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“When the Revolution Could not Be Televised”
Doug Hickman Jr. and the Practice of Material Memory in Downtown Los Angeles
On June 27, 2025, a new kind of monument will rise at the intersection of 9th and Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles. Doug Hickman Jr.’s When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised will be featured on a billboard for a month, as the selected work for The Things That Bind Us. A curation by Nakeyta Moore (ArtLoudLA) made possible by SaveArtSpace.
At the core of this curation is a question: What are the visible and invisible threads that hold us together—and sometimes hold us back? In her curatorial framing, Moore invites artists to examine how culture, tradition, memory, and identity can function as both connection and constraint. aim was to highlight artists at the cross-section of visual storytellers who push the boundaries of form while rooting their work in community and history. Hickman’s contribution serves as a centerpiece of this conversation. A meditation on legacy, joy, and the labor of remembrance.
“WTRCNBT is my personal visual for the Summer of Soul documentary,” Hickman shares. “The style, music, and culture of tens to hundreds of thousands of Black people captured me.” Made from salvaged fabrics sourced from the Fashion District just blocks away from where the billboard now stands, the piece becomes a circular gesture, materials returning to the streets they came from, elevated in scale and meaning.
Doug Hickman Jr., a multidisciplinary artist based in LA with roots in Chicago, has long worked at the intersection of fashion, architecture, and narrative. His artistic language is rooted in the tactile. Fabric scraps, color blocking, woven textures anchor his clear vision: to honor and archive Black American experiences through material culture.
His latest work is a direct response to Questlove’s Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), the acclaimed 2021 documentary that brought long-lost footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival back into public consciousness.
This isn’t just an artwork, it’s a call for congregation. It rises above a city grappling with displacement, memory, and progress, asking passersby to reconsider what truly binds us together. “I hope people find at least one thing that feels unique—whether it’s in the message, the visual, or the detail,” Hickman says. “This visibility really means a lot. It’s overwhelming.”
Nakeyta Moore’s curation makes space for these kinds of layered conversations. By turning billboards an advertising medium typically reserved for consumerism into platforms for cultural inquiry, The Things That Bind Us reframes the visual language of the city itself. Her work as a curator is rooted in challenging boundaries and expanding narratives, and this selection is no exception.
Doug Hickman Jr. is already looking toward the future: international exhibitions, immersive set installations, and deeper creative collaborations across fashion, design, and architecture. But for now, his work stands sky-high in Los Angeles—stitched into the urban fabric, calling us to look up and remember.
Hand Embellished Prints (of 5)
Limited Edition Prints (of 10)
