The New Black Vanguard
Photography between Art and Fashion
Meet The New Black Vanguard—a new global movement of photographers discarding long-established representation models and celebrating Black creativity as a new ideal. The exhibit The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion is curated by Antwaun Sargent and features such artists as Campbell Addy, Dana Scruggs, Tyler Mitchell, and Awol Erizku. “To convey Black beauty is an act of justice,” says Tyler Mitchell.
change an entire industry
The New Black Vanguard brings together photographers from different countries, working in different directions but with the same goal: discarding old ways of representing the Black body and celebrating Black subject matter in the photography and fashion world. The exhibition The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion tells stories of this global movement of artists who use their cameras to change an entire industry. Tyler Mitchell, one of the exhibit’s artists, was the first Black photographer to have his work on a cover for Vogue (2018) with his picture of the pregnant superstar Beyoncé. Today, works by artists included in The New Black Vanguard are often seen on the covers of established fashion magazines around the world.
Some of the other artists in the exhibition include Campbell Addy, Dana Scruggs, Awol Erizku, and Micaiah Carter.
“With every project and everything I try to do, there’s a sense of educating the viewer. Not necessarily educating for the Black viewer or for the white viewer, but just for people in general,” says Campbell Addy. “Fashion has always been a barometer for measuring privilege, power, class and freedom. To play with fashion is to play with one’s representation in the world”, he notes.
The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion presents artists whose images blur the line between art and fashion photography. Their work has been widely consumed in traditional lifestyle magazines, ad campaigns, and museums, and in their own social media channels. The results—often created in collaboration with Black stylists and fashion designers—present new perspectives on the medium of photography and art, race and beauty, gender and power.
“Growing up reading fashion magazines, I didn’t feel I could relate to the models who appeared in them. I felt that I didn’t have a connection to the imagery...”
Photography between Art and Fashion
Other artists in The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion include Arielle Bobb-Willis, Quil Lemons, Namsa Leuba, Renell Medrano, Jamal Nxedlana, Daniel Obasi, Ruth Ossai, Adrienne Raquel, and Stephen Tayo. The exhibition is curated by Antwaun Sargent, a New York-based curator and author who has been published in such publications as The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Vice.
The New Black Vanguard is organized by Aperture, New York and has been made possible through support from, in part, the Tasweer Photo Festival, Qatar, and Airbnb Magazine. Organized for Fotografiska by Johan Vikner, Director of Global Exhibitions for Fotografiska.