Category Archives: PHOTOGRAPHY

PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA IN CONVERSATION

The subjects in [my] early portraits were friends or acquaintances I was just getting to know, some of whom would become good friends, some with whom I would eventually lose touch. Some I have reconnected with. It was important in deciding to make portraits that they be of people with whom I desired friendship, platonic or romantic relationships. It was also a conscious decision that, regardless of the nature of our connection, the photographs would depict them as if they were, could be, or had been a lover. I wanted that kind of desire to be the foundation, to go all the way and then negotiate back.Paul Mpagi Sepuya*

PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA—the artist’s first institutional monograph—is out now. Co-published by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and Aperture, the book surveys Sepuya’s various photographic series over the last ten years, and features essays by Malik Gaines, Lucy Gallun, Ariel Goldberg, Lisa Melandri, Evan Moffitt, and Grace Wales Bonner, with an artist interview by curator Wassan Al-Khudhairi.

For a discussion presented by Printed Matter in anticipation of its forthcoming virtual book fair, Sepuya will join Al-Khudhairi in conversation. See link below to register for this online event.

PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA IN CONVERSATION

Printed Matter

Monday, December 14.

5 pm on the West Coast; 8 pm East Coast.

*“Interview with Paul Mpagi Sepuya by Wassan Al-Khudhairi,” in PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA (St. Louis: Contemporary Art Museum; New York: Aperture, 2020).

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, May 17, 2019–August 18, 2019; Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, October 19, 2019–March 14, 2020. Organized by Wassan Al-Khudhaiti, chief curator, with Misa Jeffereis, assistant curator.

Paul Mpagi Sepuya, from top: Darkroom Mirror (_2070386), 2017; Self Portrait Holding Joshua’s Hand, 2006; A Portrait (0X5A6109), 2017; Mirror Study (4R2A0857), 2016; Studio Wall (_1000021), 2018; A Portrait (File0085), 2015 [Evan Moffitt]; Paul Mpagi Sepuya exhibition catalog cover courtesy and © Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and Aperture, image—Darkroom Mirror (_2060999), 2017 (detail)—© the artist; Paul Mpagi Sepuya, The Conditions, Team Gallery, New York, installation view—Sepuya’s Model Study (0X5A3973), 2017 at left—photograph by Jason Mandella, image courtesy the artist and Team Gallery; A Portrait (0X5A8325), 2018; Orifice (0X5A6982), 2018; Aperture (_2140020), 2018. Images © Paul Mpagi Sepuya, courtesy of the artist.

ZANELE MUHOLI — TATE MODERN

My practice as a visual activist looks at black resistance—existence as well as insistence. Most of the work I have done over the years focuses exclusively on black LGBTQIA and gender-nonconforming individuals making sure we exist in the visual archive… The key question that I take to bed with me is: what is my responsibility as a living being—as a South African citizen reading continually about racism, xenophobia, and hate crimes in the mainstream media? This is what keeps me awake at night. — Zanele Muholi

ZANELE MUHOLI—the first comprehensive survey of the work of the photographer and visual activist—is now on view in London.

See link below for exhibition details. Also, watch a conversation between Muholi and Lady Phyll.

ZANELE MUHOLI

Through June 6.

Tate Modern

Bankside, London.

Zanele Muholi, Tate Modern, November 5, 2020–June 6, 2021, from top: Qiniso, The Sails, Durban, 2019; Beloved V, 2005; Sistahs, 2003; Bona, Charlottesville, 2015; Tommy Boys, 2004; Thembeka I, New York, Upstate, 2015; ID Crisis, 2003; Miss D’vine II, 2007; Vile, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2015. Images © Zanele Muholi, courtesy of the artist, Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg, and Yancey Richardson, New York.

MING SMITH IN CONVERSATION

Wondrous stuff crops up in her imagery, stuffing itself into her sight. — Gordon Parks on Ming Smith

Join CAAM and Aperture for a conversation with Ming Smith on the occasion of the imminent publication of her book, Ming Smith: An Aperture Monograph. The artist will be joined by the book’s editor Brendan Embser, and contributors Yxta Murray and Namwali Serpell.

