Aperture's Blog, page 68

Why Photo Editors Need to Hire Black Photographers Every Day

And not only during a crisis.

By Will Matsuda

Wale Agboola, The Uprising, Minneapolis, 2020
Courtesy the artist

When New York Magazine chose a white conflict photographer’s image for the cover of their June 8, 2020, issue, there was an uproar on Instagram. The magazine’s outspoken (white) art critic Jerry Saltz called the cover “tremendous.” But Lindsay Peoples Wagner, editor in chief at Teen Vogue, commented, “sad that you hardly ever hire black photographers to shoot covers and STILL didn’t this week of all weeks.”

This was not an isolated incident. National Geographic and Vanity Fair both hired prominent white photographers for protest coverage, demonstrating the systemic issue of whiteness throughout the photography industry. When a Google spreadsheet of Black photographers was circulating widely, why would photo editors make this choice?

As Danielle Scruggs, a Chicago-based photo editor at Vox and board member at Authority Collective, told me, “The whole reason why there is so much racism, sexism, ageism, classism in the industry is because all of that exists in society.” Non-profits, media outlets, museums, and photography schools attempt to alleviate this contradiction by elevating “diverse” photographers, giving them grants or putting them on diversity panels. But who actually benefits from those panels? How does a grant or scholarship fix a systemic failure? And who benefits from highlighting Black photographers only during a time of crisis?

I recently spoke with Scruggs and three other Black photo editors and photographers about covering this moment and what needs to change: Lynsey Weatherspoon, a photographer based in Atlanta; Wale Agboola, a photographer based in Minneapolis; and Brent Lewis, photo editor at the New York Times and cofounder of Diversify Photo. They talked about the inherent subjectivity of photojournalism, the racist distribution of power and opportunity in the industry, and their demands for a sustained commitment to make photography more Black, far into the future.

Wale Agboola, State Capital, Minneapolis, 2020
Courtesy the artist

Will Matsuda: Why are you choosing to photograph the protests?

Wale Agboola: As Black people, we have to be able to tell the stories how we want. After I found out about George Floyd’s death, I couldn’t sleep. At 2 a.m., I walked down to Cup Foods [the site of George Floyd’s murder] to see what was happening. When I got there, I broke down. A friend of mine told me that I had to get to the Third Precinct right now. “Everything is on fire,” he said.

So I went and saw Black pain. Fear. People who were angry. They wanted answers. I wanted to do my best and tell the story the way I see it. The way I’m feeling that pain. When I saw the video of George Floyd, I lost a side of me that was peaceful. It turned into anger. I channeled that feeling into my photos.

Lynsey Weatherspoon: I’m originally from Birmingham, Alabama, one of the epicenters of the Civil Rights Movement. I needed to see what was going on, and I needed to walk in solidarity. Photographers have different voices, and I wanted mine to be heard.

Matsuda: What do you think about the current conversation about who should photograph these protests?

Danielle Scruggs: I’m glad we are having these conversations in a really explicit industry-wide way. Sometimes, it feels like I’ve been screaming into the void [laughs]. We need to hire more Black photographers. We need to hire more Black photo editors. Not only to cover things like protests and uprisings, and things that only pertain to Black communities. We need more Black photographers doing food stories. More Black photographers doing culture stories and fashion stories. It shouldn’t be just for hard news; it should be for everything. It should be across the board.

It shouldn’t be a scramble for people to hire Black photographers and photo editors. That should be something ingrained in this industry, and it’s not. There’s especially a problem with how overwhelmingly white leadership positions are in the industry. If you only see predominantly white men crafting visual narratives about everything, that becomes a really big problem. It works right now if you believe in systemic inequality.

Wale Agboola, The Clean Up, Minneapolis, 2020
Courtesy the artist

Matsuda: It works how it was designed to work.

Scruggs: Yeah, exactly. That’s why I’m over discussions of reform in journalism, but especially in visual journalism. There needs to be a much bigger conversation about who is crafting those images. Why those images are being crafted. Why certain visual tropes come up. Why certain people have been completely shut out of this industry for decades.

Agboola: At George Floyd’s memorial service, every person doing video was white. A bunch of foreign press was in town. This guy came up to me that looked like he was from a very reputable news station and said, “Hey, who is the dude with the family’s lawyer?” The person he was talking about was Reverend Al Sharpton. If you don’t know who that is, you should not be here. It was such an insult.

Looking around and not seeing very many Black photographers felt very disappointing, because the stories weren’t going to come from the right place. It breaks my heart. I see things through the pain I’m feeling. I put that into my work. I have to make sure when I am shooting to not lose myself. I want an imprint of myself in the photo. To make sure that what I am feeling is conveyed. It is a lot of pain. I haven’t been able to take a breath and cope yet.

Wale Agboola, Protest at Minneapolis Third Police Precinct, Minneapolis, 2020
Courtesy the artist

Matsuda: What would you say to non-Black photographers covering this moment?

Brent Lewis: Well, I do think there should be non-Black photographers out there. Black photographers should lead the way, though. It comes down to understanding. Non-Black photographers should be more empathetic. Have conversations and ask why people are out there. People are protesting to have their voices heard. Don’t just point a camera in someone’s face. I’ve heard some photographers are asking for permission at the protests. If it’s a safe moment, have that conversation. It opens up a dialogue. Even to the Black photographers out there, I would say ask those same questions.

One summer back in Chicago, I was taking pictures of these kids playing in this opened fire hydrant. One of them turned to me and said, “Did somebody die?” The only time they see journalists coming into their neighborhood is when someone gets shot. The media shows up when things are on fire. If people actually cared about the Black experience beforehand, we probably wouldn’t be in this position. It wouldn’t feel so invasive either.

Danielle Scruggs, The Villa at Windsor Park Nursing Home on the South Side of Chicago, 2020
Courtesy the artist for the New York Times

Matsuda: A common refrain I’ve been hearing from non-Black photographers is that they think pictures are objective—they are just photographing what is in front of them. So why does it matter who is taking the picture?

Weatherspoon: Whatever situation I put myself in, I put my full identity in it. That’s being Black. That’s being queer. That’s being a woman. So that all goes into whatever story I’m photographing. If you come to a story from only a gender perspective or a race perspective, it causes mistrust with the people you photograph. Black people are at the center of so much history, but you rarely see Black people, let alone Black women, who are allowed to cover these stories. You have to bring your full identity, your full self, to whatever shoot you’re doing. But you’ll have biases in what you see no matter what.

Scruggs: Objectivity doesn’t exist. You bring all of your lived experiences into whatever you’re doing, whether that’s picking up a pen or a camera. All of your lived experiences affect what you put in a frame and what you keep out of it. What stories you choose to tell and what stories you choose not to tell. The best that we can do is aim to be fair. Tell as complete a story as we can. But objectivity is not a thing. It’s a way for people to hide. It’s a way to avoid having those uncomfortable conversations.

Matsuda: How are you maintaining the energy and strength to keep making these images?

Agboola: I’m not. Today [June 6] is the first day I am taking for myself and not picking up my camera. Today, I want to breathe. Today, I want to acknowledge where I am at emotionally. I haven’t slept this week. I wake up in the middle of the night with sleep paralysis.

In Minneapolis, there have been white supremacists riding around in the middle of the night. Every time I would go outside and hear a loud truck, I ran into the bushes. I couldn’t breathe this week. I was in pain. I couldn’t even feel safe in my home.

Today is the first day where I can assess myself. I need to talk to my therapist. It’s been hard, man, I’m not going to lie. But it’s also been great to see the way Minneapolis has come together in a ridiculous, iconic way. After buildings burnt down, people were out the next morning cleaning it up with shovels and gloves, in the middle of a pandemic. Allowing the anger to go on. They did not even question it. It got me emotional. It was beautiful.

Danielle Scruggs, Travis Johnson, an attendee at the American Descendants of Slavery conference in Louisville, Kentucky, October, 2019
Courtesy the artist for the New York Times

Matsuda: How can photo editors do better?

Weatherspoon: I’m seeing an influx of attention—they want to see more of our work. In a way, it’s a little concerning. Why now? We have been doing this for so long. Why is it now that you want to hear our voices? We have been photographing our joys, our pains, our questions, our everything. You didn’t listen. I question the motive of those who are reaching out to us now.

Matsuda: This interview right now is part of that complex, no doubt.

Weatherspoon: Yeah, let’s be real about that. I hope media outlets, brands, agencies, and galleries understand that we’ve always been out here. People are now starting to catch up on what we’ve been doing. If you decide to hire a Black photographer, make sure you continuously hire them. Don’t give us that line, “We look forward to working with you in the future.” Make it count. None of us are going to be in this for a long time. I can tell you right now. I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life. I do enjoy it, but when it’s my time to sit down, I want to continuously see Black people thriving in this field. Not just now. There’s no excuse for not hiring a Black photographer for any type of story now. Why does it take someone being murdered for us to show our work?

Scruggs: Photo editors need to change who they view as experts. Change who they deem as worthy of getting an assignment to. Just because you aren’t as familiar with someone doesn’t mean that they are not capable of executing an assignment in an accurate and compelling way. There also needs to be a fundamental shift in how photo editors view their jobs. You can’t stop at, “Well this person doesn’t have a lot of experience, so I’m going to go with this white man, because he has twenty years of experience.” Why was that white man given all those opportunities to get twenty years of experience in the first place? You have to be willing to mentor people, and train people, and see that they are getting paid fairly, which is a huge issue in this industry.

I’ve always worked simultaneously between being a photo editor and a freelance photographer. I know firsthand what it is like to front money for travel for an assignment, and then you have to wait three months to get paid back for that expense. If you’re not independently wealthy, how do you make that happen?

What are you doing to make sure freelancers are safe, and paid on time and fairly? Give them the resources and support so they can end up with twenty years of experience.

Lynsey Weatherspoon, A young woman raises her fist in the middle of the street on the first day of the protests, May 29, 2020
Courtesy the artist

Lewis: I understand things are moving quickly, but I need photo editors to understand that people are protesting four hundred years of history. I am happy to see so many people hiring Black. But don’t hire a Black photographer and say, “Alright, I hired my one Black photographer!”

We have been disadvantaged. Many Black photographers didn’t go to all these workshops or legacy photojournalism schools. They’re just damn good photographers. But many of them don’t know the process, because photo editors have never thought to teach them. Or ask them. Things like FTP transfers, captions, or metadata. Take a second and ask if they have questions about what they need to do. Make sure they read through and understand the documents. Ask if there is something they don’t know. When I was coming up, I wouldn’t ask a damn thing.

It takes a little bit longer for photo editors to do that work, but it pays off. Your workflow becomes better. I’ve let myself down by not asking these questions. It has resulted in unnecessary back-and-forth email conversions and texts, or me writing captions when I was on a deadline. All that would have been alleviated if I said, “Hey, you’ve never worked for the New York Times before. Let’s talk everything through while you’re filing. About what you need to do.” That goes so far. These are skills that photographers can take away. Money is cool, but don’t forget about skills that they can take elsewhere. Photo editors need to do that legwork. Especially right now, when so many photographers are getting their first looks. Organizations like Authority Collective and Diversify Photo have been saying this for years. But you can pick it up right now. Teach.

Lynsey Weatherspoon, Sunday morning after two nights of protests in downtown Atlanta. The American flag waves in the window of the Georgia World Congress Center, 2020
Courtesy the artist

Matsuda: I’ve been spending a lot of time with the work of Angela Davis these past few weeks, and she stresses the importance of critiquing racism and capitalism at the same time. While I agree that we need more Black photographers and photo editors, I am also thinking about how many Black people can’t even afford to get into the industry in the first place because of racial capitalism—to even be part of a shared Google doc of Black photographers. How do we address this structural exclusion?

Scruggs: I’m glad you brought that up, because hiring Black photographers solves only part of the issue. We have to look at this from a systemic level. You can’t redline people and put them in neighborhoods with no resources, no schools, no mental health resources, no grocery stores, no generational wealth, and then compare them to their white counterparts, and tell them to go spend $2,000 on digital camera body, another $2,000 on a laptop, and another $1,300 on lenses. All of that when there is no potable water in the neighborhood either. How do you afford all that to even get started in the industry as a photographer?

The databases [of Black photographers] are great resources, but the problem isn’t just that people didn’t know that there were Black photographers. It’s a good start, but it’s not the full solution. The people in power—people at the leadership level, the publisher level, the corporate level—don’t see us and I don’t think they care. When I say, hire Black photographers, it’s only part of it. Think about how to work in a collaborative way, rather than just an extractive way. Consider the toll that it takes on Black people’s mental health. We need to think about how to really bring people in and make them feel welcome.

Weatherspoon: Economic disparities are certainly a weight on Black photographers since we’re historically denied credit or any funding that would accelerate our business goals. This would make anyone feel defeated, especially when you have White photographers who find you inferior because of what you lack economically. Black creatives are trying to keep up with the world, while trying to find ways to fund our career goals.

As for hiring Black photo editors, it is crucial that we know a job like this exists for us in the first place. Even if you decide to not be a photographer, we have to know that jobs like this exist in newsrooms, publications, and creative spaces.

