Through works by over 100 artists, Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 examines the vital role photography played in shaping a distinctly Black artistic and cultural identity in the mid-twentieth century. Demonstrating the medium’s versatility—as art, design, organizing tool, and community builder—the exhibition brings together a remarkable range of perspectives, subjects, and voices.
From celebrations of Black beauty in Kwame Brathwaite’s fashion photography to Gordon Parks’s groundbreaking photojournalism on Nation of Islam communities for Life magazine, these works reveal how a wide array of cultural producers—from studio and street photographers to designers, activists, and community organizers—used photography to document, imagine, and transform 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 photographs at the National Gallery of Art, and Deborah Willis, university professor and chair of the department of photography and imaging at 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, associate curator of exhibitions and Chase Quinn, creative director and curator of special projects.
Support for the MMA exhibition is provided by the Teiger Foundation, Visit Jackson, Southern Poverty Law Center, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, LLP, and Clarion Ledger.
