Mike Henderson – Before the Fire, 1965–1985

Mike Henderson is a pioneering African American artist, filmmaker and musician, whose dynamic practice has spanned more than fifty years. Born and raised in Marshall, Missouri, he moved to the Bay Area to attend the San Francisco Art Institute in 1965. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1973) and two National Endowment for the Arts Artist Grants (1989, 1978), and he was recently awarded the 2019 Artadia San Francisco Award.

Sampada Aranke, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has appeared in e-flux, Artforum, Art Journal, ASAP/J, and October and in catalogues for Sadie Barnette, Betye Saar, Rashid Johnson, Faith Ringgold, and many others. Her book, Death's Futurity: The Visual Life of Black Power, will be published in February 2023.

Dan Nadel is former Curator at Large of the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, University of California, Davis. He has mounted exhibitions including What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art: 1960 to the Present; Gertrude Abercrombie; Kathy Butterly ColorForm; and Chicago Comics, 1960s to Now. Nadel is the author and editor of several books, including Peter Saul: Professional Artist Correspondence, 1945-1976; The Collected Hairy Who Publications 1966-1969; and It's Life As I See It: Black Cartoonists in Chicago, 1940-1980.