Lynsey Weatherspoon, Officers stand in front of the Georgia State Capitol, 2020
Courtesy the artist

Matsuda: I worry that everything that brands and outlets are doing right now is performative. That there’s a lot of attention now, but what about next month? What does the photography industry need to learn from this moment? What does that look like in the long run?

Scruggs: It requires a fundamental shift in society. The whole reason why there is so much racism, sexism, ageism, classism in the industry is because all of that exists in society. White people especially, but also non-Black people of color need to educate themselves in being anti-racist. Really do that work and don’t ask Black people to hold their hands through it. We’ve been doing that and it’s really exhausting. We need that time to ourselves.

It’s been years, decades, centuries. Photography started out as a tool of white supremacy, and people don’t talk about that. One of the main functions of it was to reinforce slavery and colonialism. I wonder how you use a tool originally created for white supremacy to work against white supremacy? That’s a question that all photographers should be asking themselves, not just Black photographers. Specifically, white people need to have these conversations with other white people. Do not turn to your Black friend. They are probably not even your Black friend—they are your coworker. Don’t say, “How can I help? What can I do?” You need to turn to your white friends and say, “What do we do? Why don’t we know these things? Why have we been avoiding these conversations?” Don’t have a diversity panel. Literally, just hire Black people and people of color.

Lewis: Everyone’s hoping they won’t get dragged. That’s a fact. Sorry, not sorry. The goal is to level the playing field, and to do that we need new voices in here. Not just photographers, but editors, and directors of photography. The biggest takeaway for this in the long term is building relationships. Photo editors reply to people they know faster than to people they don’t know. These relationships are important. Build those relationships. A lot of photographers aren’t going to go to workshops or portfolio reviews or legacy photojournalism schools. But they are damn good. Knock down the whole gatekeeping thing. Open up the gates.

Lynsey Weatherspoon, Young man raises his hands during a protest in front of the Georgia State Capitol, 2020
Courtesy the artist

Matsuda: What do you need right now?

Scruggs: Wow, a lot of people don’t really ask that. I would say space. Giving people space to process. There’s a lot going on. Understatement of the year. Give people space to rest, process, be angry, and be sad. I need to have space to feel what I need to feel. I need concrete resources. Mentorships. Money. Fair pay. Historically, Black women are asked to do a lot and shoulder a lot. So I need a real investment. Cash dollars. There was a spreadsheet going around with what people were making in the industry. With only two or three years of experience, people are making three or four times what I’m making. So I need fair pay. Wages. Cash.

Lewis: I need people to care. Don’t do it for likes. Don’t just black out your Instagram. Read. Realize this didn’t start with George Floyd. It goes back four hundred years. Listen to podcasts. Take in everything you can right now. Understand why people are protesting in the middle of a pandemic. That’s how serious it is! People are like, “I’m more likely to die from police violence than I am from a pandemic.” That’s something you need to understand. I need you to look at yourself. You’re stuck in the house. You’re not going anywhere. This is the time to do it!

Weatherspoon: I need sunlight. I need for this bullshit to end. I need people to understand that this issue is not new; it’s always been here. Hopefully we get it right this time. I know we say that every time. We know names like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, but how many countless names do we not know?

Agboola: Those four officers [responsible for killing George Floyd] need to be charged. There needs to be justice. For me, I need that. All those buildings that burned can be rebuilt; money can be remade. George Floyd is not coming back. As a Black man, I fear for my safety every day. When I get pulled over by police, my body turns into fear and I wonder if this is the end. So as a Black person, that is traumatic. I am dealing with that trauma. You have to listen to Black people. Black lives matter. If there is a protest tomorrow, I will be there. But I want to come home.

Will Matsuda is a photographer and writer based in Portland, Oregon.

Black Is Beautiful

In the 1960s, Kwame Brathwaite’s fashion photographs sent a riveting message about Black culture and freedom.

By Tanisha C. Ford

Kwame Brathwaite, Nomsa Brath wearing earrings by Carolee Prince, ca. 1964
Courtesy the artist and Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles

Everyone knows the phrase “Black is beautiful,” but very few have heard of the man who helped to popularize it. Brooklyn-born black photographer Kwame Brathwaite has lived most of his life behind the camera, devoted to capturing the lives of others on film. Spending much of the 1960s in his tiny darkroom in Harlem, he perfected a processing technique that made black skin pop in a photograph, with a life and energy as complex as that decade. Known by friends and comrades as the “Keeper of the Images,” Brathwaite has logged thousands of hours in the darkroom, dipping his fingers into harsh developing chemicals so often over the decades that the grooves of his fingertips have become worn. His labor reflects his deep commitment to black freedom and radical cultural production. With every dip, measurement of solution, and timing of exposure, Brathwaite styles blackness. His images, carefully calibrated to reflect a moment precisely, made black beautiful for those who lived in the 1960s, and continue to do so for a generation today who might only now be discovering his work.

I first stumbled upon Brathwaite’s photographs in 2009 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. There I found a series of provocative images of black picketers taken at an August 1963 protest of a white-owned beauty supply store in Harlem called Wigs Parisian. The black women and men in the photographs carry placards that boldly declare: “We Don’t Want Any Congo Blondes!” and “He’s Got Straight Hair, but He’s Still an Ape!” Drawings of dark-complexioned women with large lips sporting blonde wigs and an ape with slicked hair dressed in a tuxedo accompany the texts. The photographs are riveting and unlike any that I had previously associated with the protests of the early 1960s, when slogans such as “Freedom now” and “One man, one vote” were rallying cries. They touch a sensitive nerve. They confront our collective feelings of pain and shame. Those feelings about our hair and bodies that we adopted in childhood and still fight to keep at bay. These piercing images, locked away in a small box in Harlem, represent a history that I had never learned in college or graduate school. I wanted to know: Who was this photographer? Who were these protestors? Google searches yielded little; Brathwaite seemed to exist only in the photography of the past and in minor quotes in black nationalist publications such as Muhammad Speaks and the Liberator. My countless email requests for an interview with Brathwaite went unanswered, until I was able to speak with him last winter for this article.

Kwame Brathwaite, Naturally ’68 photo shoot in the Apollo Theater featuring Grandassa models and AJASS founding members (except the photographer). Center from left: Frank Adu, Elombe Brath, and Ernest Baxter, 1968
Courtesy the artist and Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles

Brathwaite found photography through his love of the rollicking rhythms of hard bop jazz. In 1956, he and his teenaged friends, all recent graduates of the School of Industrial Art (now the High School of Art and Design) in Manhattan, formed the African Jazz-Art Society and Studios (AJASS), a radical collective of playwrights, graphic artists, dancers, and fashion designers. Jazz societies were common at this time, and AJASS modeled itself after the well-established Modern Jazz Society. They opted to use the then much less common word African, which made their group distinct and referenced their political leanings.

Years earlier, Brathwaite and his older brother Elombe Brath, a graphic artist, had heard activist Carlos Cooks espousing the politics of black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey: “Take back our land!” “Go back to Africa!” “Black is beautiful!” His message of black empowerment and economic independence resonated with the brothers, and they joined Cooks’s African Nationalist Pioneer Movement. “We weren’t fond of just being colored folks, being under the yoke of anybody else,” Brathwaite told me when I interviewed him. AJASS members were the “woke” set of their generation, calling themselves African and black when most people were still using the now passé colored or negro. In jazz, they found a similarly rebellious spirit, a music that communicated emotions that could not otherwise be articulated.

Kwame Brathwaite, Sikolo Brathwaite wearing a beaded headpiece by Carolee Prince, ca. 1967
Courtesy the artist and Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles

AJASS members spent most of their weekends promoting concerts at the legendary Club 845 on Prospect Avenue in the Bronx, the epicenter of the borough’s jazz scene, where they began booking rising stars like John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, and Philly Joe Jones. “We could pick some of the best musicians in the world,” Brathwaite recalls. “We’d have good, packed houses all the time.” One evening in 1956 Brathwaite strolled into the club, greeted customers perched at the bar, then headed toward the back of the venue and into the cavernous performance space, the sound intensifying as he neared the stage. One of his school friends was snapping pictures in the dimly lit club, and Brathwaite was astonished that he was not using a flash or any additional light source. Nothing. Brathwaite, the advertising-arts major who had never really worked with a camera, asked his friend, “How do you do that with no flash?” His friend’s professional camera and Kodak Tri-X film (the film that revolutionized photojournalism because of its speed and versatility) were far superior to the camera Brathwaite had received as a gift at graduation. “I couldn’t do what he was doing with that,” Brathwaite told me as he swatted the air in a dismissive gesture.

And just like that, Brathwaite was hooked. He used his earnings from the jazz shows to buy a professional camera and devoured every photography book he could find. Jazz set the rhythm for his photography, which became central to his artistic approach. “You want to get the feeling, the mood that you’re experiencing when they’re playing,” he explains. “That’s the thing. You want to capture that.” But translating the moody blue notes of jazz onto film is not a skill one can learn from a book; it is sensory knowledge that comes from an understanding of jazz culture—the syncopated rhythms, the elasticity of sound, the spirit of improvisation. The temperament of jazz is the lifeblood of Brathwaite’s work.

Kwame Brathwaite, A school for one of the many modeling groups that had begun to embrace natural hairstyles in the 1960s, ca. 1966
Courtesy the artist and Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles

The new camera became young Brathwaite’s closest companion, kept within reach so he could take a snap whenever something intriguing crossed his line of sight. Most of his early images were from the Club 845 sets: jazzmen on their horns, spectators enthralled by the music. He also photographed the quiet intimacy of the musicians’ lives. “I’d go to Coltrane’s house at times. He would be playing the soprano sax in his kitchen with his T-shirt on. I got some shots,” Brathwaite told me. As the unofficial photographer of New York’s annual Marcus Garvey Day celebration, he quickly learned that photography required fearlessness. During the parade, Brathwaite would bend and contort his lithe body, often throwing himself into the crowd in order to document the extravagance and pageantry of the lively event.

As Brathwaite perfected his camera skills, taking hundreds of photographs each week in those early years, the movement for black freedom was erupting on the Harlem and Bronx streets around him, as much as it was in the American South. The federal government had overturned “separate but equal,” but black Americans like Brathwaite and his peers still felt the cold fear and unease of stepping too close to the invisible line of Jim Crow segregation. Photography was the insurgent technology through which everyday people and professional photojournalists alike captured the wild violence of police billy clubs and the quiet threat of “Whites only” signs in shop windows from downtown Manhattan to Montgomery, Alabama.

The “Black is beautiful” movement really started to coalesce in and around Harlem in late 1963, after the Wigs Parisian protest. “That’s when we started promoting ‘Black is beautiful’ even more. We had entertainment with fashion shows and concerts and stuff like that, which made us very popular in the community,” Brathwaite said. They began using “Black is beautiful” and other slogans such as “Think black” and “Buy black” on event flyers and other ephemera.

Kwame Brathwaite, AJASS members Robert Gumbs, Frank Adu, Elombe Brath, Kwame Brathwaite, David K. Ward, and Chris Acemendeces Hall, ca. 1961
Courtesy the artist and Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles

Brathwaite wore his “Keeper of the Images” title with great pride and conviction, allowing his brother to take the lead as the public voice of their movement. Yet, the mostly male group realized that beauty and body issues affected black women differently. “We said, ‘We’ve got to do something to make the women feel proud of their hair, proud of their blackness,’” Brathwaite explained to me. In order to truly communicate why black was inherently beautiful, they needed women at the helm. With the help of a well-connected AJASS member, Jimmy Abu, they began recruiting teenage and young adult women to model in a community-based fashion show. They named the group Grandassa, drawing from the word Grandassaland, which Carlos Cooks used to describe the African continent. The original models had deep chocolate skin, full lips and noses, and wore their hair in “natural” styles that highlighted their kinky textures.

The Grandassa models dazzled the crowd of mostly black folks from Harlem and the surrounding neighborhoods who assembled at the Purple Manor on January 28, 1962, for Naturally ’62: The Original African Coiffure and Fashion Extravaganza Designed to Restore Our Racial Pride and Standards. Actor Gus Williams served as host alongside jazz singer and activist Abbey Lincoln, while her husband, jazz drummer Max Roach, led the house band. The models sashayed across the makeshift catwalk in vibrant dresses, skirts, and sophisticated blouses constructed from fabrics with intricate prints. Each woman accessorized her look with large hoop earrings, chunky bracelets, and kitten-heeled mules and sandals.

The event was a smash. AJASS soon produced more shows, eventually making Naturally an annual event. “We started picking up designers, black fashion designers,” Brathwaite said, noting that Carolee Prince, who created headdresses for famed singer Nina Simone, also showcased her original pieces in the Naturally shows.

Kwame Brathwaite, Grandassa models after the Naturally fashion show, Rockland Palace, ca. 1968
Courtesy the artist and Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles

Brathwaite and his crew realized they were now at the center of a brewing national conversation on colorism and race pride within the black community. The Grandassa models were not simply countering the images of pale and frail British models such as Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton who appeared in mainstream U.S. publications. They were also challenging the ubiquitous presence of lighter-complexioned, straight-haired black models in black- owned publications such as Ebony. “There was lots of controversy because we were protesting how, in Ebony magazine, you couldn’t find an ebony girl,” Brathwaite told me.

