Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-1985

Through works by over 100 artists, Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 examines the very important position images performed in shaping a distinctly Black creative and cultural identification within the mid-twentieth century. Demonstrating the medium’s versatility—as artwork, design, organizing software, and neighborhood builder—the exhibition brings collectively a outstanding vary of views, topics, and voices.

From celebrations of Black magnificence in Kwame Brathwaite’s trend images to Gordon Parks’s groundbreaking photojournalism on Nation of Islam communities for Life journal, these works reveal how a big selection of cultural producers—from studio and road photographers to designers, activists, and neighborhood organizers—used images to doc, think about, and remodel Black life.

“Pictures told, for those who could not see themselves, of the strength and beauty of the people, of the hostility and anger of the opposition, and of the promise of a world free of racism.” – Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) member Julian Bond.

Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. It is curated by Philip Brookman, consulting curator of pictures on the National Gallery of Art, and Deborah Willis, college professor and chair of the division of images and imaging on the Tisch School of the Arts and director of the Center for Black Visual Culture at New York University. The exhibition has been overseen at MMA by Kaegan Sparks, affiliate curator of exhibitions and Chase Quinn, inventive director and curator of particular tasks.

Support for the MMA exhibition is supplied by the Teiger Foundation, Visit Jackson, Southern Poverty Law Center, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, LLP, and Clarion Ledger.