© Amani Willett. From A Parallel Road — © Amani Willett. From *A Parallel Road*

Amani Willett’s new book A Parallel Road challenges the glamorized narratives of the American road trip with experiences shaped by fear and violence.

The American road trip is a privileged photographic and literary rite of passage. Coming of age on the open road, it's largely a trope of carefree travel primarily enjoyed by white Americans. Photographers Robert Frank and Jacob Holdt, whose work pointed to racial, economic, and social inequality in the American landscape, did so with unfettered access – without fear of racist violence. And while Frank, who was Jewish, was likely in danger of antisemitic attacks, his ability to pass as white made his experience far less vulnerable.

A Parallel Road, published by Overlapse Books, offers an alternate history, traversing many Black Americans' experiences driving on American roads for the past 85 years. Based on conversations with friends and family about their histories, he pairs archival illustrations, maps, and vernacular images with his own photographs to present a haunting picture that raises new questions with every page. As the United States continues to see state-sanctioned violence against people of color on the road, A Parallel Road asks how long it will remain an expanse of terror.

I spoke with Willett to learn more about his experience, and to dive deeper into the process behind making the book.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Amani Willett

PostedJanuary 11, 2021

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesPhotobooks, Artists, Art News

TagsAmani Willett, A Parallel Road, Driving while Black in the United States, Green Book, Overlapse Books, photobooks, photography and race in America, Roy DeCarava

Self Evident Truths: 10,000 Portraits of Queer America © iO Tillet Wright — *Self Evident Truths: 10,000 Portraits of Queer America* © iO Tillet Wright

Roula Seikaly speaks with iO Tillet Wright about Self Evident Truths, his ten-year project (and now photography book) of 10,000+ humanizing portraits documenting people in the USA that identify as ANYTHING OTHER than 100% straight.

I was champagne-drunk while listening to United States President-elect Joseph R. Biden formally address the nation on November 7th. It was also my birthday, and there was much to celebrate. When I heard him include trans and queer Americans in a long list of people to whom he owes this victory, as though he was naming family members, I cried. I thought of my transgender wife and all of our friends in queer and other marginalized communities for whom the previous four years particularly have been terrifyingly fraught, and how it may be slightly easier to breathe now.

With that in mind, it’s a pleasure to introduce this interview with photographer iO Tillet-Wright. In 2010, Tillet-Wright embarked on a nationwide project to photograph people who are generally lumped into the category “LGBTQIA++,” which the photographer/activist rightly calls out for how it generalizes the otherwise glorious variations within queer communities.

10 years and 10,000 portraits later, the project Self Evident Truths: 10,000 Portraits of Queer America celebrates individuality that is barely contained within the photographic frame and holds immeasurable possibilities beyond a clumsy acronym. Published by Prestel this October, the 544-page book is monumental for its size, scope, and content - “10,000 faces of survival, charisma, and charm” - alike.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with iO Tillet-Wright

PostedNovember 12, 2020

AuthorRoula Seikaly

CategoriesArt News, Artists, Galleries, Photobooks

TagsiO Tillet-Wright, Roula Seikaly, New Photography, Self Evident Truths, photobooks, queer identity and photography, empathetic portraiture, Contemporary Portraiture

“There’s No Such Thing As Normal.” Taken from Carnal Knowledge, Prestel, 2020. Photo © Elizabeth Renstrom — “There’s No Such Thing As Normal.” Taken from *Carnal Knowledge,* Prestel, 2020.
Photo © Elizabeth Renstrom

Zoe Ligon and Elizabeth Renstrom's new book Carnal Knowledge (Prestel, September 2020) updates and normalizes sex education - a topic that is still sensitive in 21st century America. For many Americans, it’s a subject that was excluded from the core curriculum and is vital to our overall health and happiness.

Longtime friends Zoe Ligon and Elizabeth Renstrom are a writer and photographer dream team. Ligon brings years of experience as a sex educator, journalist, and performer to this project in seven sharply-crafted chapters that address everything you've ever wanted to know about sex. This ranges from the basic human anatomy and the importance of healthy relationships to sex toys and supporting sex worker rights. Renstrom's vivid, 90s aesthetic-influenced photographs complement the hilariously frank text.

