The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion

Image: Campbell Addy, [Adut Akech], 2019. © the artist.

Image: Campbell Addy, Adut Akech, 2019. © the artist.

This exhibition presents artists whose vibrant photography fuses art and fashion in ways that break down long-established boundaries. Creating photography in vastly different contexts—New York and Johannesburg, Lagos and London, the artists’ images open up conversations around the roles of the black body and black lives as subject matter. Seeking to challenge the idea that blackness is homogenous, the works serve as a form of visual activism. The results—often made in collaboration with black stylists and fashion designers—present new perspectives on the medium of photography and the notions of race and beauty, gender and power.

Exhibition organised by Aperture, New York and made possible, in part by Airbnb Magazine.

This exhibition was part of PHOTO 2021’s expanded program and can now be viewed online on the venue’s website.

Artists

PHOTO Channel

Founding Partners
  • Bowness Family Foundation
  • Naomi Milgrom Foundation
Major Government Partners
  • City of Melbourne Arts Grants Program
  • Creative Victoria
Major Partners
  • Maddocks

PHOTO Australia respectfully acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands upon which we work and live, and the rich and diverse Indigenous cultures across what is now called Australia. For over 60,000 years, Indigenous arts and culture have thrived on this sacred land, and we honour Elders and cultural leaders past and present. This was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.

01–24 March