“Art is only important to the extent that it aids in the liberation of our people,” said the artist Elizabeth Catlett, who died in 2012, at age 96. A Black American who eventually left the U.S. to live in Mexico (in 1962, she became a Mexican citizen), Catlett was an outspoken activist, her anger fueled by the class inequality, racial violence, and U.S. imperialism she’d witnessed firsthand. Her bold geometric prints and strikingly voluptuous sculptures are full of conviction, rendered with power and poetry. On a return to America, Catlett declared, “I have been, and am currently, and always hope to be a Black Revolutionary Artist and all that it implies.” Hence the title of this exhibition in Chicago, which first opened at the Brooklyn Museum. With 150 pieces on display, it is the most comprehensive U.S. exhibition on Catlett thus far. —Nyla Gilstrap