Spurred on by the cultural zeitgeist of the moment, Brathwaite transformed AJASS from a band of creative teens into a group of businessmen and -women who could “sell” their vision of blackness to an international audience. In 1964, they signed a lease on a studio space next to the Apollo Theater. Brathwaite and Brath produced “Black is beautiful” ephemera—as well as several Blue Note Records album covers—and charged a sitting fee to photograph local women and men. Later, they operated a café-style meeting space called Grandassa Land, on Seventh Avenue between 135th and 136th Streets, where they hosted poetry nights and plays organized by the AJASS Repertory Theatre. Lincoln and Roach introduced them to club owners in the Midwest who invited AJASS to present Naturally shows in Chicago and Detroit. Images of the stylish Grandassa models appeared in black publications in the United States, Britain, Nigeria, and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

The popularity of Grandassa and AJASS made Brathwaite a sought-after photographer for international magazines. His photographs of megastars such as Stevie Wonder, Muhammad Ali, and Sly Stone were published in Britain’s Ad Lib and Blues & Soul magazines, as well as in publications in Japan. With those early paychecks—much larger than the meager sitting fees he charged neighbors in Harlem—Brathwaite upgraded his equipment and traveled the world. He had encounters that a boy from the Bronx, whose only taste of the international had been his mother’s Caribbean coconut bread, could have only dreamed of.

Model inspired by the Grandassa photo shoot at AJASS, ca. 1965
Courtesy the artist and Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles

Naturally shows became less frequent as the 1960s drew to a close. Brathwaite and Brath delved deeper into pan-Africanist activism, and they traveled extensively across the African continent, working alongside activists in Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt. Meanwhile, the catchy slogan “Black is beautiful” continued to spread and was used to sell everything from hair-care products and T-shirts to alcohol and cigarettes. The two brothers had helped to usher in this moment, making black nationalism artful and accessible to everyday black folks. But the brothers’ absence from the political, social, and artistic scene in the United States, and the ubiquity of soul music and black power imagery in the early 1970s, meant that most people never came to know them, AJASS, Grandassa, or the vibrant history of the second-wave Harlem Renaissance, of which they were at the center. Brathwaite’s photographs, which provide much-needed texture to our understanding of the black freedom movement, never became part of the movement’s visual canon. Instead, his images found a home in the Schomburg Center in Harlem, not far from where the AJASS studio was located, where they lay in wait for an eager researcher to access them and understand their significance. There were no retrospectives, no splashy write-ups.

And Brathwaite was fine with this. He never pursued photography for the accolades. He enjoyed the quiet life outside of the spotlight. Elombe Brath died in 2014, after suffering a series of debilitating strokes. The loss upended Brathwaite’s world. His brother was always the voice, the one who could galvanize the crowd with his booming speeches. With his passing, and that of most others in their collective, Brathwaite realized that he was not only the “Keeper of the Images”; he was now the keeper of the stories, too. If he didn’t share this history, it would be lost to time. At seventy-nine years old, Brathwaite is now telling the tale of how he—the son of West Indian immigrants—and a crew of black teens from the Bronx styled the world.

Tanisha C. Ford is author of Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul (2015).

This piece was originally published in Aperture, issue 228, “Elements of Style,” Fall 2017. See more of Brathwaite’s work in Black Is Beautiful (Aperture, 2019).

George Floyd, Gordon Parks, and the Ominous Power of Photographs

From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter, can images help fight injustice?

By Deborah Willis

Gordon Parks, Malcolm X Gives Speech at Rally, Harlem, New York, New York, 1963, 1963
© and courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation

 “I find it difficult to look at these photographs without flinching from the memories and from the anger they invoke. But I must look. I must remember, as you must. For this was history in the making. Like it or not, you cannot hide from the camera’s eye.”

—Myrlie Evers-Williams, foreword to The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954–68, 1996

As I reflect on photography and protest, I see it as my life in America from a lived experience to an act of memory. I am troubled by the images I’ve seen over the last two weeks, and I have been asked—by various people—what these images mean to me. Black death has been photographed, broadcasted, painted, recorded, tweeted, and exhibited for the past ninety days. It has been nine days since a teenager posted footage of George Floyd’s murder. It has been nine days of collectively watching George Floyd’s last moments of life, seeing a man struggling and crying, while a white police officer digs his knee deeper into Floyd’s neck, the officer’s left hand slipped casually into his pocket. I watched in horror as the other police officer stood guard, protecting his fellow officer, while the person behind the camera screamed and pleaded with the officers to stop. I heard others begging for his life as George Floyd pleaded “I can’t breathe” over and over again.

The video went viral! Each time I watched the news, my heart cried. It is recorded thanks to cell-phone imaging and surveillance cameras and, because of the camera, we see history repeating itself. Just this past March, Breonna Taylor was killed in Kentucky; in February, Ahmaud Arbery’s death was recorded in Georgia, and not until weeks later did the national news media report his tragic death. COVID-19 killed 100,000 Americans, and their names appeared on the local news and some of their portraits were published in the newspapers. Activists, community members, students, first responders, essential workers, government and city officials, family members, and others have used the images to make change happen because of a history of injustices.

Gordon Parks, Harlem Rally, Harlem, New York, 1963
© and courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation

I started thinking about Black death well before the global pandemic and global lockdowns and measures of combating and coping that have become our everyday reality. I will never forget the photograph of the brutally beaten and swollen body of the young Emmett Till published in Jet magazine in 1955. Many young people experienced episodes of hostile confrontation with the police that intensified over the years because of social protests. Blacks were being killed, hosed, jailed, and subjected to unjust laws throughout the American landscape. Photographers witnessing both brutal and social assaults created a new visual consciousness for the American public, establishing a visual language of “testifying” about their individual and collective experience. On April 27, 1962, there was a shootout between the Los Angeles police and members of the Nation of Islam (NOI); Ronald Stokes, a member of the Nation of Islam, was killed. Fourteen Muslims were arrested; one was charged with assault with intent to kill and the others with assault and interference with police officers. A year later, Malcolm X investigated the incident and the trial. Noted photographer Gordon Parks remembered his photograph of Malcolm X holding the brutally beaten NOI member in this way:

I recall the night Malcolm spoke after this brother Stokes was killed in Los Angeles, and he was holding up a huge photo showing the autopsy with a bullet hole at [the] back of the head. He was angry then; he was dead angry. It was a huge rally. But he was never out of control. The press tried to project his militancy as wild, unthoughtful, and out of control. But Malcolm was always controlled, always thinking what to do in political arenas.

I share this history, as I am always mindful of the past because of visual culture. I value this history, even though I am distressed by it—even more so because Gordon Parks High School was destroyed by fire in St. Paul, Minnesota, this week.

History!! James Baldwin said, “To accept one’s past—one’s history—is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it.” The last few months have confounded me for a variety of reasons, but perhaps most because Baldwin was meticulous as a writer and did not spare words, thus his use of the verbs learn and use in the above are clear iterations of this, of functionality. Learn to use art (image). And make history right. In 1987, Toni Morrison wrote in Beloved, “And O my people, out yonder, hear me they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up.”

Collectively, we must continue to remember that photography and images can be both empowering and ominous; they can help us make changes to the laws as we struggle to find words for this painful moment. I am encouraged by our students’ activism as they photograph this charged moment, and at the same time, make photographs of the causes of inequities. I urge everyone to use this incredible energy to vote; to document injustices; to be encouraged by the voices of the people around this country telling this story globally and depicting the faces of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd on their face masks, T-shirts, signs, and murals; and to ensure that this will be the last time.

Deborah Willis is professor and chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. A version of this text originally appeared on New York University’s website as a letter to students.

Click here for further resources related to supporting Black lives.

Mikael Owunna’s Photographs Show the Essence of Black Healing

In his glittering portraits, the artist is building an alternate world.

By Amber Hickey and Anney Traymany

Mikael Owunna, Emem, from the series Infinite Essence, 2018
Courtesy the artist

 “What is the impact,” the photographer Mikael Owunna asks, “when you see somebody who looks like you being killed all of the time?” Owunna, an American photographer of Nigerian Swedish descent who originally studied engineering, makes work about queerness and the Black body, and describes his practice as a direct response to a dominant visual culture pervaded by images of the Black body as a site of death. His series Infinite Essence (2016–ongoing) simultaneously constructs an alternative visual narrative in our present, while gesturing toward the possibility of another world. In order to create these otherworldly images, Owunna uses fluorescent paints to hand paint the bodies of his subjects; the photographs are taken in darkness, punctuated by flashes of ultraviolet light.

We recently spoke to Owunna about the gravity of this series, and how it might be mobilized as a speculative tool of creative resistance. Although most of this conversation was conducted prior to the murder of George Floyd, the video that circulated of Floyd’s death, repeatedly reposted, adds new weight to the question that drives Owunna’s photography: what is that space we can imagine beyond the limits of white supremacy, racism, and violence?

Mikael Owunna, James, from the series Infinite Essence, 2018
Courtesy the artist

Amber Hickey: How have you been holding up this past week?

Mikael Owunna: “How are you?” is the hardest question I’m asked these days. There is no way to quantify or express the level of horror, tragedy, and distress. America’s delight at the spectacle of the public lynching; collapsing public-health infrastructure that already did not serve Black communities; unemployment is skyrocketing; and no comment on how Black unemployment consistently reaches two times the national rate. I don’t know what to say, other than Black Liberation Now. 

Anney Traymany: You address a variety of social justice issues, particularly those that directly affect Black communities. Can you talk us through some of your main artistic concerns, what led you to begin your Infinite Essence series, and how this project relates to your other work?

Owunna: With Infinite Essence, I was really struck between 2014 and 2016 by the plethora of images and videos that were being diffused in the media, of Black people being shot and killed by police officers. At first, it was this emotional response of seeing this injustice and being really rallied into action. What I began to notice after several years of this was that there was just this continuous repetition of this image of the Black body being shot and killed, and just falling to the ground. I started thinking about, what is the impact that has when you see somebody who looks like you being killed all of the time? I don’t see this type of imagery, particularly with white people, with white bodies, and so I was asking myself as a photographer and as an engineer, how can I reimagine the Black body in a different way? How can I reimagine the Black body as a space of magic and light? That is the crux of the project. I am constantly thinking about how I can imagine and reimagine universes where people from marginalized backgrounds—particularly Black and LGBTQ people—can be full and complete individuals. It’s the same artistic impulse to reimagine and create worlds—ideal world-building—where marginalized people are full and complete individuals. 

Mikael Owunna, Sam, from the series Infinite Essence, 2018
Courtesy the artist

Hickey: Infinite Essence also creatively resists the way Black bodies are often represented in the news, and it points subtly toward the way images of Black folks under duress are sometimes seen as more “valuable” to corporate news outlets and therefore more valuable for journalists and editors, which is of course, a serious problem. But then again, journalists and editors are vulnerable to this economy of images. Do you think they have a role in resisting it?

Owunna: I absolutely do think there’s a role, and there’s an intentionality that’s played by the industry. I think about when Columbine happened, I never saw an image of a dead white teenager. With Sandy Hook, I never saw an image of one of those dead children. The media is not showing us those images. Whereas you have a relationship with Black and Brown bodies, there’s no type of respect that’s given to that body, and as mentioned, it’s open harvest for everybody.

When I was thinking about these police shooting videos that were being shared so widely, I also thought about the history of lynching photos—how photographers would take pictures of victims of lynching, and they would be sold as mementos. I was thinking about the world in which image-makers have been agents of white supremacy and are propagating it. I do think there is a responsibility, and it’s an interesting dynamic in terms of who actually has the agency in those situations. We can talk about how Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett Till’s mother, chose to display pictures of his body after he was murdered in 1955, and how that had a very different impact, because that was an intentional choice. When Michael Brown was shot and killed, and the image of his body was shared all over the media, that was not with the consent of his family as an intentional choice. And so, I do think there is completely a responsibility, a big responsibility, because images have so much power. Particularly when dealing with marginalized groups who have historically little or poor representation. If you’re filling up that vacuum with destructive images of those communities, that does have an impact. 

Mikael Owunna, 4 Queer African Women, Brooklyn, New York, from the series Limitless Africans, 2017

Traymany: Who is this series for?

Owunna: My projects are for myself, first and foremost. I do projects over the course of years. I did Limitless Africans (2019) over the course of six and a half years. I’ve been working on Infinite Essence for three years. For me, there needs to be an internal space of healing that I’m finding in order for it to be a big motivating factor. I am trying to find ways of renegotiating my relationship with my own body as a Black, queer person. I am trying to think about how I was being so deleteriously impacted by seeing these images, and so I wanted to ask, What does an expansive, beautiful representation of the Black body that I want to see, and that would heal me, look like? What could I create around that? Healing is so important for me. And that’s why the images look the way they do, because I’m trying to heal things that I felt were broken within me, and I’m trying to find that universe where we are all full and complete individuals. 

