We'll probably look back on 2017 and say that A Commitment to the Community, an exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts that celebrates the Black Photographers Annual of the 1970s and '80s, was the most important photographic exhibition of the year. The show recovers an vital contribution to American culture that had been all but forgotten. And it does it brilliantly. Huge congrats to the curator, Sarah Eckhardt.
I reviewed A Commitment to the Community for Hyperallergic and was lucky enough to have editors who gave me the space that I needed to do justice to both the exhibition and the annuals. You can read the review, here.
Yesterday, I tweeted a series of afterthoughts that about the BPA. Think of them as riffing on the review.
A few more words on the Black Photographers Annual.
The BPA marked a pivotal moment in American cultural history. Not just because James Van Der Zee, Roy DeCarava, & Dawoud Bey contributed.
And not just because Toni Morrison & James Baldwin wrote essays for the annuals.
And not just because the Black Photographers Annual brought together four generations of superb African American photography.
All of these things are important. The annuals made it impossible for anyone to seriously claim they didn't know any black photographers.
But the greatest significance of the BPA was to bring together -- and demonstrate -- photography's black critical consciousness.
Ever since Frederick Douglass in the 19th century, black photographers & thinkers have been less concerned with what photography is...
...than with what it does. What role does it play in the world? How does it affect people & society?
Black people have been well aware that photography has been a force for ill at least as much as it's been a force for good.
Black photographers have been using photography as a weapon for justice ever since the mid-19th century.
They've challenged the far-too-common cliches & stereotypes by creating richer, more complex, & truer pictures of black people.
At the same time, they've opened new avenues for the development of photographic aesthetics.
In 2017, we're lucky enough to be the beneficiaries of this long tradition. Next time you see a Carrie Mae Weems or a Ruddy Roye say thanks.
But please check out the review. It's a good read. Promise.
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