Search results for ""Author Deborah Willis""

'Every detail is sharply placed ... a scorching sense of humor and a soft spot for humanity down here on Earth' The New York Times 'Fleishman Is In Trouble, but in space' Bobby Palmer A NEW YORK TIMES READERS' FAVOURITE OF 2023 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE Kevin is a thirtysomething homebody, happily committed to his hydroponics-expert girlfriend, Amber, as they grow weed in their basement in Vancouver. Out of the blue, Amber announces that she has been selected for a reality show where she will compete for one of two seats on the first human-led mission to Mars. If selected, she must stay on Mars for good, because the technology to come home doesn't exist yet. Is this a suicide mission or a bold new frontier? Girlfriend on Mars is the story of love unravelling in a world where truth is dictated by Facebook ads and 'reality TV' is as scripted as any politician's speech. With rapt viewers voting for Amber to stay on the show and crates of Mars-mission branded protein shakes arriving at his door, is it any wonder Kevin wants to stay in the basement forever?

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Over 500 glorious black-and-white photographs celebrating black culture throughout American history, from Jesse Owens to Barry Bonds, Ella Fitzgerald to Halle Berry. Tucked away in the dusty halls of the Smithsonian archives and nearly forgotten by most historians, black culture is a vast, complex, interconnected web of different people, trends, and lifestyles. Deborah Willis has dug through the archives and hunted down the remnants that tell the wonderful and tragic history of a people. Tackling all subjects with bravery and frankness, Deborah Willis’s work is a true treasure to behold.Black: A Celebration of a Culture, which would be a perfect complement to any Juneteenth celebration, presents a vibrant panorama of twentieth-century black culture in America and around the world. Broken up into segments that examine in detail such subjects as children, work, art, beauty, Saturday night, and Sunday morning, the photos detail the history and the evolution of a culture. Each photograph, handpicked by Deborah Willis, America’s leading historian of African American photography, celebrates the world of music, art, fashion, sports, family, worship, or play. With five hundred photographs from every time period from the birth of photography to the birth of hip-hop, this book is a truly joyous exhibition of black culture. From Jessie Owens to Barry Bonds, Ella Fitzgerald to Halle Berry, Black: A Celebration of a Culture is joyous and inspiring.

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Analyzing contemporaneous and contemporary works that re-imagine the

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The characters in these thirteen masterful and engaging stories exist on the edge of danger, where landscapes melt into dreamscapes and every house is haunted. A drug dealer’s girlfriend signs up for the first manned mission to Mars. A girl falls in love with a man who wants to turn her into a bird. A teenaged girl and her best friend test their relationship by breaking into suburban houses. A wife finds a gaping hole in the floor of the home she shares with her husband, a hole that only she can see. Full of longing and strange humor, these subtle, complex stories—about the love between a man and his pet crow, an alcoholic and his AA sponsor, a mute migrant and a newspaper reporter—show how love ties us to each other and to the world. The Dark and Other Love Stories announces the emergence of a wonderfully gifted storyteller whose stories enlarge our perceptions about the human capacity to love.

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Analyzing contemporaneous and contemporary works that re-imagine the

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Amber Kivinen is moving to Mars. Or at least, she will be if she wins a chance to join MarsNow. She and twenty-three reality TV contestants from around the world—including attractive Israeli soldier Adam, endearing fellow Canadian Pichu, and an assortment of science nerds and wannabe influencers—are competing for two seats on the first human-led mission to Mars, sponsored by billionaire Geoff Task. Meanwhile Kevin, Amber’s boyfriend of fourteen years, was content going nowhere until Amber left him—and their hydroponic weed business—behind. As he tends to (and smokes) the plants growing in their absurdly overpriced Vancouver basement apartment, Kevin tunes in to find out why the love of his life is so determined to leave the planet with somebody else. On screen, Amber competes in globe-trotting, Survivor-meets-Star Trek challenges and seems like she might be falling for Adam. But is that real, or is it just a tactic to keep from being voted off? And since the technology to come home doesn’t exist yet, would Amber really leave everything behind to be a billionaire’s Martian guinea pig? Sure, the rainforest is burning, Geoff Task has bought New Zealand, and Kevin might be a little depressed, but isn’t there some hope left for life on Earth? An audacious debut from "a dazzlingly smart and strikingly original writer" (Molly Antopol), Girlfriend on Mars is at once a satirical indictment of our pursuit of fame and wealth amidst environmental crisis, and an exploration of humanity’s deepest longing, greatest quest, and most enduring cliché: love.