Mikael Owunna, Queer Kenyan Twins, Hamburg, Germany, from the series Limitless Africans, 2017

Hickey: In your statement about the series, you ask, “What if the only images you saw of people who looked like you were dead and dying bodies? How would that affect the way you move through the world, how would that enter (and hamper) your body?” How has Infinite Essence affected the bodies of your subjects, as well as those who view the finished work?

Owunna: When the work was shared in an NPR article last year, I got flooded with comments, particularly from other Black people. One that stuck with me was from a sixty-year-old Black woman named Annette. She emailed me and said that she’s a curvy Black woman, and she said that every single day of her life, she has hated her body. Every single day, for sixty years. And when she saw the Infinite Essence series—there is a piece with a curvy, Black woman adorned with stars—she said for the first time, she had a moment where she felt at ease with who she is. When I thought about Annette’s comment, about how she felt that sense of ease for the first time in her life seeing the image, I also thought about how works of art, even hundreds of years old, can affect the ways in which people move through the world. It informed the way I thought about the power of the image to affect community.

Mikael Owunna, Netsie, Seattle, Washington, from the series Limitless Africans, 2016

Hickey: Why do you choose photography as your medium of intervention?

Owunna: I stumbled into photography. I was studying engineering, and I was really struggling with being a queer, Nigerian immigrant. I was trying to find a creative outlet for myself, and one of my friends jokingly said, before we went to study at Oxford for the summer, “We should take pictures while we’re there!” And I was like, sure. I got a camera, and my uncle, who was an amateur photographer, gave me a lot of tools to think about photography and composition. What I didn’t realize at the time, though, was because I was in such a state of incredible depression and anxiety, I literally didn’t believe or didn’t know how to believe that someone could be queer and African and inhabit the same body. I wasn’t going to therapy, I was eighteen, I was a mess. The camera became this huge creative outlet for me at a time when I had no voice. Maybe because I wasn’t that good at drawing or painting, I suddenly had this tool that could allow me to create images of the world around me, but focus on things that could be a bit more emancipatory than what my day-to-day life was like. And so, I came into it from that perspective of wanting to escape from where I was in my life at the time.

Mikael Owunna, Gray, Amsterdam, from the series Limitless Africans, 2017

Hickey: The historical bias of photographic film is well known—specifically, the way film was originally developed to best capture lighter skin tones, and the problems that has long presented. It seems like your work is responding to that long legacy of misrepresentation of the Black body in photography, through moving beyond documentary photography, toward something more speculative and imaginative.

Owunna: I see myself as standing on the shoulders of the long tradition of Black photographers, playing with and reimagining our uses of this medium to fit our communities. With Infinite Essence, people often don’t think the pieces are photographs. People will be like, “Oh, wow, that’s great digital art!” My mom and aunt will say, “Oh, Chu Chu, your painting!” I think there’s a shift when people understand that the work is a photograph. In fact, there’s an interesting dynamic, because suddenly the way in which they respond to work and respond to the idea that this is a Black person, a Black body, when they understand that it’s a photograph, is totally different than when they think it’s a painting or a graphic. So, I think there is this dynamic that’s happening there when people respond to the work as a photograph, that can then be used as photographic evidence of “there is something different out there.” It’s right within our grasp, but it’s beyond our comprehension, because the photograph captures “reality.” It’s this new way of seeing reality that I think, because it’s understood as a photograph, can shift things.

Mikael Owunna, Sam, from the series Infinite Essence, 2018

Traymany: What is the significance of shooting in the dark? How does that help viewers, or even yourself, challenge the frame, so to speak?

Owunna: There’s a lot of difficulty with shooting in the dark, so one of the things that I’ve started doing is I focus with the light on, then I turn the lights off, and then I photograph. I press down the shutter, and the ultraviolet light will shoot out and illuminate the body for a fraction of a second, and then that’s timed to the camera sensor, which then picks up the fluorescence. I put my camera a little bit down during the shoot so I can look over. It’ll be totally dark, and this glowing figure will emerge from the darkness, and then disappear. I’m really fascinated by the way in which I think about spirit and the way I play with this idea of moving between dimensions. Because we think about the visible spectrum as one sliver of the wavelengths of light that exist. That’s all we can see, as human beings, all we will ever see. I think about how other species can see other wavelengths of light. What if we could see something different? I’m playing with the idea of what is visible and invisible to the current human experience, and ideas of what the body can represent. 

Mikael Owunna, Kinya, from the series Infinite Essence, 2017

Traymany: Your work reminds me a lot of Octavia Butler’s and adrienne maree brown’s in terms of how you “write” or, in this case, photograph yourself into the narrative. brown helped to coin the term “visionary fiction” to define genres of writing that offer us alternative worlds. Do you feel like your work is a piece of visionary fiction? Did you have Butler or brown as inspirations in creating this project?

Owunna: Actually, I was reading Butler when I was testing out different concepts. I read Kindred (1979), and I read Imago (1989), which was really good. I read some books from the Patternist series. I read four of her books and for me, the practice that I had when reading her work was in reading the characters as being Black characters. I mean intentionally, when I was reading her work, I was imagining this world, because I visualize everything when I am reading, and I imagined this world and these different figures as being Black people. Whereas I’m used to imagining science fiction figures being white people.

When I was conceptualizing the project, I was specifically referencing a quote by novelist Chinua Achebe, who was talking about the idea of the spirit in the Igbo cosmological system. One of the ideas is that we all have an internal spirit or spiritual guide called chi, and that each of our chi is one ray of the infinite essence of the sun. That’s where the title “Infinite Essence” comes from. This idea that all of our spirits are connected to something that’s far greater and deeper than what meets the eye. With Infinite Essence, I am building a universe that looks different. I am building a world where Black people are magical figures. So it’s not about it being a future, these are present Black bodies that look like this, who then add another element to the world-building that is special to the photographic medium. 

Our bodies are made from stardust. All of the iron that is used to bind oxygen in our red blood cells, in hemoglobin, comes from the explosion of supernovas. Gold is formed when two neutron stars in a binary formation spin into each other and explode. That’s why gold is rare, because this element formed from a less frequent collision of stars. I think about this idea of death and rebirth. Death and rebirth, again and again. I think about spaces of healing and these spaces of rebirth, and how we can create something new. That’s what I try to do with my work, is to think about healing and rebirth in the face of what we experience on a day-to-day basis in terms of violence. What is that world that I want to be in, that I want to imagine, that is so much bigger and so much more expansive than the limits we’ve created through hierarchy, white supremacy, capitalism? If we understood that this is what our bodies are made of, how might that change our relationships? Particularly if you come from a marginalized background, what’s possible for you? That’s what makes me excited, to think about sharing my work, and the impact I could have, just leaving it open to breathe.

Amber Hickey is a faculty fellow in American studies at Colby College. Anney Traymany is a student of critical race and ethnic studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The authors gratefully acknowledge Stella Gonzalez, who transcribed this interview.

Click here to donate to Black Liberation Organizations.

Announcing the 2020 Aperture Summer Open Artists

Seunggu Kim, 15 Globe Amaranth Festival, 2018, from the series Better Days

Aperture is pleased to announce the participating artists in the 2020 Aperture Summer Open, Information. At a moment when ideas about truth and power have been disrupted, these fourteen artists consider how photography portrays and charts our experiences of technology, politics, and the social landscape, from declassified military archives and CIA conspiracy theories, to encounters with race and memory, to the physical spaces where digital information is concealed from the public eye. Together, they broadcast new ways of viewing our present—and our future.

Javier Alvarez / Gus Aronson / Widline Cadet / Emma Cantor / Yu-Chen Chiu / Ash Garwood / Evan Hume / Seunggu Kim / Joshua Rashaad McFadden / Daniel Mebarek / Kean O’Brien / Florence Omotoyo / Rowan Renee / George Selley

The 2020 Aperture Summer Open is curated by Brendan Embser, managing editor of Aperture magazine, with Farah Al Qasimi, artist; Amanda Hajjar, director of exhibitions at Fotografiska; Kristen Lubben, executive director of the Magnum Foundation; and Paul Moakley, editor at large for special projects at TIME.

The Aperture Summer Open is an annual open-submission exhibition. Selected by a jury of leading editors, curators, and writers, the exhibition seeks to reveal and report on key themes and trends driving contemporary photography. The 2020 Aperture Summer Open is presented by Fotografiska New York. Follow @aperturefnd on Instagram and Twitter for news and updates.

Javier Alvarez, Marco Antonio, 42 years old, at his room, São Paulo, Brazil, 2016, from the series Prédio

Gus Aronson, Family Album, 2019, from the series Eurydice

Widline Cadet, Kò an Kòm yon Lokal ki Baze sou Je (The Body as a Site Based on Sight), 2019, from the series Seremoni Disparisyon (Ritual [Dis]appearances)

Emma Cantor, Surveillance Cameras, 2019, from the series The Production of Certainty

Yu-Chen Chiu, America Seen, Fort Worth, Texas, from the series America Seen

Ash Garwood, Folded and Faulted, 2020, from the series Common Fault

Joshua Rashaad McFadden, Avery Jackson, 2017, from the series Evidence

Evan Hume, Project Oxcart (A-12), 2019, from the series Viewing Distance

Daniel Mebarek, Untitled, 2020, from the series La Lucha Continua (The Struggle Continues)

Kean O’Brien, Brenda Bostick, from the series Mapping A Genocide

Florence Omotoyo, Choose love, 2019, from the series Everwhere + Nowhere

Rowan Renee, Evidence #15, 17: Misc Paper from Desk, 2019, from the series No Spirit for Me

 

George Selley, The simplest local tools, 2018, from the series A Study of Assassination

All images courtesy the artists.

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss Aperture’s new releases, latest editorial content, and more. 

On the Cover: Aperture’s “Ballads” Issue

Poster for Ballads of Sexual Dependency, by Nan Goldin, Collective for Living Cinema, New York, May 9, 1983
Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, London, and Paris

Before Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency was screened at museums around the world and published by Aperture as a now-classic photobook, there was the live event, announced on posters on the streets of Manhattan and Berlin. “As we said in those years,” Nan Goldin tells Darryl Pinckney in “Ballads,” Aperture’s Summer 2020 issue, “in the ’80s and ’90s, there was no way to see anything unless you were present.”

The Ballad was a performance, often staged in crowded, downtown bars. These were underground happenings, slideshows of almost seven hundred pictures set to music, edited and re-edited, sometimes minutes before. It could be chaotic: slides would get stuck, or projector bulbs would break. The poster on the cover of Aperture, which includes Goldin’s photograph The Hug (1980), was for a screening at Collective for Living Cinema, an artist-run cooperative in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood that showed experimental films.

In the years since Aperture published The Ballad of Sexual Dependency in 1986, Goldin’s tour de force has become an enduring model for photographers across ages and geographies, from Tokyo to New Delhi to Prague. Aperture’s summer issue takes a measure of that dynamic influence, like a song endlessly revised but always recognizable. “Everyone’s obsessed with the ’80s,” says Goldin. “But it must mean more to the kids than just that. They must be able to see themselves in The Ballad. Not just the clothes, but on some emotional level.”

Pre-order Aperture, issue 239, “Ballads,” available June 4, and subscribe to Aperture to never miss an issue.

12 Photographers on How to Survive the Lockdown

From Brooklyn to Bangladesh, what to read, watch, and listen to—and why to keep going.

Olgaç Bozalp, Funeral Flower Man, South Korea, February 4, 2020

Olgaç Bozalp

Where are you right now?

I’m in Istanbul. There’s a curfew here, sometimes three days a week, or four days a week. It changes all the time.

If you’re out on the street, they tell you to go home?

There’s a penalty if they see you. When they did it for the first time, they told everyone, maybe at eleven o’clock at night, they said there’s going to be a curfew for two days. It’s going to start at 12:00 a.m. And everybody went outside to stock up on some food. It was insane on the streets.

Then everyone’s crowding!

Yeah, exactly. I originally came here for a shoot for Dazed. I was going to stay for another week, then I was going to go back to London. Then my flight got canceled.

What was the commission for Dazed?

There’s this group of guys in Turkey, they have this kind of spiky hairstyle. They call themselves “Apache.” More of them are usually around the Mediterranean side of Turkey, and I wanted to do a documentary about them, and also wanted to photograph them for a while.

What do you think is going to happen in terms of fashion editorial work?

I think it’s already hard to make money in fashion, especially for creators. I feel like fashion is a big luxurious thing for people. This is not the priority, in my opinion, especially in times like this. Why do you need to shoot a fashion photograph? I feel like documentary photography might survive, but fashion photography will struggle.

You recently made a project for Atmos magazine about Songdo, a new city in South Korea two hours from Seoul. Why were you interested in Songdo?

I was doing research about future cities in the world, how are we going to live in the future. I was originally going to go to China before the virus. But there are other “smart” cities—I found some in Malaysia. And then I found the one in South Korea. I was curious to find out how they can be so sure how we’re going to live in the future, and I’m going to go see it with my own eyes. This was in January.

Were people in South Korea already taking precautions, like wearing masks on the street?

Extremely. It was pretty much everywhere in South Korea, every entry to metro stations, sanitizers, signs everywhere. I was wearing a mask. I shot the story in Songdo. It’s extremely expensive; they call it a ghost town. Because of the virus, it was completely empty.

