← All Of It with Alison Stewart
Loading summary
Transcript46 lines
- [00:10]
A
This is all of it on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. It is the 25th anniversary of photographer Deborah Willis releasing Reflections in a comprehensive history of American life through the lens of black photographers like Gordon Parks and Carrie Mae Weems. It shows black activism, identity and achievement from 18 to the start of the millennium. When it was released, the New York Times called it an important act of cultural and historical excavation. 25 years later, she is releasing a new book called Reflections in A Reframing. In it, she has more than 130 additional photos and an exhibit curated by Willis at NYU Tisch, where she is a professor. A new edition is out on November 18th. And her exhibit, Reflections in Black A reframing is on NYU's campus through December 21st. Deborah Willis, it is great to have you in studio.
- [01:05]
B
Great. I'm happy to be here. Thank you so much.
- [01:08]
A
Where were you in your life when you began writing this book 25 years ago?
- [01:13]
B
I was an undergraduate student at Philadelphia College of Art. I was a sophomore questioning where the black photographers in our history books. I studied photography history and art history and. And studio art and no black photographers were referenced. I grew up in a beauty shop in Philadelphia, so I knew Ebony magazine and Life magazine and National Geographic, and I knew the work of Gordon Parks based on growing up in the beauty shop.
- [01:46]
A
The book is an extensive look at the lives of black people and black photographers for nearly two centuries. What era was the hardest to source?
- [01:57]
B
You know, as an art student, I research very differently. So I actually went to the black press in the 19th century, started looking through photo microfilm books that had black press reproductions and started looking for photographers from that period. And initially it was difficult, but then when I just sat down, when we could actually go into the archives and go sit on the floor in the stacks, I found a number of photographers that just did not know that they existed from the 1840s to the 1900s. And they were working. So the difficult part was just finding the images. I found the names and then I decided to write to historical societies as well as to libraries, contacting families to identify.
- [02:52]
C
I notice Addison Scurlock is in the book quite a bit.
- [02:56]
A
Would you please explain to people who he is?
- [02:57]
B
Yes. Addison Scurlak was one of the early photographers that I identified in my research. Early on, he was Howard University's photographer. He also had a studio on Ninth street in Northwest in D.C. he had a studio with his sons, Robert and George. They were active. Both of them taught Mrs. Kennedy photography during the 60s. So it's in 50s and 60s. So it's really important that the photography studio of Scurlock people walked in, they understood what it was important, how it was important to be photographed. Specifically in Washington, D.C. it was the hub, basically, when migration, blacks from the south were moving. Education at Howard and other areas in the other universities in the area, but also private schools were developed. So the intellectual aspect of DC was significant for many of the people in dc but also the everyday people living in Northwest, south, southeast, all throughout D.C. were going to Addison Scurlak's photography studio.
- [04:05]
C
What was the studio like that in.
- [04:06]
B
New York, that James Van Der Zee? James Van Der Zee was also a crucial person because I visited the Harlem on My mind exhibition in 1969 when I was a student. I was just amazed at going through the Met exhibition and seeing James Van Der Zee's work. There was, of course, controversy because it was social protest about the images, about the photography exhibition, because it was rarely we had an exhibition of photography at the Met. But it was important for me as a photography student to see images and to translate the images into beauty, to protest and see how communities develop during that time period.
- [04:50]
C
I'm speaking with photographer Deborah Willis. She's releasing the 25th anniversary edition of her book Reflections in Black. It's publishing on November 18th. To accompany the book's release, she's also curated an exhibit at NYU. It's on display until December 2020 first. The title of the book is Reflections in a Reframing. What are you reframing in this edition? What are you adding to it?
