Mildred Howard Enters History Through the Everyday
The Oakland Museum of California is presenting Poetics of Memory, the first museum survey of Bay Area artist Mildred Howard, on view through October 18. Spanning more than 50 years, the exhibition includes early 1979 Xerox collages, multimedia assemblages, and large-scale installations, and it foregrounds Howard’s use of everyday objects to connect personal memory with collective American histories. Visitors are greeted by large bronze keys and a padlock honoring longshoremen’s union leader Harry Bridges, a sculpture publicly installed in San Francisco in 2001. The show also features Howard’s new installation Moving Stills (2026), a 31-minute triptych projection drawn from film she shot at age 14 during her first trip to the US South, projected through lace to evoke fragmented, dreamlike recollection.
From This Briefing
This story was covered in Museum Power Plays, Union Strikes, and Sacred Heists