The Gropius Bau presents The Black Image Corporation, an exhibition conceived by Theaster Gates, from 25 April to 28 July 2019.
Theater Gates has devised a participatory exhibition highlighting the work of two photographers, Moneta Sleet Jr. and Isaac Sutton, which is displayed on the first floor of the Gropius Bau. The project explores the foundational legacy of the Johnson Publishing Company archives, which feature more than 4 million images and have helped shape the aesthetic and cultural languages of contemporary African-American identity.
“For this show, I hope to tease Sleet and Sutton's creation of iconic female moments and also offer little insights into the lives of ordinary people through never-before-seen images from the Johnson Collection,” said Gates. “The archives are about beauty and black female power. Today seems like a good time to delve into the visual lexicon of the American book and showcase images rarely seen outside my community.”
Founded by John H. Johnson in 1942, his eponymous publishing house created two landmark publications for black American audiences: the monthly magazine Ebony and its weekly sister magazine Jet, which began publication in 1945 and 1951 respectively. Ebony and Jet pledged to both celebrate positive daily events and depict the complex realities black Americans face in a postwar United States. The magazines soon became two of the leading platforms for the representation and discussion of black culture, covering a diverse range of events and personalities from historic milestones such as the March on Washington in 1963 and the first African-American astronaut to icons of sports and entertainment celebrity. Their visual language reflects a mid-century modern aesthetic filtered through the lens of black life. This vast collection of images helps illuminate the richness of African American professional codes, modes of dress, social structures, domestic lives, and forms of beauty and glamour.
Through a participatory exhibition format devised by Theater Gates, Sleet and Sutton's images representing the gamut of the black American social standard elite and celebrity narrative to politics, self-help, sports, beauty and sexuality will be exhibited in different cabinets . Many frames display images of Black women, actresses, and models, while others display the reverse side of photographs, revealing information about their location, date, and photographer. The public will be invited to freely explore this vast visual archive by pulling out and contemplating single frames from cabinets or by moving images for display outside them, highlighting their choice of photographs to other visitors. A Gropius Bau, Vaginal Davis, Mac Folkes and Wu Tsang will each choose their own way of engaging with the works presented.
Black Image Corporation presents 10 large format prints made by Sleet and Sutton and selected by Gates, as well as 112 photographs in four specially designed cabinets. Within this set-up, visitors will be able to browse and read original copies of Ebony and Jet magazines. Michigan Avenue In Full Bloom (2018), a video shot by Gates and documenting the real architectural spaces in which the offices, will be displayed in the show.
Theaster Gates' ongoing investigation of the Johnson Publishing Company archive responds to Gropius Bau's program's interest in archives as a research format of the past and present with a contemporary perspective.
Designed by Theaster Gates
Associate curators: Mario Mainetti and Daisy Desrosiers
The Black Image Corporation is conceived and organized by Fondazione Prada, Milan.
Cover image (detail): Moneta Sleet Jr., 1965Photo Courtesy: Johnson Publishing Company, LLC. All rights reserved.