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''Every detail is sharply placed ... a scorching sense of humor and a soft spot for humanity down here on Earth'' The New York Times''Fleishman Is In Trouble, but in space'' Bobby PalmerA NEW YORK TIMES READERS'' FAVOURITE OF 2023LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZEKevin is a thirtysomething homebody, happily committed to his hydroponics-expert girlfriend, Amber, as they grow weed in their basement in Vancouver.Out of the blue, Amber announces that she has been selected for a reality show where she will compete for one of two seats on the first human-led mission to Mars. If selected, she must stay on Mars for good, because the technology to come home doesn''t exist yet. Is this a suicide mission or a bold new frontier? Girlfriend on Mars is the story of love unravelling in a world where truth is dictated by Facebook ads and ''reality TV'' is as scripted as any politician''s speech. With rapt viewers voting for Amber to stay on the show and crates of Mars-mission branded p

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A stunning collection of stoic portraits and intimate ephemera from the lives of Black Civil War soldiers Though both the Union and Confederate armies excluded African American men from their initial calls to arms, many of the men who eventually served were black. Simultaneously, photography culture blossomed—marking the Civil War as the first conflict to be extensively documented through photographs. In The Black Civil War Soldier, Deb Willis explores the crucial role of photography in (re)telling and shaping African American narratives of the Civil War, pulling from a dynamic visual archive that has largely gone unacknowledged. With over seventy images, The Black Civil War Soldier contains a huge breadth of primary and archival materials, many of which are rarely reproduced. The photographs are supplemented with handwritten captions, letters, and other personal materials; Willis not only dives into the lives of black Union soldiers, but also includes stories of other African Americans involved with the struggle—from left-behind family members to female spies. Willis thus compiles a captivating memoir of photographs and words and examines them together to address themes of love and longing; responsibility and fear; commitment and patriotism; and—most predominantly—African American resilience. The Black Civil War Soldier offers a kaleidoscopic yet intimate portrait of the African American experience, from the beginning of the Civil War to 1900. Through her multimedia analysis, Willis acutely pinpoints the importance of African American communities in the development and prosecution of the war. The book shows how photography helped construct a national vision of blackness, war, and bondage, while unearthing the hidden histories of these black Civil War soldiers. In combating the erasure of this often overlooked history, Willis asks how these images might offer a more nuanced memory of African-American participation in the Civil War, and in doing so, points to individual and collective struggles for citizenship and remembrance.

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Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty investigates the transformative experience of the photograph. In this book Deborah Willis explores historical perceptions of beauty and desire through artistic and ethnographic imagery and the role individual photographers play in constructing ways of seeing. Through the themes of idealized beauty, the unfashionable body, the gendered image, and photography as memory, Willis challenges and makes problematic the "reading" of photographic images in the twenty-first century. Working from the significant photographic holdings of the University of Washington's Henry Art Gallery, and the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, the author examines shifting gender attitudes that emerged in work by women photographers such as Gertrude Käsebier and Diane Arbus. Willis discusses ethnographic ideologies underpinning the work of Edward Sheriff Curtis and Fred E. Miller who worked with Native American subjects, as well as the framing and reframing of images of black people in the work of Samuel Montague Fassett and Carrie Mae Weems. Additionally, the effects of fashion and desire on the imaging of beauty are examined in the work of such artists as Don Wallen, Janieta Eyre, and Jan Saudek. The book includes full-page illustrations of works by more than fifty internationally recognized photographers including Lisette Model, Imogen Cunningham, Lewis Wickes Hine, Bruce Davidson, Cecil Beaton, Nan Goldin, André Kertész, Lee Friedlander, Lorna Simpson, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol.