Did you have a fixer there to get models for you? Or did you scout them on the street?

I showed up there by myself. I tried to find someone before I got there, but everyone said no, I think because of the virus. One of my friends introduced me to someone at one of the biggest modeling agencies, who then introduced me to an art director. He studied at Central Saint Martins in London. He did some of the set design, he took me to markets, and I photographed him as well. We kept it very simple.

Will you stay in Istanbul until you feel okay about going back to London?

First, these travel restrictions need to end, and I don’t really know when this is going to end. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the world.

What are you listening to, or engaging with, or watching at the moment?

I’m watching quite a lot of documentaries. I was actually watching a documentary on VICE about Iran, about how they are coping with the coronavirus and U.S. sanctions. And during the week, I’m mostly working on the video documentary I shot about the “Apache” guys.

Do you have any advice for photographers out there about how to keep going at the moment?

We need to look at things from a different perspective. I think everyone had ways of seeing things or looking at things in the past, and now maybe it’s time to change that perspective a little. That’s including me as well.

KangHee Kim, Quarantine, 2020

KangHee Kim

Where are you right now?

Bayside, Queens.

How are you keeping yourself creative during this time?

I make work almost every morning. I try to shoot as much as possible while running essential errands or taking walks in my neighborhood. I find experimenting with cooking keeps me creative and allows me to keep a good balance during the quarantine.

Do you have a daily routine? What are you currently working on?

I wake up pretty early in the morning. Make myself breakfast. I check my emails and clean my room. I usually work on my personal project Street Errands in the morning, because it sets me in a good state to start the day. Then I work on my commissions in the afternoon. I take walks or work out to stay mentally healthy. I end my day reading.

Do you have any advice for artists right now?

The most important thing is to stay physically and mentally healthy. The time we have due to stay-at-home orders could be utilized in a positive way for artists to really sit down and think about work. The solitary practice is absolutely needed in art, and this might be the time for us, by following the laws.

What is something you’re watching, reading, or looking at right now?

I have been listening to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo talk every morning. I am consistently reading the news. I have been reading multiple books at a time: I am currently reading Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees (2009) by Robert Irwin, Men Without Women (2017) by Haruki Murakami, and Understanding a Photograph (2013) by John Berger; and I just finished How to Be an Artist (2020) by Jerry Saltz.

Has COVID-19 changed the way you create work? 

I devote more time to creating work to overcome my anxiety. I especially spent a lot of time trying to calm myself during the peak phases. Prior to COVID-19, I had been moving my attention to photos taken outside of New York—but now I’ve turned my attention to my surroundings, such as my apartment and my neighborhood, which is where I first started my project.

As a DACA recipient, you’ve been unable to leave the U.S. in over a decade. You have described your work as constructing your own form of “surreal escapism.” This idea feels especially relevant now, with travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders. In light of what’s going on, have you been reevaluating your work?

It feels like an extreme version of what I have been dealing with. I had never imagined the world would experience stay-at-home orders. I find it outrageous to see people relating to my experience because of the travel restrictions. I realized with DACA, I was fortunate enough to be restricted in the States. Today, the ordinary is even more the extraordinary, and this is the time that I desire to construct my own form of surreal escapism more than ever. At the same time, I appreciate what is given at the moment. I will be longing for freedom, but I am curious to see how it is going to affect the way I think of my DACA situation after COVID-19.

Stefan Ruiz, Maritza Amezcua, 2017, for Vogue

Stefan Ruiz

Where are you right now?

I’m at home, in Brooklyn.

You usually travel a lot. Is this the longest time you’ve been grounded?

I don’t know if it’s the longest, but yeah, it’s kind of getting there, for sure.

What was the last commission, or the last project, you were working on right before the lockdown?

Right before the lockdown, the last thing I did was on March 15; I did a shoot for American Vogue, some portraits. We had to switch studios at the last minute. We all knew that was the last shoot for a while. Everyone knew it was coming. Everyone’s trying not to touch each other, but obviously, on a fashion shoot, you have to. The stylist is adjusting the clothes, there’s definitely hair and makeup. Social distancing doesn’t work with a fashion shoot.

Do you think people are going to have to figure out how to do their own makeup?

I’m sure people have been doing that now already, on their Instagram or YouTube videos. A lot of people you’ll see are wearing hats, but then you see someone like Cardi B, and she’s completely done up. She’s fairly savvy.

How are you keeping creative at the moment? What are you reading, what are you listening to, how are you filling your time?

I’m kind of a notorious collector, so I have all kinds of shit here. I’ve got a million things to either look at or go through, or work on, or listen to, or try to organize. Right now, actually, I’ve just been organizing books. Luckily, I traveled a lot right before this whole pandemic started. I was in Brazil for a couple weeks, and before that I was in Argentina, and then Chile. I collect records, and I bought a lot of records in Brazil.

Is there an album that you’ve recently discovered?

One I’ve been listening to a fair amount is Tim Maia. He kind of brought R&B to Brazil, and then combined it with Brazilian music in the early ’70s. He’s famous for that. For a while, he joined a cult, and he made a couple records when he was in the cult. They’re amazing. I have one of them, it’s called Racional (1975). There’s Volume 1 and Volume 2. Volume 2 is extra expensive, probably $500 or something, if you can find it [laughs]. I don’t have that one, but I have Volume 1.

Have you had any editorial commissions during this time?

I was asked to do a self-portrait for American Vogue. I didn’t really want to do a self-portrait, because there are so many selfies out there. I just took some pictures of things I was doing, or things I was seeing, and put them together and sent them.

What kind of images would you want to make now, as we move ahead?

I like doing portraits for sure, and personally, I’d like to work on some of my own stuff. In some ways, this is kind of good. At the same time, I need to make money. And I’ve been able to make money working for magazines, doing some advertising or whatever, for years. It’s kind of weird now, because that’s all just dropped out.

What personal projects are you working on?

I’ve worked a lot in Latin America on a really wide-ranging project that needs to be pulled together. Roughly, that project is about exploitation.

Do you have any advice for photographers out there right now?

I’m trying to figure it out for myself. I think it’s a great opportunity to focus on your own stuff or ideas, because there aren’t that many interruptions. Obviously, photography has become—it’s become harder and harder to make money. I think most people still need to make money one way or another. I don’t know what I could recommend for that. I would say, do probably what I’d never do, and simplify what you’re doing! And focus on it, and try to come out with something for whenever this ends.

Lieko Shiga, from the series Human Spring, 2018–19

Lieko Shiga

Where are you right now?

Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. I’m living in a part of the countryside named “small cow fields.”

How are you keeping yourself creative during this time?

I had a lot of work to do in my studio, so I’m focusing on that. And there were a lot of books I wanted to read, so now I can spend time reading them. I also talk with my friends online sometimes.

What books in particular?

The Persistence of Vision (1978) by John Varley, and many books by Jun Yonaha.

What does your daily routine look like?

7:00 a.m. — Wake up and go to the farm and work

8:30 a.m. ­— Cook breakfast and eat

9:30 a.m. — Play with the children and start work

12:00 p.m. — Cook lunch and eat

1:30 p.m. — Play with the children and work, sometimes go to the supermarket

5:30 p.m. — Take a walk with my kid

6:30 p.m. — Cook dinner and eat, then help my kid take a bath or shower

9:00 p.m. — Put the children to sleep, then go back to work, maybe focus on reading this time

12:00 a.m. — Sleep

Do you have any advice for artists right now?

The situation is very different and depends on each artist. So, I would like to say, just simply, let’s live while being considerate of others.

Are you currently working on something new?

Yes, I’m preparing some installations and video works and a garden installation. And I’ve just started Independent Bookstore Print Editions in Miyagi Prefecture.

How has the pandemic affected the arts in Japan?

I’m living in the countryside, so I don’t know the Tokyo situation well. But I guess it’s become a very precious experience to visit galleries and museums. I’m afraid that everything will shift online. The photographic image is like the “eternal present” (in the words of Bin Kimura, psychiatrist), so I’m afraid every experiment goes like a photographic image. I would like to resist the online world a little.

Matthew Leifheit, Reid Bartelme (top left), in Los Angeles, and Jack Ferver (top right), in New York, 2020, for the New York Times

Matthew Leifheit

Where are you right now?

I have been sheltering in a remote place on Fire Island, New York, with my dog and my boyfriend since the middle of March.

How are you keeping yourself creative during this time?

Ugh, I don’t know . . . If I have gotten any introspection done it comes in sort of manic flashes. I am trying to photograph. I am working on a long-term project about Fire Island, which is set at night, so at first I thought I would be getting a lot of work done here. Usually I love photographing people, but I have been challenging myself to photograph more landscapes, and this time seems perfect for that. Some nights I go out, but often it’s been very cold by the ocean and I opt to stay inside and watch a movie or read. My lab is closed, so I can’t see what I’m doing; I think some of the pictures might be good, but you really never know. There is something comforting about the undeveloped rolls starting to accumulate because in my mind, the pictures can be as brilliant as I want.

I also have a show up currently at Deli Gallery in Brooklyn, which was scheduled to open March 29, and after stay-at-home orders went into effect, it became a virtual viewing room. We had an “opening” for the show on Zoom, featuring a nude cellist playing Bach solos from his living room. We also held a poetry reading “at” the gallery in honor of the launch of my friend Paul Legault’s new book The Tower (2020), with readings by Elaine Kahn, Cole Lu, Justin Phillip Reed, and Ian Williams, in addition to Paul.

What does your daily routine look like?

Absinthe at ten, clean off my camera lenses at eleven, maraschino cherries ONLY until four, then a pickle and emails.

Is there any piece of advice you have for artists right now?

No. I feel like people are having such different experiences of the pandemic, I don’t think there is any kind of generalized advice I could give. We’re all figuring it out.

What is something you’re engaging with right now—whether reading, watching, or listening?

The website Emmazed, which is a project of the amazing Mo Mfinanga, has been hosting a Digital Discourse series of live conversations with photographers. You can watch them online on Mo’s site, which is one of my favorite places to find conversations around new photography.

I watched the movie Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997), which I heard about on the WFMU radio show Polyglot with Jesse Dorris. It’s based on the play by Terrence McNally, who died from complications of COVID in March. It’s about a group of gay friends in the mid ’90s who go to a house upstate, and the relationships and dynamics between them—and also racism and AIDS.

I also recently saw The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) and don’t know how I spent the last ten years in photography without being recommended this film. Spectacular eye acting on the part of Faye Dunaway.

You’re also a publisher of MATTE magazine. Are you working on a new issue?

Beyond attempting to make my own photographs, I am still working on the upcoming issues of MATTE, which will feature the work of Chanell Stone, an extremely talented photographer who recently graduated from California College of the Arts. I first saw her work when I was on the jury for last year’s Aperture Summer Open. Other issues will look at Leor Miller, a recent Bard graduate, who has been making amazing work related to selfhood, hallucinations, and mysticism; and Shohei Miyachi, who is a genius and my colleague at Pratt Institute. We are publishing his series Rakuen, pictures made in adult theaters in Tokyo.

You recently made a portrait for the New York Times via Zoom, which involved bathtubs in Upstate New York and LA—and you made a behind-the-scenes video for Instagram. What was your inspiration for these?

The Zoom bathtub portraits were for an article on Reid Bartelme and Jack Ferver’s podcast Dance and Stuff. As a product of the assignment, I fell in love with the podcast and feel strongly that everyone should listen to it. I had the idea of photographing them in their tubs because of an anecdote I heard on their show about staying connected with friends by FaceTiming in the tub. And my editor, Jessie Wender, trusted me enough to say that we could try this as an option if Reid and Jack liked the idea. It was a fun shoot to do, ended up working for the story, and I really think those guys are the greatest.

Pablo Ortíz Monasterio, Khajuraho, India, March 2020, from the series Sacred Beasts

Pablo Ortíz Monasterio

Where are you right now?

I was traveling in India until mid-March, taking pictures for a project called Sacred Beasts. Things started to get complicated and dangerous, so we shortened the trip. We came back from Delhi through New York; we did a strict quarantine when we finally got to Mexico City, and since then, I have been at home and sharing time with Paula, mi compañera.

What does your daily routine look like?

In the mornings, I do some exercise, gardening, lunch, read the news. The afternoon is for photographic work, editing, scanning, and retouching to get the final image—and to my surprise, social media. For a long time, I have been distant and critical of how photographs are presented and seen on social media. Most pictures end up being about composition; there is no context to read the image. The “random” order of Instagram produces visual noise and generates surface reading, anecdotes and composition, basically.

In the late 1970s, I did my first long-term project with an Indian community of fishermen on the coast of Oaxaca, the Huave. I had not seen the work since we published the book Los pueblos del viento (The people of the wind) (1981). I pulled out the old 35 mm black-and-white negatives to digitize the photos we used for the book back in 1981, and also to look for “new” pictures. The process was interesting. I was looking and thinking about the Huave people; at the same time, I was thinking about the young photographer I was back then. I can say I am not a better photographer now, but yes, I am wiser.