Smith’s monograph is copublished by Aperture and Documentary Arts. Signed copies are available for purchase at Eso Won Books. See link below to r.s.v.p. to the online discussion.

MING SMITH IN CONVERSATION

California African American Museum

Thursday, November 12.

5 pm on the West Coast; 8 pm East Coast.

Ming Smith, from top: Self Portrait (Total), 1986, courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery; America Seen Through Stars and Stripes, New York City, New York Painted, 1976, courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery; God, Mary, JesusPittsburgh, 1991, from the series August Moon for August Wilson; Desire, 1988, from the Transcendence Series, courtesy Jenkins Johnson Gallery; Ming Smith: An Aperture Monograph (2020) spread and cover images courtesy and © the artist and Aperture (2); Me as Marilyn, 1991; Beauty, Coney Island, 1976, courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery; Sun Ra Space II, New York City, 1978, courtesy Jenkins Johnson Gallery; Oopdeedoo, Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY, circa 1972, courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery. Images © Ming Smith, courtesy of the artist.

REYNALDO RIVERA AND CHRIS KRAUS

Coincident with the exhibition of his works in the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. 2020 biennial, Reynaldo Rivera will join Chris Kraus—who wrote a contributing essay for the forthcoming monograph Reynaldo Rivera: Provisional Notes for a Disappeared City—in conversation as part of ArtCenter’s online Graduate Art Seminar series.

For r.s.v.p. information, see link below.

REYNALDO RIVERA and CHRIS KRAUS

ArtCenter Graduate Art Seminar

Tuesday, November 10.

7:30 pm on the West Coast; 10:30 am East Coast.

A signed limited edition of Reynaldo Rivera—which Includes a 7 x 7 archival pigment print on Canson Platine of Gaby and Melissa at La Plaza, 1993—is available.

Reynaldo Rivera, from top: Performers la Plaza,1992; Made in L.A. 2020: a version, Hammer Museum, installation views (2), photographs by Joshua White / JWPictures.com; Reynaldo Rivera: Provisional Notes of a Disappeared City cover image courtesy and © the artist and Semiotext(e); Chris Kraus; backstage at La Plaza; Gaby and Melissa at La Plaza, 1993. Images © Reynaldo Rivera, courtesy of the artist and Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York and Los Angeles.

NICOLE R. FLEETWOOD AND JACKIE WANG

This month, Nicole R. Fleetwood—curator of Marking Time—Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration at MoMA PS1—and Jackie Wang will discuss “carceral aesthetics, the legacy of revolutionary prison arts programs, and the ways that penal space, time, and matter shape the production of prison art. What kinds of worlds and images of freedom have been imagined by prisoners and those with loved ones in prison? What forms of care are embodied by social practices rooted in art-making?”*

See link below for details.

NICOLE R. FLEETWOOD and JACKIE WANG IN CONVERSATION*

Artists Space Dialogues—Carceral Aesthetics and the Politics of Love

Tuesday, November 10.

5 pm on the West Coast; 8 pm East Coast.

Marking Time—Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, MoMA PS1, through April 4, 2021, from top: Tameca ColeLocked in a Dark Calm, 2016, collage and graphite on paper, image courtesy and © Tameca Cole / Die Jim Crow; collection Ellen Driscoll; Mark Loughney, Pyrrhic Defeat: A Visual Study of Mass Incarceration (detail), 2014–present, graphite on paper, image © Mark Loughney, courtesy of the artist; Sable Elyse SmithPivot II, 2019, stainless steel with 2k painted finish, image © Sable Elyse Smith, courtesy of the artist, JTT, New York, and Carlos / Ishikawa, London; Ronnie Goodman, San Quentin Arts in Corrections Art Studio, 2008, acrylic on canvas, image © the artist’s estate.