The reopened Sunset Lounge hosts its final concert of the season, the Boca Museum opens two new exhibitions, and the Schmidt History Museum explores Florida’s role in the American Revolution. Plus, a new record shop and more in your week ahead.
WEDNESDAY
What: Opening day of “Frédéric Bruly Bouabré: Selections from the 404 Art Collection”
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Boca Raton Museum of Art, 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
Cost: $16 adults, $12 seniors
Contact: 561/392-2500, bocamuseum.org
It takes a certain confidence in one’s artistry to name a series “The Knowledge of the World,” but Frédéric Bruly Bouabré was anything but arrogant. The Ivory Coast artist, who died at age 90 in 2014, created much of his corpus while working as a government clerk, drawing his subjects on found cardboard pieces the size of postcards, and using the implements he had nearby—ballpoint pens, crayons. The results have transcended the restrictions of their production, referencing aspects of folklore, daily life and politics that spread from his native country to all of Africa. Writing accompanied many of his drawings, which function as pictograms to help elucidate and preserve the oral traditions of the Bété tribe of the Ivory Coast. This survey of Bouabré’s colorful and distinctive art runs through Oct. 18, and it opens the same day as another exhibition at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, “Drawing with Scissors: Collage From the Collection,” which showcases artists who cut, paste, combine and transform various media into new forms.
What: Soul in the City Jazz Experience: Allison Nash
When: 7 to 9 p.m.
Where: Sunset Lounge, 609 Eighth St., West Palm Beach
Cost: $33.85
Contact: 561/822-1515
A legendary venue for Black performers during the segregated Chitlin’ Circuit era of the 1940s and ‘50s, West Palm Beach’s Sunset Lounge played host to some of the most important names in all of music—Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, and Sam Cooke among them. This past December marked the long-awaited reopening of the venue, following a much-anticipated transformation of the now 20,000-square-foot venue, which boasts state-of-the-art acoustics and a restaurant, bar, and rooftop lounge. Since its opening, the venue has continued its tradition of booking eminent names in jazz, R&B, and beyond through appearances by Boney James and Wynton Marsalis. The Lounge, run by the West Palm Beach CRA, closes its inaugural season this Wednesday with the marvelous St. Petersburg-based jazz singer Allison Nash backed by a four-piece band of Tampa Bay’s finest musicians.
THURSDAY
What: “The 14th Colony” exhibition
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Schmidt Boca Raton History Museum, 71 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton
Cost: $12 adults, $8 seniors and youth
Contact: 561/395-6766, bocahistory.org
Our state’s role in the founding of the United States is a complicated one. Unlike the 13 colonies that rebelled against the British monarchy, Florida didn’t say they wanted a revolution. The future state, which the Brits divided between East Florida and West Florida (St. Augustine and Pensacola served as the two capitals), stayed loyal to the crown, and people fleeing the revolution found refuge in the state. But mostly, Florida has not been much of a factor in scholarly studies of the Revolutionary War; an article published last year referred to the “Forgotten Front of Florida.” This exhibition, which opened last week as part of our historical society’s ongoing America 250 series, aims to shed fresh light on Florida during this tumultuous period, complete with interpretive displays, historic images, period artifacts from local collectors, and era-specific costumes from The Wick Theatre. You can experience “The 14th Colony” through Aug. 27.
SATURDAY
What: Opening day of Shellshock Records
When: 11 a.m.
Where: 603 N.E. 13th St., Fort Lauderdale
Cost: Album prices vary
Contact: 754/227-8300
Fort Lauderdale, already the tri-county region’s central nexus for record collectors, is adding another shop to its impressive array of vinyl emporiums. Shellshock Records, a dream of owner Gunther Schenk for more than two years, opens its doors Saturday with somewhere in the range of 3,500 to 4,000 LPs in stock—80 percent of which constitute preowned titles. As new wave music buffs may recognize, the store’s name derives from New Order’s 1986 dance hit of the same name, which tells you something about its alternative niche: Schenk has said that indie, punk, metal, and hardcore music will be a focus of Shellshock, with sizable soul, hip-hop, jazz, and electronic inventories as well, alongside plenty of classic rock. As a record vendor, Schenk comes from an impeccable pedigree, having worked at seminal outpost Radio-Active Records before its 2024 closure.
What: Dr. Diana Martha Louis author talk and book signing
When: 4 to 6 p.m.
Where: Williams Cottage at Spady Museum, 152 N.W. Fifth Ave., Delray Beach
Cost: $10
Contact: 561/279-8883, spadymuseum.org
This event marks a homecoming for Delray Beach native Diana Martha Louis, currently an assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Michigan. She will speak about her first book, a revelatory look at mental health in African Americans from the height of slavery to the continued racial hostilities of the Jim Crow era. Colored Insane: Slavery, Asylums, and Mental Illness in the 19th Century, published last year by Columbia University Press, explores the ways in which the field of psychiatry further eroded the mental wellness of both enslaved and freed peoples through constructed, racially informed diagnoses. The book also delves into how the Black community responded to this institutional harm by seeking conjurers, folk medicines, and their own spiritual paths. Discover how the misconceptions of Black mental health continue to resonate into our century, and get your copy of Colored Insanesigned by the author.
For more of Boca magazine’s arts and entertainment coverage, click here.
