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The Notion of Family
In this, her first book, LaToya Ruby Frazier (born 1982) offers an incisive exploration of the legacy of racism and economic decline in America's small towns, as embodied by Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier's hometown. The work also considers the impact of that decline on the community and on her family, creating a statement both personal and truly political--an intervention in the histories and narratives of the region that are dominated by stories of Andrew Carnegie and Pittsburgh's industrial past, but largely ignore those of black families and the working classes. Frazier has set her story of three generations--her Grandma Ruby, her mother and herself--against larger questions of civic belonging and responsibility. The work also documents the demise of Braddock's only hospital, reinforcing the idea that the history of a place is frequently written on the body as well as the landscape.
With The Notion of Family, Frazier knowingly acknowledges and expands upon the traditions of classic black-and-white documentary photography, enlisting the participation of her family, and her mother in particular. As Frazier says, her mother is "co-author, artist, photographer and subject. Our relationship primarily exists through a process of making images together. I see beauty in all her imperfections and abuse." Frazier's work reinforces the idea of image-making as a transformative act, a means of resetting traditional power dynamics and narratives, both those of her family and those of the community at large. Frazier is a 2014 Guggenheim fellow.
With The Notion of Family, Frazier knowingly acknowledges and expands upon the traditions of classic black-and-white documentary photography, enlisting the participation of her family, and her mother in particular. As Frazier says, her mother is "co-author, artist, photographer and subject. Our relationship primarily exists through a process of making images together. I see beauty in all her imperfections and abuse." Frazier's work reinforces the idea of image-making as a transformative act, a means of resetting traditional power dynamics and narratives, both those of her family and those of the community at large. Frazier is a 2014 Guggenheim fellow.
156 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 2014
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About the author
LaToya Ruby Frazier
7 books5 followersLaToya Ruby Frazier was born in 1982 in Braddock, Pennsylvania. Her artistic practice spans a range of media, including photography, video, performance, installation art and books, and centers on the nexus of social justice, cultural change, and commentary on the American experience. In various interconnected bodies of work, Frazier uses collaborative storytelling with the people who appear in her artwork to address topics of industrialism, Rust Belt revitalization, environmental justice, access to healthcare, access to clean water, Workers’ Rights, Human Rights, family, and communal history. This builds on her commitment to the legacy of 1930s social documentary work and 1960s and ’70s conceptual photography that address urgent social and political issues of everyday life.
Frazier’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at institutions in the US and Europe, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art; Seattle Art Museum; The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; Musée des Arts Contemporains, Grand-Hornu, Belgium; CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, France; Carré d’Art – musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes, France; The Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh; The August Wilson Center, Pittsburgh; The Frost Art Museum, Miami; The Musée d’art Moderne, Luxembourg; and The Newcomb Museum at Tulane University, New Orleans.
In 2015, her first book about how she, her mother and grandmother survived environmental racism in historic steel mill town Braddock Pennsylvania, The Notion of Family (Aperture, 2014) received the International Center for Photography Infinity Award. In 2017 Frazier published And From The Coaltips A Tree Will Rise which expanded on her collaboration with a historic coalmining village in Borinage Belgium at Musée des Arts Contemporains, Grand-Hornu, Belgium. In 2020 Frazier received the Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award for her eponymous book published by Mousse publishing and MUDAM Luxembourg, which expanded on her exhibition at Mudam Luxembourg Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean and that same year Frazier published The Last Cruze, which expanded upon a 2019 exhibition at the Renaissance Society about her collaboration with autoworkers in historic labor union UAW Local 1112 in Lordstown, OH. That same year, Frazier was named the inaugural recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book prize for her book Flint Is Family In Three Acts about how working-class families survived the man-made water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
Her work is held in numerous public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem; Brooklyn Museum; The Bronx Museum of the Arts; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; The Baltimore Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles; Seattle Art Museum; Dallas Art Museum; Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto; Nasher Museum of Art; Princeton Art Museum; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and many others.
Frazier is the recipient of many honors and awards including an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Edinboro University (2019); an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute (2017); fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s MacArthur Fellows Program (2015), TED Fellows (2015), and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2014); and the Gwendolyn Knight & Jacob Lawrence Prize from the Seattle Art Museum (2013). In 2015, the Allegheny County Council, Pennsylvania, awarded Frazier a Proclamation thanking her for “examining race, class, gender and citizenship in our society and inspiring a vision for the future that offers inclusion, equity and justice to all.”
Frazier’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at institutions in the US and Europe, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art; Seattle Art Museum; The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; Musée des Arts Contemporains, Grand-Hornu, Belgium; CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, France; Carré d’Art – musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes, France; The Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh; The August Wilson Center, Pittsburgh; The Frost Art Museum, Miami; The Musée d’art Moderne, Luxembourg; and The Newcomb Museum at Tulane University, New Orleans.
In 2015, her first book about how she, her mother and grandmother survived environmental racism in historic steel mill town Braddock Pennsylvania, The Notion of Family (Aperture, 2014) received the International Center for Photography Infinity Award. In 2017 Frazier published And From The Coaltips A Tree Will Rise which expanded on her collaboration with a historic coalmining village in Borinage Belgium at Musée des Arts Contemporains, Grand-Hornu, Belgium. In 2020 Frazier received the Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award for her eponymous book published by Mousse publishing and MUDAM Luxembourg, which expanded on her exhibition at Mudam Luxembourg Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean and that same year Frazier published The Last Cruze, which expanded upon a 2019 exhibition at the Renaissance Society about her collaboration with autoworkers in historic labor union UAW Local 1112 in Lordstown, OH. That same year, Frazier was named the inaugural recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book prize for her book Flint Is Family In Three Acts about how working-class families survived the man-made water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
Her work is held in numerous public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem; Brooklyn Museum; The Bronx Museum of the Arts; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; The Baltimore Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles; Seattle Art Museum; Dallas Art Museum; Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto; Nasher Museum of Art; Princeton Art Museum; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and many others.
Frazier is the recipient of many honors and awards including an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Edinboro University (2019); an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute (2017); fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s MacArthur Fellows Program (2015), TED Fellows (2015), and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2014); and the Gwendolyn Knight & Jacob Lawrence Prize from the Seattle Art Museum (2013). In 2015, the Allegheny County Council, Pennsylvania, awarded Frazier a Proclamation thanking her for “examining race, class, gender and citizenship in our society and inspiring a vision for the future that offers inclusion, equity and justice to all.”
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 30, 2015
What is especially remarkable is that the documenting of life in a black working class rust belt town is happening from the inside rather than the outside. Sobering, challenging, necessary portraits of lives we rarely see documented with such care.
March 22, 2024
I am no stranger to the depths and evils of industry betrayal, how a former industrial town becomes a ghost of itself and drags down the people along with it, but I have never seen such a documentation. I think of my own towns in Southwest Virginia, empty storefronts and resentful people, my mom’s stories of a once thriving Youngstown, watching it fall to the same emptiness. To have seen it and felt it and made such art from it!
May 24, 2024
I still love this collection and message years later.
October 25, 2016
A visual socio-economic, anthropologic view of one's woman self, family, and community.
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October 28, 2016779.2092 F8488 2016
June 7, 2017
Important work from my hometown.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews