alongside fellow classmates Barbara T. Smith and Marcia Hafif, who were also single mothers and would become her longtime friends and collaborators. Her network expanded to include prominent LA peers such as Chris Burden, Ulysses Jenkins, and Michael Zinzun, among many others who helped define the 1970s Southern California art scene. Throughout her career, Buchanan has remained deeply embedded in the city's artistic community, serving as core faculty at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) for more than 30 years, co-founding the experimental F Space Gallery, and playing an integral role in the Women's Building.
The exhibition's curators have drawn from Buchanan's expansive body of work, which spans multiple mediums including video, performance, drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, and installation. The gallery's nine spaces are organized thematically around recurring elements in Buchanan's oeuvre, such as hair, interiors, and consumption. Her early works demonstrate an eager engagement with both feminist politics and consumer culture, exemplified in pieces like the mock video advertisement "These Creatures" (1979), where images of young women with ghoulishly applied makeup are paired with a sinister male voiceover asking, "Isn't it amazing that we allow them to live among us, these creatures that we can and do control?"
Equally unsettling are numerous pieces addressing military intervention and weapons technology. The installations "Fallout from the Nuclear Family" (1980) and "Security" (1985) incorporate documents from Buchanan's father's career as a nuclear physicist and the artist's own research into his complicated involvement in the development of atomic weapons. In the same gallery, "And Babies?" (2003-6) presents a large glass jar reminiscent of laboratory equipment, containing a video projection of malformed fetuses and deceased babies that Buchanan witnessed in a Vietnamese hospital, preserved to document the effects of the US use of Agent Orange in that country during the 1960s.
Perhaps most horrifying is the realization that Buchanan's work could easily be replicated to reference birth defects caused by depleted uranium used in the US invasion of Iraq in 2004 and other untold military conflicts. This uncomfortable truth underscores the main takeaway from the retrospective: the issues Buchanan began addressing in the 1970s—misogyny, racism, the climate crisis, government secrecy, warfare, gentrification, and unbridled capitalist consumption—are not past threats but hauntingly present ones.
The video sculpture "American Dreams 7: The Price is Wrong" (1991), created in collaboration with Carolyn Potter, features a miniature model of a lavishly decorated living room complete with fine art paintings and gilded furnishings. The centerpiece holds a small television set broadcasting part of a speech by Oakland's progressive mayor Ron Dellums, along with attorney Mary Lee and writer Mike Davis, discussing LA's speculative real estate market and the communities being overlooked. Nearly 30 years later, the number of California's unhoused residents has reached an all-time high, demonstrating the prescient nature of Buchanan's concerns.
While the subject matter may feel dispiriting, hope can be found in Buchanan's artistic practice itself. Her work represents an enduring legacy of creating communal strength amid forces that seek to divide. The retrospective includes notable pieces such as "One Dozen of the Long Stemmed Variety" (1978/2025), constructed from painted bones and wire, showcasing her ability to transform unconventional materials into powerful artistic statements.
"Truthfully, Nancy Buchanan: A Retrospective" continues at The Brick, located at 518 North Western Avenue in Melrose Hill, Los Angeles, through September 20. The exhibition was curated by Laura Owens and Catherine Taft, with assistance from Hannah Burstein, offering visitors a comprehensive look at an artist whose work has consistently challenged social and political norms while building community connections across generations.