The confinement gave me time to start an old scanner (an Imacon), slow but very fine and precise. After three weeks of intense work, I had 150 pictures that I liked and wanted to share them. During those long hours of desk work, I was wondering if there could be a way to present a body of work that can construct a more complex view of reality on a platform like Instagram. So I gave it a try and published fifty pictures (two or three a day) on Instagram of The people of the wind. Although the trip in India had to be shortened, I brought back plenty of surprising images. My next project for Instagram is thirty pictures from the series Sacred Beasts in India.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to right now? Are there any photobooks from your collection that you’ve returned to recently?

After my first visit to India, I remained fascinated with the region, so I am reading a long essay written by Octavio Paz, beautiful and enlightening: “Vislumbres de la India” (1995). I have seen some interesting documentaries from the Ambulante Documentary Film Festival presented digitally. And a few days before the trip to India, I found at a street book vendor’s the set of six books Iglesias de México, with text and drawings by Dr. Atl and photographs by Guillermo Kahlo (Frida’s father). Published from 1924 to 1927 in Mexico, the layout and production are wonderful. It’s my new jewel, and I am fascinated with it.

Do you have any advice for artists during this time?

Work and work and have fun and work some more.

Tahia Farhin Haque, Reaching out to the other side, Dhaka, 2020, from the series Colors in Confinement

Tahia Farhin Haque

Where are you right now?

I am from Bangladesh. I am currently living in the capital city, Dhaka, where I have been at home with my family.

What does your daily routine look like?

My routine has been very different than usual. The confinement and constrictions have made it impossible to be out and explore our intriguing world, but for the betterment of others and ourselves, we have to self-quarantine. The daily routine now comprises household chores, reading books, keeping in touch with loved ones. It’s the month of Ramadan, so the preparation for the meal to break our fast and all the washing afterwards takes up a huge chunk of time. Whenever I can, I work on my visual art and enhancing my knowledge.

What have you been reading, watching, listening to, or looking at?

I have been reading Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens (2014), and I finished a book called Interpreter of Maladies (1999) by Jhumpa Lahiri. I have been watching old movies, like Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (1964) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), and listening to old Bangla and Hindi songs from the 1970s through the ’90s.

I have also been looking for opportunities to engage on Instagram with my audience and other content creators; and curating, handling, and sharing certain social-media accounts of artists/organizations that encourage artists. I have been actively sharing causes that help marginalized communities in these trying times; some of my friends are working to provide essential items, so I try to connect through social media as much as I can from my home.

Are you currently working on something new—or hoping to start or restart a project once isolation comes to an end? How you think your work will change after the pandemic?

I am working on a project called Colors of Confinement. I have also been working on a few other projects, which I will execute once the lockdown lifts and everything goes back to normal, but at the end of the day, the definition of the norm has changed, and I feel we have to be thankful and show great empathy towards each other, as well as put effort into our work to make it empathetic. My work will not change after the pandemic, but the way it is portrayed may change.

What are your concerns for artists and photographers in your community? Do you have any advice for artists during this time?

Artists and photographers are going to find themselves in a very unique space. Exhibitions and festivals may take some time to get back into full swing. Artists also now have to be aware of the projects they undertake and the medium they choose for expression. Art is always going to be there, and in times of pandemic, art will be the torchbearer for joy and hope. As artists, we need to consciously work on painting a picture that expresses the story of our collective struggle as humans and simultaneously encapsulate all the emotions involved.

I use the word empathy a lot, and I have to reiterate it again and again, to show our work in a way that is inclusive and free of bigotry. When reality is a nightmare, it’s up to the artists to bring art that can give a sense of belonging and make us feel, because humans are getting desensitized with this enormous COVID-19 crisis. It’s necessary, more than ever, to create art that is free of racism, sexism, and bigotry, and makes us feel again.

Bobby Doherty, Untitled, 2020

Bobby Doherty

Where are you right now?

I live in Brooklyn.

How are you keeping yourself creative during this time?

I’ve been making lots of photos. I like making photos on a small scale.

Do you have a daily routine?

I normally wake up and make coffee. I do a crossword in bed and drink the coffee. Then I eat breakfast. Then, I don’t know. Some days I have actual work to do, and some days I have nothing. I don’t like having set schedules.

What advice would you give to artists right now?

Go look at a flower.

Have you been listening to anything lately?

I’ve been listening to Faith (1981) by The Cure a lot.

Are you currently working on something?

Same Paper asked me to make some photos for a new magazine they’re making. The assignment was pretty simple, but I’ve had a lot of time to make it complicated!

You have been making a lot of still lifes lately—for stories about voting rights for the New York Times Magazine, “preppers” for the New York Times, and takeout for the Wall Street Journal. What’s it been like to create stories about the current situation?

Yeah, I’ve definitely been on the COVID still-life beat recently. Photo editors have just been mailing me stuff, and I’ve been shooting it in my studio. My studio is a twenty-minute walk from my apartment. I like working alone and I hate not working, so this has been a pretty good situation for me so far.

Do you feel like COVID-19 has changed certain aspects of your practice?

Well, I used to be able to shop around and find cool stuff to take pics of. That’s mostly gone. I basically just take photos of stuff I can buy from the few grocery stores in between my apartment and my studio. But I think it’s good to have creative restrictions. My pics were pretty simple before, and they’re pretty simple now.

Kathya Maria Landeros, Kimberly and Anali, Eastern Washington, 2019

Kathya Maria Landeros

Where are you right now? 

Currently, my family and I are in Medford, Massachusetts. In October, we relocated here for work. Had I known everything would go online a few months later, I probably would have considered signing a shorter lease and spending my time in California, closer to the rest of my family members and loved ones. I’m living in an apartment, but lately I’m imagining my life somewhere with outdoor space, good light, and warmer weather, in order to garden and make more pictures.

Have you been teaching this semester?

I’m very fortunate to work in the Photography Department at MassArt, where I have wonderful colleagues. Everyone made the effort to understand the needs of our students as they navigate this new landscape. There were so many circumstances to consider, from students who have lost their jobs, or were uprooted and had to find a new place to live. The shutdown occurred while we were away on spring break, so the first couple of weeks meant figuring out where everyone was and making sure they were doing well, and then trying to mold a flexible curriculum with the understanding that people may not have access to camera equipment or a reliable computer and internet access.

How did you adapt to working with your students?

That question has weighed on me heavily the past few weeks. Both classes I am teaching this semester were darkroom-based. One was black-and-white large format for second-year photo majors; and the second, an open elective called Drawing with Light, a process-based and experimental class. Large-format camerawork turned into whatever cameras they had available, and shifting entirely away from darkroom technique to a curriculum centered around discussions on making and reading photographs. At the beginning, we were looking at a lot of work by other photographers. As the weeks progressed, however, we’ve spent most of our time talking about the new images they are making at home, how they are feeling and navigating this moment in time, the challenges and surprises they are presented with.

In my elective class, we are using whatever materials are on hand, or that are readily available to purchase online. My students have used various processes, including collage, cyanotypes, anthotypes, camera obscuras, cliché verres, and shadow drawings. Their last assignment dealt with the observation of light, creating light sculptures with anything in their house that could refract light or cast shadows in interesting ways. It’s an assignment that’s focused on the act of observation and finding joy in the mundane.

How are you keeping yourself creative during this time?

My practice is very much rooted in engaging with people, and I’ve come to accept that this won’t happen for a while. In keeping my own advice to students in mind, I am trying to find the small moments of beauty and pleasure. My daughter is a young toddler and at an age where, developmentally, every day feels momentous. She inspires me to try to see things with some wonder. Weather permitting, and abiding by social-distancing measures, I try to walk with her outdoors as much as possible. Being outdoors is not only a critical component of my emotional well-being, but it’s the only time, aside from my dreams at night, when I am able to indulge and get lost in my thoughts.

What have you been reading or watching?

I recently finished reading the novel The Rain God (1984) by Arturo Islas, about a Mexican family along the U.S.-Mexico border. I am slowly perusing Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019), and I keep revisiting certain passages for their beauty of language and observation. I am also watching a show called Vida about two Mexican American sisters in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. And whenever I want to think about my grandmother and mother, or want to have a good cry while dancing with my daughter, I listen to “Amor Eterno.” Santa Cecilia’s version is especially melancholic and beautiful, although growing up, I listened to Rocio Durcal or Juan Gabriel singing it.

Are you currently working on something new—or hoping to start or restart a project once isolation comes to an end?

I’m on a Guggenheim Fellowship that was to end officially in June, and the plan was to continue photographing in Mexican American communities this summer. My hope is to carry on as soon as I can, most likely next year. In the meantime, I am editing all the work I did last summer on the fellowship and bringing the two chapters of work, Dulce and West, to a conclusion by making handmade artist books. This entails a lot of color correcting, ICC profiling, and printing, all of which I can do while working from home.

With some of my fellowship money, I recently splurged on a used Jobo tank to process large-format film in daylight. My fridge is full of film that needs to be processed and edited into something cohesive. I also have some expired darkroom paper that I plan to make sun lumens with during this time at home.

Do you have any advice for artists during this time?

This pandemic has exposed how vulnerable we are as a society and inequalities that we can’t ignore any longer. I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently, and what our postpandemic society will look like. How will artists respond to this moment? What is our responsibility for doing so? I guess it’s more a question than advice. I hope that we can absorb the magnitude of what we are living through and let it serve as a catalyst for much-needed change.

Abdo Shanan, Untitled, April 4, 2020

Abdo Shanan

Where are you right now?

I am based in Algiers. It is where I am spending these lockdown days.

What does your daily routine look like?

I try to walk as much as possible. It is really frustrating not to be able to walk as much as I did before the lockdown. Walking is an important part of my daily routine; it’s a moment of reflection for me. One thing that hasn’t changed is waking up early every day. I think that’s when I am most productive. I get some work done: research and applying for grants and funds to finish my ongoing project Dry, and to finally be able to produce a book with it. Lately, as part of my research, I have started to learn bookbinding, not that I want to be perfect at it, but I consider understanding and learning all aspects of book production an important part of research.

What are you reading, listening to, and engaging with right now?

I have been listening a lot to Tindersticks and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. For some reason, their music allows me to escape. I tried to follow some Instagram Live videos that provide interesting content about photographers and photography, but soon I became inpatient. I think part of me is refusing to accept all of this as a new reality, even if it is for a defined period. Next week, I will go back to reading The Return (2016) by Hisham Matar. I think all I am looking for is escaping.

Can you talk about the Polaroids you’ve been making and posting to Instagram?

These Polaroids came out of my need to express how I feel. I have no plans for these photos; they are just the words and phrases that I could not say in a conversation with people I am not meeting anymore. Lately, I’ve started to think that the world looks like how I felt back then, while I was working on Diary: Exile (2014–16), the same feeling of loneliness in a vast space. Only this time, I don’t think I need a flash and high-contrast black and white to show how I feel; I just have to photograph the world around me as it is, adding a bit of my feelings to the images. In this sense, the Polaroids allowed me to do that. I think it’s worth mentioning that these Polaroids are digital ones: I use a filter on my phone to make these photos. Real Polaroids becomes a luxury when you cannot travel abroad.

How do you think your work will change after the pandemic?

Not only work will change, life itself will change. On the other hand, I don’t think that the pandemic will be over anytime soon, hence I am more concerned about that period that seems to be going for longer. I cannot imagine photographing masked people—I need their full facial expressions—nor photographing people from a distance. I think about it every day. For example, I intend to finish Dry by next year. But to do so, I need to meet people, to interview them, and to photograph them at a close distance. How will it be possible? A question I need to find an answer to.

What are your concerns for artists and photographers in your community? Do you have any advice for artists during this time?

We are worried to see the government taking advantage of the situation that the pandemic created—imposing new laws restricting freedom of speech and creation under the pretext of fighting hate speech and fake news. I can see the space of freedom shrinking every day. I think as artists, we need to soldier on and work together to expand the field of the possible, as my friend Salah Badis describes freedom. We are stronger together—intellectually and physically. Power to the artists and to the souls fighting to create.

RaMell Ross, Man, which is his nickname, 2019

RaMell Ross

Where are you right now?

I’ve been solely in Providence, Rhode Island.

Are you teaching this semester?

Yes, it’s so strange. I have one class that’s been successful because it’s pretty malleable. It’s called Other Lives of Time, which I created based on this program that I made for Full Frame Documentary Film Festival at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. It looks at contemporary notions of time and poetics in fiction and nonfiction cinema. It’s about transporting your own personal relationship into cinema. So that one was fine. But my black-and-white photography class, which was all analog and in the darkroom, kind of bottomed out. So I had to recalibrate and do it over Zoom. Which was really bizarre. Everything becomes digital art on Zoom. In the darkroom, it’s about attention, and the slowness that process takes. The only way I could figure out a parallel within this short period of time was to ask students to build images, or think about photography as construction, and less as capture.

Do you think at the other end of this, there will be a greater appreciation for materiality?

That’s such a philosophical question for me. Digital interfaces activate an evolution toward that reality being desired and normal, and shift us away from the needs of being in the material world. Are we becoming more capable of finding the nuances? Or are we being prepped for a digital world? At what point does that become normal? It’s kind of scary.