- [05:15]
B
You know, the aspect of the idea of reframing, how do we tell the story again and again so that it's not forgotten the way that it was forgotten when I was a student. And the aspect of reframing is looking at photographers from 2000 to 2023, when I submitted the publication, so many of the photographers were studying photography during this time. Younger photographers, they were also. I decided I wanted to include the diaspora photographers from the uk, from the Caribbean, as well as West Africa and some South Africa. So it was important for us to really think about the inclusiveness of photography within the African diaspora and how photographers were telling the stories and recreating memories for all of us to absorb and to be encouraged to rethink about, like Ernest Cole. There's a film recently that Raoul Peck has just produced, and it's just a fantastic way of thinking about the diaspora and how he visited New York in the 70s and made photographs that we did not know about. So here, that's Missing from my book. But it is a way of including how important photography was to many people who are now revisiting and reframing photography today.
- [06:41]
C
Ra was here recently, I believe. He's such a great guy, such an interesting guy.
- [06:45]
B
He really is. Yes.
- [06:46]
C
The COVID of your book, it features.
- [06:49]
A
The late Maude Salter as Calliope, the muse of epic poetry. Why did you want this to be.
- [06:54]
B
The COVID I love. I felt that she said that one thing about being a black woman, Black women have to be political about their work and her work. Unfortunately, she died very young, but her work was significant. She has a daguerreotype in her hand. So she's recreating the models that have been missed in 19th century photography, many of the women who were photographed. I published a book with Carla Williams, the black female body in photography. We started looking at how fringe photographers and photographers from London photograph, you know, some black subjects. They were models. And, you know, this is just kind of a way of thinking about how photography was used and models were incorporated in their work. And the way that her drapery of her dress around her shoulders, freeing her as a desired subject. And so it's poetic, in a sense, in having that experience.
- [07:58]
A
In the 1900-1930s section, you quote bell hooks who said the camera was the central instrument by which blacks could disprove representations of us created by white folk. Why do you think the camera is the best tool to do this?
- [08:16]
B
I believe because it visualizes the experience of the notion of how black people were othered in print and in drawings. And having the opportunity to use the camera was documenting and representing the people in the community. Their style of dress, their activism, their sense of self. Beauty was an important aspect during this time period. The Harlem renaissance writers were very active, and they were documenting their events. And so we see a lot of pictures of Langston Hughes, who was part of the Harlem renaissance and a writer. And Langston Hughes, of course, wrote at a time period with Roy decarava and collaborated on a book of photographs, the sweet fly paper of life. So when we think about how photography represented black people through the imagined nation of the photographer and the imagined experiences of the lived experience of the people, it just showed that people were human, that they had fun, that they, you know, they mourned. They had different experiences, and that's why photography was central. There are also women who were fashion designers and women who had a desire for an education like nursing. So we'll see images of women in work. And that was another central issue for me to document These people.
- [09:46]
C
Yeah, it's so interesting. During these politically uncertain times, how is photography useful?
- [09:55]
B
Useful in many ways, this is a way of evidence. So we see photography as evidence. We see it also as a way of saying this is where we are, this is who we are and this is family and this is work and this is children. This is education. Then also with the idea of sports and how the. What happened with the Olympics at that time. And so photographers were traveling all over the world. Black photographers were traveling all over the world documenting many events. Also photographers actually created a beauty contest called the has a beauty. I can't think of it now, but it's fine brown frame. The fine brown frame. And they would have beauty contests for women so that they could have college scholarships. And so those experience with how do we think about beauty? And beauty was central because it was denied in many communities and people didn't believe it in terms of education. And so why I wanted to focus on the photographers who looked at families and looked at the work of activism. The fact that when civil rights activists, young people decided to dress up and wear suits and fancy dresses when they were protesting for the right to vote, they wanted the people who were stopping them to see them as human, to see them as part of the next generation. And you know, so we had this activity that was going on when I started thinking about how do we rearrange the photographic moment by having these moments within the photography, photographic experience.
- [11:42]
C
I'm speaking with photographer Deborah Willis. She's releasing the 25th anniversary edition of her book Reflections in Black. Would you share with me why portraiture is so important in shaping the black identity?