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There has never been a First Lady like her before. While there have been a slew of Obama celebrity books, none contain the message of Deborah Willis and Emily Bernard’s eye-opening book. With nearly 200 compelling photographs, these two noted scholars capture Michelle Obama’s dramatic transformation from working mother to First Lady, from her first tentative steps on the campaign trail to her spontaneous hug of the Queen, to her fairy-tale-like “date night” on Broadway. Not since Jacqueline Kennedy has there been a First Lady who has so enchanted America, but in her down-to-earth dealings with all Americans—schoolchildren, military families, and home gardeners alike—and in her diverse fashion taste, from J. Crew to Jason Wu, Michelle Obama is inexplicably all pearls, all business, all mother. The authors show how Michelle Obama represents the culmination of America’s evolving views on women, race, motherhood, and beauty. Much more than a mere catalog of style, Michelle Obama is a remarkable pictorial story of one woman’s hold on our imagination.

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What freedom looked like for black Americans in the Civil War era

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‘Free as they want to be’: Artists Committed to Memory is the companion publication to the FotoFocus biennial exhibition that is scheduled for Fall 2022 and will run at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center until Spring 2023. This project considers the historic and contemporary role that photography and film have played in remembering legacies of slavery and its aftermath while examining the social lives of Black Americans within various places including the land, at home, in photographic albums, at historic sites, and in public memory. This exhibition acknowledges artists’ constant involvement with efforts to explore the possibilities of freedom and their relationship to it. Their quest to be ‘as free as they want to be’ is envisioned in the subject matter they explore as well as in their persistent drive to innovate aesthetic practices in photographic media. The publication presents some 20 artists working in photography, video, silkscreen, projection, and mixed media installation. Free as they want to be is inspired by the words of James Baldwin and the timely theme of FotoFocus, World Record, as well as events of late that have shaped the world as we know it. The artists selected for this publication are on the frontlines, creating, documenting, and writing. The works they have conceived reflect defining moments in the struggle for racial justice and equality. Free as they want to be presents an occasion to reflect upon the past, to mark significant defining moments – both triumphs and tragedies – that characterize a people and their experiences in the present – and to propose future possibilities. The artists offer images that advance a different sense of empowerment. Their images thus play an integral part in casting resilient narratives as they commemorate endurance, longevity, and accomplishment. The timing of a publication like this could not be more urgent given the human toll of the pandemic, widening economic disparities, the threat of war, voting rights, global migration crises, and quotidian violence. Proposed Artists: Terry Adkins; Radcliffe Bailey; J.P. Ball Studio; Sadie Barnett; Dawoud Bey; Sheila Pree Bright; Bisa Butler; Omar Victor Diop; Nona Faustine; Adama Delphine Fawundu; Daesha Devon Harris; Isaac Julien; Cathy Opie; Hank Willis Thomas; Lava Thomas; Carrie Mae Weems; Wendel White; William Earle Williams; anonymous tintype photographer – photo album

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What freedom looked like for black Americans in the Civil War era

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Self-taught photographer Hugh Mangum was born in 1877 in Durham, North Carolina, as its burgeoning tobacco economy put the frontier-like boomtown on the map. As an itinerant portraitist working primarily in North Carolina and Virginia during the rise of Jim Crow, Mangum welcomed into his temporary studios a clientele that was both racially and economically diverse. After his death in 1922, his glass plate negatives remained stored in his darkroom, a tobacco barn, for fifty years. Slated for demolition in the 1970s, the barn was saved at the last moment-and with it, this surprising and unparalleled document of life at the turn of the twentieth century, a turbulent time in the history of the American South. Hugh Mangum's multiple-image, glass plate negatives reveal the open-door policy of his studio to show us lives marked both by notable affluence and hard work, all imbued with a strong sense of individuality, self-creation, and often joy. Seen and experienced in the present, the portraits hint at unexpected relationships and histories and also confirm how historical photographs have the power to subvert familiar narratives. Mangum's photographs are not only images; they are objects that have survived a history of their own and exist within the larger political and cultural history of the American South, demonstrating the unpredictable alchemy that often characterizes the best art-its ability over time to evolve with and absorb life and meaning beyond the intentions or expectations of the artist.