How have things changed for your personal work?

I went into this whole pandemic quarantine thing with the big, American, capitalist, hyperproductivity drive, like, I’m going to do everything. I guess I underestimated the cultural, emotional, psychological shift that happened almost collectively. I haven’t been able to be as productive as I’d imagined. But I’ve been able to slow down in a new way. I think I’m always a slow, attention-to-detail-oriented person in terms of art-making. I photograph in Alabama exclusively, almost as a political statement to work in the South. I’m heading there in about three weeks. The internet there is so bad; I couldn’t go there and continue teaching remotely. Now I can go there, because I don’t have internet responsibilities.

What are your creative distractions at the moment?

I’m reading two really good books right now. One is called The Old Drift (2019) by Namwali Serpell. Holy shit! What a longitudinal masterpiece. I’m also reading The Warmth of Other Suns (2010) by Isabel Wilkerson. I love epics.

Can you tell us about this new picture Man, which is his nickname (2019)?

It fits into something I’m trying to distill into better language, but it’s quite natural to my work. I look at The New Black Vanguard (Aperture, 2019), and using that as a marker, and using this image as a marker, I’m very interested in how to display notions of what it means to be a person in the world, and then a person of color in the world, in the flow of the daily relationship to regular objects. To me, the relationship between man and the machine, and between humans and technology, like who is using whom, is also the relationship between person and society, being both an agent and an object of meaning—that is kind of what I was getting at.

Jody Rogac, Kristin, 2020

Jody Rogac

Where are you right now?

Brooklyn.

What was the last assignment you had before things changed?

It was a great one! It was for Penguin, with soccer player Megan Rapinoe. She’s coming out with a memoir, so it was a portrait session with her for the cover. Shoots were getting canceled here and there, and I was waiting for this to be canceled as well, but I’m glad it wasn’t. She was scheduled to come straight to the studio from the airport; she was flying in from Texas, I think. We all just waved at each other. No one touched. This was March 12.

Right up against the stay-at-home order.

Yeah, it was a lovely one to end on.

You had a sense then that things were slowing down?

I had a shoot booked for that Monday, which had canceled. You could just feel it in the air. That anxiety was building, that tension of people being aware of the speed of the germs, the changing air around everybody.

What professional work have you had since? 

I haven’t received any assignments to do in isolation, but I’m kind of happy with that, to be perfectly honest. I’m spending the time taking a break from thinking about making work for anyone else.

What type of work do you make for yourself?

I’m taking figure-drawing classes via Zoom and getting back into that, which is something I really enjoy and never make the time for. (It’s kind of like exercising.) I’ve been working on a book edit for a long time. I have a printer here at home, so I’m working on a sequence, and as soon as businesses are open, I’ll bring the pages to get it bound to make a dummy. I have a dog, and I live about twenty minutes from Prospect Park, so I’ve been walking him there in the mornings and just making pictures—taking the time to roam around and explore and shoot for no reason except that it’s enjoyable, which is so easy to lose sight of when you’re using photography as a way to make a living.

You were one of the organizers of Pictures for Elmhurst, a fundraiser in support of Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens. The sale of prints donated by 187 artists raised $1.3 million. How did this idea start?

In the very beginning of April, I started texting with my friend Samantha Casolari. She’s Italian, but she’s lived in New York for many years. There was a similar fundraiser in Italy, for the Pope John XXIII Hospital in Bergamo, and she was asked to donate an image for that. It started like a school project, like, wouldn’t it be cool if we could do something like that for New York? At the time, Elmhurst was getting hit so hard, it was at the epicenter of everything. The need was so urgent. So she and I and a mutual friend, Vittoria Cerciello, started hitting up our network, and one thing led to another. My partner, Matthew Booth, got involved, and so did Shayna McClelland, Eliona Cela, Stefan Durgan. We had never organized or fundraised for anything. We definitely pulled all-nighters, trying to get things ready, figuring out the website, handling the outreach to artists. I’m really surprised by the result. It shaped this whole lockdown experience for me in a way I couldn’t have expected.

What are you reading or watching that has kept you going—or kept you sane?

I’m currently watching The Last Dance, the NBA documentary. It’s so good! And I’m currently reading Labyrinths (1962) by Jorge Luis Borges—I’m loving that—and I just finished Orlando (1928) by Virginia Woolf.

What do you think is the way forward for portraiture and editorial commissions?

There’s always going to be a need for portraiture. It’s such a relevant art form. It’s just going to depend on the logistics of being careful with distance and touching—like with my shoot with Megan. I have to hope that the assignments will start coming in soon. I find it encouraging that clients are starting to reach out.

Do you have any advice, especially for younger photographers? So many students just had their last semester waylaid by the crisis. 

I think it would be the same advice, pandemic or not. Just make the work you’re passionate about. Just be fully yourself in everything you make. There are always ways to make work. Just don’t stop.

Interviews by Brendan Embser and Cassidy Paul.

Subscribe to Aperture and never miss an issue.

Is the Still Life the Form of the Moment?

Six photography curators consider images that have new resonance in the era of social distancing.

Leslie Hewitt, Riffs on Real Time (3 of 10), from the series Riffs on Real Time, 2008
© the artist and courtesy the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and Perrotin

Time during shelter-at-home seems to be on perpetual repeat, as days slip into weeks and—can it really be?—into months. Some say photography freezes time, but Leslie Hewitt calls her photographic series Riffs on Real Time, begun in 2002, a durational work, because she combines seemingly unrelated materials from different eras to continually make new meanings. She creates, then photographs, temporary arrangements of books, magazines, snapshots, and other printed materials against a backdrop of colorful shag carpets or well-worn wood floors. Time works in different registers in Hewitt’s series. We peer back in time through printed ephemera (from Ebony, Jet, and other Civil Rights–era publications), but we know that the arrangement itself is fleeting. We bring our own present-day associations to each work, so each reading is, in essence, time-stamped.

In these works, world events and personal events are collapsed, and Hewitt’s juxtapositions speak to dislocation and repetition, feelings all too familiar now. Hewitt’s neatly arranged still life seen here features a seemingly ordinary snapshot of a man in shorts barbecuing in a park (remember BBQs?) atop a magazine page featuring Walter Cronkite reporting the news. I study the JPEG on my screen, its slight pixilation a far cry from the actual work’s crisp description. I scan my visual memory for what it was like to experience this work in person. I wish more than ever that I could see this artwork in the flesh. I think back to when I first showed this series over a decade ago (that seems like a lifetime ago), and if during our many conversations over the years, Hewitt told me about the man in the snapshot. Is it her father, an uncle, a friend, or a stranger? Those shorts are pretty short, so it must be the 1970s or ’80s. But I digress. As I “read” the photograph rather than just look at it, I wonder what kinds of magazines, snapshots, news items, and ephemera will become the mementos of our own distinctive time. I wonder what riffs on tomorrow will look like.

— Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

Shikanosuke Yagaki, Still Life, 1930–39
© the artist and courtesy Tate

A successful banker, Shikanosuke Yagaki was a self-trained Japanese photographer active in the amateur camera clubs of Osaka and Kyoto throughout the 1930s. In Still Life (1930–39), Yagaki captured an after-dessert moment on a Western-style dining table one afternoon, when the sun cast bright light over glassware, a service bell, and a matchbox. In the left half of the photograph, he let the light choreograph shadows to reveal the objects’ textures and structures. Yagaki was known for his dynamic experiments with light, natural or artificial, and its potential to sculpt space in his pictures of modern life.

Without professional training, Yagaki developed a sophisticated photographic style, which combined the influence of European modernism with everyday subjects he found in Japanese urban settings in the early Shōwa era. In 1931, the Werkbund exhibition Film und Foto—originally staged in Stuttgart in 1929 and featuring the work of artists such as László Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, and Man Ray—traveled to Osaka and had an impact on photographers like Yagaki who embodied the importance of amateur camera clubs as a dominant force in the new photography movement, known as Shinko Shashin, in 1930s Japan. His gaze at modernity, seen in his depiction of chaos, speed, and modern materials and structures, resulted in gelatin-silver prints considered radically avant-garde at that time. Aware of the transformative role of photography in modern visual culture emerged around the world, Yagaki unearthed unexpected beauty in the everyday.

— Yasufumi Nakamori, Senior Curator of International Art (Photography), Tate Modern, London

Bill Owens, Tidy Bowl, Walnut Creek, 1979
© the artist and courtesy the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

There is a lot of attention being paid to toilets these days, which can serve as refuges from the clamorous family members or annoying roommates with whom we might currently be sheltering, as well as places to store all that toilet paper we’ve been hoarding. Historically, toilets have also been sources of artistic inspiration. Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) is the ur–example, of course, but there is also Edward Weston’s iconic Excusado (1925), a sensuous study of a porcelain throne. In the best-known version, Weston photographed his commode from below, emphasizing the architectonic shape of the bowl and base. A modernist tour de force, the elegant composition is stripped of any unnecessary detail.

Bill Owens took a different angle in his Tidy Bowl, Walnut Creek (1979), looking right down the tube, so to speak, to capture the vantage he would have had when making use of this particular facility. It is a hilarious riff on Weston, replacing clean lines with jarring suburban clutter. Here, a blood-red seat is offset by claustrophobic 1960s floral wallpaper and an incongruous pair of decorations carefully set out on an olive hand towel. They include a pink silk rose anchored by a rust-colored ribbon next to a small plaster replica of Vincenzo de Rossi’s Hercules and Diomedes from the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, a sculpture known for the unique choice of handhold deployed by one of the wrestlers. People often put their naughty art in the powder room to titillate their guests. That figurine certainly would have made too much of a statement on the coffee table.

—Erin O’Toole, Baker Street Foundation Associate Curator of Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Uta Barth, . . . and of time . (AOT 4), 2000
© the artist and courtesy J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

In 2000, the J. Paul Getty Museum invited eleven artists, including photographer Uta Barth, to create work in response to objects in the institution’s collection. Finding inspiration in Claude Monet’s Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning (1891)—a painting that demonstrates how light alters the perception and appreciation of a subject—Barth created a series of multipart photographs that examine how daylight streams through her living-room window.

Her not-quite-stereoscopic diptych . . . and of time . (AOT 4) (2000), presents two subtle variations of the same scene: a sparsely appointed interior bathed in warm, soft light. In both images, the outlines of a paned window are cast against a wall, floating over the cushions of a vibrant, yellow sofa like specters. A paper lamp appears suspended in the upper right corner of one image. By relegating these tangible objects to the edges of the frames, Barth emphasizes the negative space in the room, as well as how light can help to reorient our perception of the familiar, transforming the spaces we inhabit into unconventional scenes.

The contents of Barth’s home, from furniture to small ornaments and vessels, have regularly featured in her work for over two decades. But the real pursuit of these visual investigations concerns the act of looking itself. Prolonged observation, especially when applied to one’s immediate surroundings, can encourage reflection and a more nuanced understanding of the mundane. In this moment of collective pause, appreciation of the still life and the careful looking it involves has never felt more relevant.

—Arpad Kovacs, Assistant Curator, Department of Photographs, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Joanne Leonard, Portrait, Plant, and Fishbowl, Corean’s Home, West Oakland, CA, 1970
© the artist and courtesy The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Joanne Leonard’s photographs of home interiors from the 1960s and ’70s attend to corners, nooks, shelves, niches, countertops, and note boards by the telephone strewn with to-do lists, messages, and bills to pay: repositories for things that are indispensable, if not immediately alluring. Leonard has said that “feminism is something like a filter” and “a tool for looking at what’s missing”—an outlook that is evident in her approach to still life as a feature of a practice she has called “intimate documentary.”

This photograph is from a series of interiors of the house of her friend Corean, a neighbor in West Oakland, California, where Leonard lived from 1963 to 1972. The woman’s portrait that centers this picture seems to order everything around it. Spanning two walls, the portrait sees the room. So often the place for icons, shrines, and altars, corners are a space for almost-sacred items. Corean’s corner objects all require care. Arranged on a vertical axis, facing Leonard’s camera, they appear stacked, forming an architecture of ascending registers. The houseplant’s foliage ornaments the portrait without obscuring it, separating it from the rest of the room and reinforcing its pride of place.

Often, Leonard’s photographs are also composed to offer a vantage onto a slice of an adjacent space. Here, elements from the margins of the picture—a mirrored shelf, a calendar portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the next room—inform the central arrangement, testifying to the power afforded images and sites of display. Photographic still lifes can communicate the values encoded in objects. Leonard recognized the artful disposition of Corean’s domestic décor, and the camera enabled her to transmit its visual intelligence beyond the private sphere of the home.

—Phil Taylor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Jimmy DeSana, Baseball, 1985–86
Courtesy the Estate of Jimmy DeSana and Salon 94

In 1985, shortly after having his spleen removed due to complications from AIDS, the New York–based photographer Jimmy DeSana began making still lifes, a genre that for centuries has expressed both the abundance and transitoriness of life and earthly goods. As a central figure in the East Village arts and music scenes during the previous fifteen years, DeSana had made his name creating portraits and vivid tableaux of nude figures in domestic interiors. No longer able to produce such elaborate scenes because of his health, as well as his increasing dissatisfaction with representations of queer bodies in the media, he turned to abstraction, using household objects, colored gels, cutouts, collage techniques, and multiple negatives.