- [11:57]
B
It's really, it's one of the things that I remembered reading or the experience I remember reading that the photographic studio was the theater of desire. So when we think about that as a place where people walked into a photographic studio, even today when we visited photographers studios, we want to, you know, imagine how our lives will be for the future. So those photographs when we were making portraits, but not just for today, that many of the photographers and their subjects believe that these photographs would last and they would be part of a future, part of a future generation. But intergenerational experiences would happen within the family album or on the walls, in their. In their homes. So this is the sense of document, a sense of evidence, but also representing a lived experience. And that's why portraiture is important.
- [12:54]
C
What piece do you like in this book of portraiture that is special to you?
- [12:58]
B
Well, they're all special, but I think about some of the images that, of course, Gordon Parks made at a time when. When he made the wonderful image of Ella Watson at work with the flag, the American flag and broom. When we think about what story he wanted to tell about women and work and the desire to document her and represent her as someone who was a proud woman. But also there is a wonderful image by Scheherazade Tillet, who has an image of promotion at prom night. And she's wearing. The young person who is the high school student, has her grandmother and her mother dressing her, preparing her for prom. So it's like the community, they take her to the beauty shop, they take her to the store to buy the dress. So then we begin to see how important it is that there is a community of women who are photographing and posing, but also helping to shape her desire to be beautiful and have a grand night. So that's one from the 20th century. And then, you know, of course, from the 40s as Gordon Parks. But when I think about the images by Chuck Stewart and the musicians that he photographed over time, that the way that he was in the studio with John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane and documenting those images, there's a silence that happens when I look at the photographs. There's a sense of peace and then again, the sense that the photographer was able to see the vision of the artist, that they are creating work and making a difference in their lives in the studio or on stage. So these are moments that I think that why portraiture is central when we're looking at images of people who want to be photographed, but also want people to see who they are.
- [15:00]
A
I'm also curious about the community of photographers. We had Alison Shear here, and her dad was Jack Shear, the photographer who was like a mentee of Gordon Brooks. And he took that beautiful picture during Kennedy's with John. John Kennedy saluting his father at the funeral and how he overexposed it. And that's how you could see Jackie's face. And it was just interest, interesting to hear her talk about him and to talk about Gordon Parks. So I was wondering, was there a community of black folks who were photographers?
- [15:39]
B
Yes. One think of Kwame Brathwaite, who is just, you know, just wonderful. I met him when I was 21. Just think about how his work and how his book, Black Is Beautiful, it's coming out. So there was the Kimungae Workshop, and then there was Kwame Brathwaite's group that also were working together in D.C. they were a community of black photojournalists and so the community of photographers working together, they were. They had a sense of connection. William McNeil also shared with me when he happened to see Gordon Parks photograph on campus at Howard University. He said that all you needed was one shot. But Gordon Parks used six different bulbs on the ground standing up. And he says, is this guy crazy? Why is he making so many photographs? But then they began to share moments. You know, Morgan and Marvin Smith in Harlem during that time. So these community of photographers were central to my development. You know, I'm a photographer, but I spent most of my life documenting the photographers. And when I had a chance to meet some of these photographers, I shared my experience. And they were really happy that I noticed them thanking me for this opportunity to share their work, because some of them have not had their work published in publications or books only, and sometimes in the black press. And Teenie Harris in Pittsburgh is another. So when I think about all of the stories that developed, he had something called the double V campaign in World War II, when black people wanted victory at home and victory abroad. They had skirt. Women made skirts with the double V. The wide skirts, they had hairstyles with the double V. So these stories were part of the storytelling moment, visually telling these stories of black people.
- [17:42]
C
So you teach at NYU now?
- [17:43]
B
Yes.
- [17:45]
C
And this book contains figures like Tyler Mitchell, the first black photographer to shoot the COVID of Vogue. What is it about the new generation that excites you?