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Question Bridge assembles a series of questions posed to black men, by and for other black men, along with the corresponding responses and portraits of the participants. The questions range from the comic to the sublimely philosophical: from “Am I the only one who has problems eating chicken, watermelon, and bananas in front of white people?” to “Why is it so difficult for black American men in this culture to be themselves, their essential selves, and remain who they truly are?” The answers tackle the issues that continue to surround black male identity today in a uniquely honest, no-holds-barred manner. While the ostensible subject is black men, the conversation that evolves in these pages is ultimately about the nature of living in a post-Obama, post-Ferguson, post–Voting Rights Act America. Question Bridge is about who we are and what we mean to one another. Most critically, it asks: how can we start to dismantle the myths and misconceptions that have evolved around race and gender in America—how can we reset the narrative about ourselves? The founding artists, along with contributions from Andrew Young, Jesse Williams, Rashid Shabazz, and Delroy Lindo, will introduce and contextualize the body of the work and provide closing remarks on our current and future social climate. The Question Bridge Project is an innovative, transmedia project that uses video to facilitate a conversation among black men from diverse backgrounds. Originally created by Chris Johnson in 1996, the project was revived by Hank Willis Thomas, Kamal Sinclair, and Bayeté Ross Smith in filming over 160 black men in nine American cities, each of whom asked and answered questions posed by other black men. This content was used to create a five-screen video installation that has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum; Oakland Museum of California; Birmingham Museum of Art; Cleveland Museum of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts+Culture, Charlotte, NC; San Diego African American Museum of Art; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York; Rochester Contemporary Arts Center, Rochester, NY; and Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah. The Question Bridge Project includes various platforms, an interactive website and mobile app, as well as community roundtable conversations and a curriculum designed for high school learners.

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Double Exposure is a major new series based on the remarkable photography collection held by the Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts at the NMAAHC. From pre-Civil War daguerreotype portraits to 21st-century digital prints, this is a striking record of the key historical events, the cultural touchstones and the private and communal moments of African American life. In addition to over fifty photographs, each volume includes an introduction by a leading historian, activist, photographer or writer, and a foreword by the NMAAHC's founding director Lonnie Bunch. Photographers include Spider Martin, Gordon Parks, Ernest C. Withers, Wayne F. Miller and Henri Cartier- Bresson. There are iconic images, such as McPherson and Oliver's Gordon under Medical Inspection (circa 1867) and Charles Moore's photographs of the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade, as well as unfamiliar or recently discovered images, including Henry Clay Anderson's postwar pictures of everyday life in the segregated black community in Greenville, Mississippi.

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A close look at a new installation by renowned contemporary artist Mickalene Thomas that marks the first time she has engaged with early American history Mickalene Thomas (b. 1971) has gained an international reputation for her dazzling portraits of Black women, as well as her large-scale installations that physically enfold viewers into lushly decorated, 1970s-inspired domestic interiors. This volume offers a window into Thomas’s unique, multifaceted approach and introduces a new living room–style installation by the artist, in which she creates, for the first time, a homelike environment reminiscent of the pre-abolition era. In addition to period-specific textile patterns and other decorative elements, her installation incorporates a selection of small-scale, early American portraits of Black women, men, and children—from miniatures and daguerreotypes to silhouettes on paper and engravings in books—as well as a group of works by Thomas and other contemporary artists in a wide range of media. The book’s essays examine both how Thomas’s engagement with early American history opens up previously unexplored and fertile ground for her artistic practice and how this project constructs evocative spaces (both physically and textually) in which the lives of early nineteenth-century Black Americans can be recognized on their own terms. With an artist’s statement and extensive photography that captures details of the installation, this presentation documents an exciting direction for one of today’s most acclaimed artists. Distributed for the Yale University Art Gallery Exhibition Schedule Yale University Art Gallery (September 8, 2023–January 7, 2024)