Take, for example, Baseball (1985–86), a chartreuse-hued photograph of an orb perched on a flat-top pyramid. At first glance, the work is a formal study in light, color, and shape that recalls an ancient monument through its unclear scale. Yet those familiar with DeSana’s work might also be reminded of one of his last self-portraits from the same year, in which a long, curved scar on his torso, bathed in red light, evokes the thick stitches on a baseball.

This sort of ambiguity became increasingly important to DeSana. To many, art about AIDS is synonymous with AIDS activism. Relatively shy and taciturn, DeSana performed his own form of activism in the way he knew best: using photography to question representation, taste, and ideology. “If I could do a show that confused people so much, that was so ambiguous that they didn’t know what to think, but they felt sort of sickened by it and also entertained,” DeSana told his friend and fellow artist Laurie Simmons in an interview shortly before he passed away in 1990, “then for me that would capture the moment that we’re going through right now.”

— Drew Sawyer,  Phillip Leonian and Edith Rosenbaum Leonian Curator, Photography, Brooklyn Museum

Subscribe to Aperture and never miss an issue.

Los Angeles without Angelenos

Taken during shelter-in-place orders, Pascal Shirley’s aerial pictures of LA are full of poetic foreboding.

By Glen Helfand

Pascal Shirley, 110 South, Los Angeles, 2020

When Los Angeles issued shelter-in-place orders on March 15, due to the coronavirus crisis, something really changed about this car-centric city. The streets were suddenly empty. It had just rained, a situation that created some of the best air quality in decades, the skies crisply clear and the hills and golf courses spring verdant, while the parking-lot trees were lush and blooming. The highway calm was deceptively serene—travel that ordinarily would take time, patience, and the company of a lengthy podcast was navigable in minutes.

Maria Wyeth, the depressive, freeway-addicted antiheroine of Joan Didion’s 1970 novel Play It As It Lays, would have had a field day going nowhere even faster. When you can move freely, the terrain takes on different qualities, our perception of space and time shifts.

There’s even more latitude when you head upwards.

Photographer Pascal Shirley had the inspiration—and the right connection to a pilot, Alex Freidin—to seize the moment and survey the initial dazed shock of catastrophe. In a series of midmorning helicopter flights, Shirley went up with his 100-megapixel medium-format camera in those first days of lockdown. His pictures of sunny abandonment are documents of a deceptively low-impact disaster, and full of poetic foreboding.

Pascal Shirley, Covid Testing, Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, 2020

Aerial photography, of course, exudes greatness in its sweep. In LA, the helicopter is the vehicle that reports traffic or chases criminals through neighborhoods on sunny afternoons. From the ground, this is all ordinary and perhaps frayed, trash cans on the curb, decently tended yards, but looking down from the heights, those streets look so clean and geometrically contained.

Skimming the sky above downtown provides a full daylight view of empty lanes on the highway headed downtown. The electronic sign offers a message of minimalism: “COVID-19 / LESS IS MORE / AVOID GATHERINGS.” Nearby, there is a curving line of cars arcing through the Dodger Stadium parking lot, as passengers wait for a drive-through coronavirus test. Orange traffic cones, like little pushpin markers, create a flimsy but heeded route. It’s as if the vehicles were getting in formation for  a Busby Berkeley car commercial. But this is serious. There are subtle skids from failed doughnut spins and the thin lines that demarcate parking spots.

Culture is on hold, perhaps imperiled. Wilshire Boulevard right in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is desolate and cluttered with parallel lines—street markings, palm trees, and Chris Burden’s iconic public sculpture Urban Light (2008), which appears as an orderly cluster of spindles. There are no group selfies in action at this tourist magnet, just one lone man at the corner of the piece; perhaps he’s a security guard dispatched for this unique moment. To the right, you can see a patch of construction fence—old structures would be demolished a few days later to make room for an expensive and controversial new building. Spectators were few.

Pascal Shirley, Urban Light, LACMA, Los Angeles, 2020

Up on the Sunset Strip, the sun still shines on building-size billboards for big movies that won’t be released anytime soon, at least not in theaters. The Hollywood Bowl is empty, as it will remain, for the first time in almost a hundred years, for a full summer season. In less identifiable locations, recently painted parking lots for malls and workplaces are geometric abstractions punctuated by blooming trees.

These places follow architecture critic Reyner Banham’s famous “four ecologies” of the city: the freeway system, Autopia, like an attraction at Disneyland (a site that Shirley and Freidin also zoomed over); the mansion-studded Foothills; the flat, boring neighborhoods dubbed The Plains of Id; and the beaches and beach towns of Surfurbia.

Headed towards the ocean, the beach at Santa Monica is a smooth, blank canvas for the shadows of clouds and the helicopter—its whirling blades register a tiny, soft blur on the sand. And out to sea, four cruise ships sit, socially distanced, like cats lounging on a hazy morning. Only they’re now emblems of mortality, of endangered economics, leisure, and life itself.

The sinister, sublime nature of these photographs is unlike the eco-horror overhead views of Edward Burtynsky’s Nickel Tailings (1996) and strip mines. Neither is it Andreas Gursky or Florian Maier-Aichen digitally removing things in order to amplify the oddness of contemporary life. Shirley described the experience of flying over the city as something akin to “watching a movie.” Though, as Cardi B so succinctly put the pandemic era, this shit is real.

Pascal Shirley, Port of Los Angeles, 2020

Pascal Shirley, Citadel Outlets Mall, Los Angeles, 2020

Pascal Shirley, North Beach, Santa Monica, 2020

Pascal Shirley, School Playground, East Los Angeles, 2020

Pascal Shirley, Public Playground, South Los Angeles, 2020

Pascal Shirley, Cruise Ships, Los Angeles Harbor, 2020

Glen Helfand is an associate professor at California College of the Arts in Oakland, California. All photographs courtesy the artist and Alex Freidin/Hangar 21 Helicopters.

Dress for What Job?

As millions file for unemployment, a large-scale exhibition explores the meanings of workwear.

By Sara Knelman

Irving Penn, Les Garçons Bouchers, Paris, 1950
© Condé Nast

Though often designed for function or protection, the uniform is also always symbolic. Each element of its specifics, from cut to color, court assumptions: about class, gender and sexuality, cultural heritage, and other markers of human experience and perspective. Full disclosure: I’ve only worn a uniform for one brief period, when I attended a private Anglican girls school for two years in junior high, a fact I rarely mention and a time I’ve opted largely to forget. The grey box-pleat skirt, tar-flapped white shirt (like a sailor’s) and maroon tie marked me out in ways that made me viscerally conscious of the privileged identity these clothes bestowed, and also of the ways I seemed to betray them. A uniform, after all, can denote the wearer as belonging to something just as much as it can indicate their status as an outsider.

Song Chao, Miners, 2000–02
© the artist

It’s this murky paradox that sparked curator Urs Stahel’s most recent exhibition UNIFORM: INTO THE WORK / OUT OF THE WORK, staged at MAST Foundation in Bologna, Italy. (The exhibition is currently closed to the public, but I was able to watch a video tour with the curator and read the accompanying catalogue.) “The Italian language has two words for this,” Stahel writes in the catalogue, ‘uniforme’ and ‘divisa.’ One word strongly emphasizes the unifying aspect, the oth­er highlights the dividing aspect, the aspect of separation. They show inclusion and exclusion to be two related, connected actions.” UNIFORM brings together imagery made by more than forty photographers across a range of sociohistorical contexts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from iconic portraiture and documentary work to more experimental, even fantastical, contemporary projects.

Florian Van Roeke, Chapter Three, V, from the series How Terry likes his Coffee, 2010
© the artist

Yet no one could have imagined, while conceiving of the show, the ways in which this historical moment has sharpened an awareness of the uniform. From the shortage of lifesaving personal protective equipment for doctors and nurses, hospital workers, and first responders, to the new heroism of grocery store employees, to the sudden market for fashionable face masks, the uniform has become a savior and a comfort. It is also a stark reminder of the perils and inequity of a class system that forces service-industry workers to risk their lives while others trade white collars for upscale loungewear in the refuge of the work-from-home world.

Paola Agosti, Forlì, Giovane operaia ferraiola in cantiere (Young iron worker), 1978
© the artist

Photography, like the uniform, can generate a visual order, deploying aesthetic uniformity—of backdrop, lighting, scale—to lend a sense of equality to diverse subjects. The exhibition is grounded by iconic twentieth-century projects that take such an approach. August Sander’s Rigger (1930) and a pair of Irving Penn’s Small Trades works from 1950 betray almost painterly traces of work in regal full-length portraits: blood and knives littering the aprons of a pair of butchers, the bulging eyes of a dead fish hanging limp in the hand of the fishmonger, a loosely gripped wrench. By contrast, Paola Agosti’s documentary project from the 1970s breaks away from the tightly structured image, exploring the rise of women laboring in Italian factories—wearing typically male attire in typically male arenas—such as the striking image Forlì (1978), of a young iron worker donning short hair and a jumpsuit.

Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Trabajadores del fuego (Fire Workers), 1935
© Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo

The functional garb of factory workers and tradespeople seems designed for ease of movement and to keep a layer of clothes beneath clean. Presciently, the exhibition also includes a cluster of work looking at the protective capacity of the uniform. In Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s The Fire Workers, Mexico (1935), two figures walk through a frame that resembles a sci-fi future. In another image, from Sonja Braas’s series An Abundance of Caution (2015), three eerily empty hazmat suits hold their shapes, as though their wearers have vanished, giving way to an unnamable lurking anxiety—the virus as metaphor.

Helga Paris, from the series Women at the Treff-Modelle Clothing Factory, 1984
© the artist

Clothing made to suit a trade, craft, or profession gives way, in the postwar era, to the corporate clerk—en masse, the infantry of consumer culture. Barbara Davatz’s series Beauty lies within. Portraits form a globalised fashion world (2007) is named for a clichéd slogan that used to be printed on H&M shopping bags. Davatz photographed eighty-one H&M employees in her studio, creating a kind of ethnographic study of globalized youth culture and of the aesthetic of mass-produced “fast fashion.” Marianne Mueller, whose work often explores otherwise overlooked everyday environments, captures portraits of the youngest employees of Migros, a Switzerland supermarket chain and that country’s largest employer. Each sitter is set before an orange backdrop—the striking, even overwhelming brand color of the corporation. Presented as large photographic grids, both projects evoke a struggle between homogenization and originality, the same forces at play as our eyes search among the portraits for marks of similarity and difference.

Rineke Dijkstra, Olivier, Camp Rafalli, Calvi, Corsica, June 18, 2001
Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

Do we choose uniforms as a reflection of belief or value, or do they shape us? Rineke Dijkstra’s series Oliver (2000–03) tracks a young legionnaire, Olivier Silva, through three years of training, his adolescent innocence in the first image giving way to the appearance of hardened authority in the last. Dijkstra, whose work frequently traces moments of transformation, frames Olivier’s shifting identity in ways that appear both melancholy and deceptive. It’s hard not to mourn the boy whose worldview seems to have altered so radically. And yet, what does a sharply pressed uniform and a military haircut tell us about his character? The suit, like the photograph, is only an image.

Walead Beshty, University Museum Preparator, Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 27, 2009
Courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles

The exhibition has a coda of sorts, a projection of the art world’s more eccentric “uniform.” The voluminous installation includes 364 images of art-world professionals by Los Angeles–based artist Walead Beshty, who’s been amassing an archive of portraits for over a decade of individuals with whom he has worked. As curator, Stahel opted to organize the images according to their primary art-world activity: artist, curator, collector, arts administrator, et cetera (Beshty’s larger archive of 1,400 images and counting is ordered chronologically). Stahel’s catalogue text on them suggests the dream of an art-world counterculture, an “anti-uniform,” albeit an idea which “risks achieving the opposite.” Though moving as a gesture of acknowledgement and collaboration of often unseen labor, I’m not sure what one might glean from such a presentation sociologically, beyond the markers of exclusion and privilege that often inflect cultural work.

Installation view of UNIFORM at MAST Foundation, Bologna, Italy, 2020, with Marianne Mueller’s video Portraits (Guards), 2010–12

Other, spectral museum workers appear in the main exhibition. At various junctions in the show, visitors also encounter Mueller’s series Portraits (Guards) (2010–12), life-size video portraits of uniformed guards, watching over them from strategically placed screens. (All the subjects are real-life museum guards from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, for which the work was originally made.) As an installation, they force a confrontation and consideration that doesn’t often occur between spectator and custodian. Though the installation itself is difficult to fully appreciate via digital documentation, it’s also one of the most affecting—the vision of these apparitions still guarding the work set against the question of what has happened to them, and others like them, amidst the mass closure of cultural institutions the world over. 

Sara Knelman is an educator, curator, and writer living in Toronto.  

UNIFORM: INTO THE WORK / OUT OF THE WORK opened at MAST Foundation, Bologna, Italy, on January 25; the museum is currently closed due to the coronavirus crisis. See the museum’s website for updates.