- [17:56]
B
Just exciting to see Tyler and his growth. And also Denise Hewitt. These photographers who studied with me were just fantastic to see that they are stepping into a new world that was closed to many black photographers. They had no fear. They believed in their work. Tyler took a class with me and just leaned in, asking many questions. I remember when he photographed the Vogue cover, we happened to be on the same plane. He never said that he was photographing Beyonce. And I was like, oh, do you know anybody here, there? I'll make sure you meet people. And he. I'm good. I'm good. But Tyler is actually photographing young people, the generation from fashion to play and to leisure. So he's actually looking at rests, young people resting and making photographs of young millennials who are stylizing themselves, but also writing and making a new community for themselves.
- [19:05]
C
What do your students want to know about the history of black photography?
- [19:10]
B
Well, they are also going into their own family albums. And that's the fantastic aspect for me is to see how their third and fourth generations, that they know that their families preserve photographs and that they. One student that I have now, Gabby Gates has a generation of blacks from South Africa and the American south, and so she has two distinct families. And she's looking at photographs of her families and creating work about portraiture from that period. So many of them are also looking at ways to think about landscape and some from the Midwest and what stories are happening in their communities.
- [19:59]
C
Your son, Hank Willis Thomas, is the creator of the Embrace in Boston. It's Martin Luther King Jr. And Coretta Scott King hugging, and it's in the Boston Common. For people who haven't seen it, you're an artist. You're the mother of an artist. What did you want to instill in your son about art?
- [20:19]
B
You know, he was always fascinated with Steven storytelling. When he was a child, my father also made photographs. And my father had albums of family images, and I would place them as a child in the family album. Hank, when he was little, he would rearrange the story and ask my mother questions and ask, why are black and white? Why are they in color? Why is this person next to this person? And then he would rearrange a visual story in the album, in the family album. So early on, he was reconstructing and thinking about photography in this way and asking difficult questions. He also just created a piece for Davison College with these hands. There's a wonderful experience of looking at the experience of the black people who were enslaved, who built Davison College. And there's this huge, as huge as huge hands, acknowledging the development of the college and the workers there. So his interest has not only been two dimensional, it's now going into three dimensional, because he wants people to have an experience of the work of the people, but also the love of community. And that's something that he's been exploring a lot with his photographs and his three dimensional work.
- [21:48]
C
Has anyone taken a photograph of the two of you together?
- [21:51]
B
Yes.
- [21:52]
C
Okay, good. I was about to say.
- [21:54]
B
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
- [21:56]
C
Before we go, you also created the Black Portraiture, a conference dedicated to African diasporic arts and culture. What's the motivation for this?
- [22:06]
B
My colleagues at nyu, awam, AMPA and Monte Diwar, and Cheryl Finley, who's at Spelman, we wanted to have a broader conversation about black portraiture. And we called it Black Portraitures because it's broad. We wanted people from. We had it in South Africa, we had it in Florence, we had it in different places, like Tulsa, just Tulsa two weeks ago. And we're going to have it in LA at the Getty next year in 2026. But we want to have. And the theme is called the Black Built Environment. And so we want stories told. We want writers and artists to exchange stories about what it means to make a portrait.
- [22:52]
C
I've been speaking to Deborah Willis. She is releasing the 25th anniversary edition of her book Reflections in Black. It is Publishing on November 18, Tia Co. The book's release. She's also curated an exhibit at NYU. It's on display until December 21. It has been a pleasure to have you.
- [23:10]
B
Thank you. It's been.
- [23:11]
C
There's more. All of it on the Way Author Essay Cosby joined us last week for October get lit with all of it book Club event at the nypl. Coming up, we'll hear selections of that conversation as well as a live performance from musician Yaya bae. That's coming up next.
- [23:26]
D
After the news NYC now delivers breaking news, top headlines and in depth coverage from WNYC and Gothamist every morning, midday and evening. By sponsoring our programming, you'll reach a community of passionate listeners in an uncluttered audio experience. Visit sponsorship wnyc.org to learn more.