Description
Book SynopsisA vivid and moving celebration of the ways that Black Americans have shaped and been shaped by photography, from its inception to the present day. A Picture Gallery of the Soul presents the work of more than one hundred Black American artists whose practice incorporates the photographic medium. Organized by the Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota, this group exhibition samples a range of photographic expressions produced over three centuries, from traditional photography to mixed media and conceptual art. From the daguerreotypes made by Jules Lion in New Orleans in 1840 to the Instagram post of the Baltimore Uprising made by Devin Allen in 2015, photography has chronicled Black American life, and Black Americans have defined the possibilities of photography. Frederick Douglass recognized the quick, easy, and inexpensive reproducibility of photography and developed a theoretical framework for understanding its impact on public discourse, which he delivered as
Table of ContentsContents
Foreword
Deborah Willis
Preface
Herman J. Milligan, Jr.
Preface
Howard Oransky
Mining the Archive of Black Life and Culture
Cheryl Finley
A Visual Politics of Black Pleasure
crystal am nelson
Why We Wear a Suit to Do the Work
Seph Rodney
Plates
Notes to Plates
Contributor Biographies
Index