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Celebrated photographer Catherine Opie (born 1961) has long documented the faces and landscapes of American communities, both inside and outside the mainstream. The subjects of her highly regarded portraits have ranged from California surfers, friends and fixtures in LGBT communities, high school football players and the artist herself. In this series of photographs documenting the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Opie broadens her focus to an expanded community of Americans: on January 20, 2009, over one million people gathered on the national mall to see the swearing in of America's first black president, united by their pride at what had been accomplished and a collective hope for the future. In the tradition of Robert Frank's photographs of the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and William Eggleston's 1976 Election Eve series, Opie's Inauguration, a series of 100 photographs, offers an intimate political and personal view of one of the most public days of a nation. Accompanying texts by author, curator and photo-historian Deborah Willis and writer Eileen Myles address the significance of Opie's achievement with this body of work and further explore the wonder, elation and the self-conscious anticipations of this historic moment.

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To Make Their Own Way in the World is a profound consideration of some of the most challenging images in the history of photography: fifteen daguerreotypes of Alfred, Delia, Drana, Fassena, Jack, Jem, and Renty—men and women of African descent who were enslaved in South Carolina. Photographed by Joseph T. Zealy for Harvard professor Louis Agassiz in 1850, they were rediscovered at Harvard’s Peabody Museum in 1976. This groundbreaking multidisciplinary volume features essays by prominent scholars who explore such topics as the identities of the people depicted in the daguerreotypes, the close relationship between photography and race, and visual narratives of slavery and its lasting effects. With over two hundred illustrations, including new photography by Carrie Mae Weems, this book frames the Zealy daguerreotypes as works of urgent engagement. Copublished by Aperture and Peabody Museum Press

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Powerful portraits from the 1960s “Black Is Beautiful” movement. In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Kwame Brathwaite used his photography to popularize the political slogan “Black Is Beautiful.” This monograph—the first ever dedicated to Brathwaite’s remarkable career—tells the story of a key, but under-recognized, figure of the second Harlem Renaissance. Inspired by the writings of activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, Brathwaite, along with his older brother, Elombe Brath, founded the African Jazz Arts Society and Studios (AJASS) and the Grandassa Models (1962). AJASS was a collective of artists, playwrights, designers, and dancers; Grandassa Models was a modeling agency for black women, founded to challenge white beauty standards. From stunning studio portraits of the Grandassa Models to behind-the-scenes images of Harlem’s artistic community, including Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, and Miles Davis, this book offers a long-overdue exploration of Brathwaite’s life and work.

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"..new studies of Verger’s archive show a greater range of interest in his pictures, many of which celebrated jazz age nightlife and an emergent professional class. The rediscovered images are collected in a new book that offers a nuanced portrait of black America before the war." "Verger’s pictures offer a different perspective: thoughtful, often hopeful images of arresting individuals in black communities, full of aspirational intent and not shy of beauty." "Verger devoted his life to the study of the African diaspora across the world, always alive to human joys as well as social hardships." - The Observer "...illuminating collection of images.." "The 150 photographs – most previously unpublished – are, indeed, vibrant and full of energy, while the accompanying texts and images shine a light on this part of his life as well as his later career. This is an excellent study of a 20th-century great, for existing fans and those new to his work." - B&W Magazine Pierre Fatumbi Verger is considered one of the most outstanding photographers of the twentieth century as well as a recognized researcher in the field of African Diaspora and religion studies. Verger traveled to the United States of America in 1934 and 1937, during the Great Depression, producing a collection of stunning images that document the national symbols that configure American identity and the challenging social and economic atmosphere of the time. Verger was able to capture with great sensibility the complex cultural and racial diversity of the country where many citizens still confront segregation and poverty, while struggling to live a better life. Verger´s photographs constitute an extraordinary contribution to our understanding of the 1930´s in the U.S., and to the growth of photojournalism, documentary and artistic photography, representing the world from new and enriching perspectives.In the introduction, Javier Escudero Rodríguez frames Verger´s significant contribution to modern photography as well as the lasting relevance of this new collection of iconic images of the Great Depression. The 150 images included in the book, the majority of them never published before, were selected among 1110 negatives, after a meticulous research from Verger´s archive at the Pierre Verger Foundation in Salvador.

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