A new magazine spotlighting Black photographers recently launched its first brick and mortar exhibition.

Last month a new exhibition opened at The Maryland Institute College of Art: Representation in Relation to Race. Curated by Lia Latty, founder of BlackIs Magazine, the show is the first in-real-life extension of the online platform, expanding upon Latty’s mission to champion photographers from the African diaspora.

It’s an exciting and challenging group of photographers, organized into three exhibition of three photographer each week. In celebration of the show and BlackIs’ one year anniversary from launching, I spoke with founder Lia Latty to learn more about the platform, the exhibition and her goals going forward.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Lia Latty

PostedApril 7, 2022

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesExhibitions, Art News, interviews

TagsBlack Is Magazine, Lia Latty, new photography, contemporary photography, photography and the African diaspora

Austin, Texas -based photographer Chantal Lesley’s latest project En Medio de la Nostalgia presents a fractured story and asks the question: “What defines a person’s identity when many cultures are involved?”

Chantal Lesley uses self-portraits, staged images, and manipulated family photographs to look at the many layers of family and cultural history. “Is there one that dominates above the rest,” she asks, “or can they all live within someone harmoniously?”

In the project's title photograph "In the Midst of My Nostalgia," for example, Lesley casts herself as the figure in Andrew Wyeth's famous painting "Christina's World," which depicts his polio-stricken neighbor on a Maine landscape - struggling with dignity despite her condition. Where Wyeth's intention was to "do justice to her extraordinary conquest for life," Lesley inserts her own struggle for hope. In place of Wyeth's dreamy field and romantic Maine barn, she casts herself looking at a border wall.

This is just one of many images that create a piecemeal narrative to reflect this in-between state. Each image ultimately ponders the evaporation of ethnic roots can create an isolating and confused sense of self.

I spoke with the artist to learn more about how her process attempts to make sense of this journey.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Chantal Lesley

PostedJanuary 28, 2022

AuthorJon Feinstein

Categoriesinterviews, Artists, Art News, Portfolio

TagsChantal Lesley, photography and nostalgia, Andrew Wyeth, photography and cultural history, staged photography, photographic tableaux, photographers using Polaroid, photography and identity, art historical references in photography, contemporary photography

Silver Eye launches its second annual list of remarkable photographers.

In 2021, Silver Eye Center for Photography launched a new initiative in collaboration with The Black List and Carnegie Mellon University to showcase a diverse and highly curated snapshot of photography in the eyes of 125 of today’s most esteemed nonprofit photography curators, scholars, publishers and critics.

Innovating on the traditional format and methodology of “best of” lists, the organizers asked a wide swath of the photography community to share up to ten photographers who showed wow or promise over the past year – photographers who are not only creating inspiring or of-the-moment work, but truly believe have career longevity. The final list of 47 "shows the thoughts of a professional community who cares deeply about contemporary photography."

Upon the announcement of the 2022 edition, I spoke with Oresick to learn more about the Silver List, its mission, and this year's selected photographers.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Silver Eye’s David Oresick

PostedJanuary 6, 2022

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArt News, interviews

TagsSilver Eye Center For Photography, Silver List, photographers to watch, best photographers of 2021, contemporary photography, David Oresick, The Black List, new photography

Ross Mantle's Cryptic New Photobook Keeps Us Looking

There are often photos that elicit creative envy. The kind of photo with the punch and punctum to pull you in at first tug, but with enough grace to keep you looking and looking again. And to wish you’d taken it yourself. This photo above, with its gaping mix of absence and resolution resonates this way for me. It's one small piece of Misplaced Fortunes, Ross Mantle’s new book of photographs that feel like a magically convoluted puzzle.

Published by Sleeper Studio, Mantle’s first monograph is a meandering collection of visual clues with no clear solution. A found sculpture of a golden ear. Various references to holes - both literal and metaphoric. Anonymous gravestones leaning and waiting for repair. Bodies emerging from the woods. Faces obscured by sweatshirts or wisps of hair. Hints to treasures never to be found – riddles we might never decode.

I corresponded with Mantle to learn more about his mysterious new book.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Ross Mantle

PostedDecember 2, 2021

AuthorJon Feinstein

Categoriesinterviews, Photobooks, Portfolio

TagsRoss Mantle, Sleeper Studio, new photography, contemporary photography, 2021 photobooks, best photobooks of 2021

Yellow Bird in Banana Tree, 2021. © Tiffany Smith

Curated by Amanda Coulson at TERN Gallery in The Bahamas, “The Other Side of the Pentaprism: Six Photographers In Conversation” shows Caribbean photographers grappling with – and pushing against cultural and historical stereotypes.

Caribbean culture is often envisioned with an outsider gaze. Tropes of the cultural exotic and a land ripe for vacationing illustrate the place without acknowledging its history of entanglement with colonialism and enslavement. The Other Side of the Pentaprism is a beautifully curated photographic counter narrative featuring work from Melissa Alcena, Tamika Galanis, Jodi Minnis, Lynn Parotti, Leanne Russell, and Tiffany Smith.

The exhibition takes inspiration from the pentaprism, the five-sided reflective prism found in a single-lens reflex camera that re-inverts an image, delivering a version of “reality” back to the viewer. The six women artists in the exhibition represent this filter between the Caribbean narratives presented in popular media and history books, and the experiences of those living inside it.

Through a range of approaches, the women in this exhibition question the line between constructed narrative and reality, and the shades of gray in between. I spoke with exhibition curator and TERN founding director Amanda Coulson to learn more about her ideas behind the show (on view through November 13, 2021), and the work within.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Amanda Coulson

PostedAugust 30, 2021

AuthorJon Feinstein

TagsMelissa Alcena, Tamika Galanis, Jodi Minnis, Lynn Parotti, Leanne Russell, and Tiffany Smith, Amanda Coulson, TERN Gallery, Art in the Bahamas, contemporary photography, The Other Side of the Pentaprism

What Is, Black Is?

A Photographer Contemplates Her Family's Cross-Cultural History "In The Midst of Nostalgia"

The Silver List: An Annual Photographic Survey Gives a New Take on "Photographers To Watch"

A Photographic Treasure Hunt With No End In Sight

A New Exhibition of Caribbean Photography Inverts the Tourist's Lens