Without further delay…

Roula Seikaly in Conversation with Zoe Ligon and Eizabeth Renstrom

PostedSeptember 17, 2020

AuthorRoula Seikaly

CategoriesPhotobooks, Artists, Art News, Galleries

Tagssex education, Elizabeth Renstrom, Zoe Ligon, sex ed, Carnal Knowledge book, 2020 Photobooks, photobooks, Prestel Publishers

Left: Looking at Marvin, 2014 Right: Looking at Poitier, 2014. © Aaron Turner

For the past seven years, Aaron Turner has been making Black Alchemy. This photographic series and soon-to be-book published by Sleeper Studio uses still life, abstraction, appropriation, and occasional painting to reflect the complex historical representation of Black identity and culture.

Turner constructs sculptures and montages from photographs of historical Black figures, collections of images from Ebony Magazine, and his own family archive and re-photographs them with a 4x5 camera. His images are chaotic and filled with distortion – often as subtle codes intended for viewers to absorb, process, and attempt to decipher. Photographic paper curls, folds, and shimmers with reflection and reams of light and shadow. An image of Frederick Douglass repeats itself throughout the series – at times with softened focus, at others collaged jaggedly.

Many of Turner’s images use figures whose historical significance is important yet lesser-known. For example, “Looking at Drue King, 2018,” creates a folding montage of the 1943 yearbook photo of King, whose membership in the 1941 Harvard Glee Club sparked the desegregation of venues for college musical groups touring the South. Turner reimagines the photo as a three-dimensional object: photocopied, folded, and basked in light and shadow, giving new life to a pivotal, yet underreported figure in the history of desegregation. His process is, in a sense, an abstract shrine.

Other images devolve into full visual hallucination – they can be hard to focus on, know where to look, pulling you in while building on Turner’s interest in historical confusion. Ultimately, Turner’s gaze reforms how we understand history, the role images play in shaping it, the memories we hold to it, and the details we teach each generation forward.

There is a lot to soak through and it gets personal and layered in Turner’s family history.

Here we go:

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Aaron Turner

PostedJuly 24, 2020

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Photobooks, Art News

TagsAaron Turner, photography and history, Black Alchemy, Sleeper Studio, 2020 Photobooks, New Photography, Abstract photography, post-photography

A lot has changed at Humble Arts Foundation since 2005 when Amani Olu and I stared an online curatorial project called Group Show Dot Com, which later became Humble Arts Foundation. We partnered with galleries and organizations we admired to (try to!) bring some fire to the careers of "emerging" (does anyone still use that word?) art photographers we believed in – online and IRL. When I moved to Seattle in 2013 and shortly after Amani moved to Detroit, more of our focus moved online. What felt like a pet project or high school literary magazine became increasingly overwhelming.

Then, out of the blue in October 2015, a glowing email hit my inbox from Stef Halmos, an old colleague from my New York days, introducing me to Roula Seikaly, a writer looking to contribute exhibition reviews. That moment was a magical shift in Humble's history. Roula quickly became a regular contributor and has since become a true partner, holding equal weight in Humble’s projects and decisions. We collaborate on nearly every online exhibition and had the great honor of winning Blue Sky Gallery's 2019 curatorial prize for our show "An Inward Gaze.” Humble couldn't run as it does today without Roula.

After months of conversations and a couple of years of Roula as Humble's Senior Editor, we're delighted to officially update her role to Co-Curatorial Director. Moving forward, Roula and I will officially co-curate every single online show, alongside a roving guest curator (this quarter, it's Bryan Formhals. Kris Graves will follow in the fall).

Outside of Humble, Roula is a massively accomplished writer. She contributes regularly to Hyperallergic, KQEDArts, Photograph, and BOMB, and her writing has also appeared in Aperture, Saint Lucy, and Strange Fire Collective. She also curates countless exhibitions around the United States.

We're delighted and honored that Michael Chovan Dalton hosted her on his podcast Real Photoshow in April, on the occasion of Portraits Without People, the exhibition she recently curated at Axis Gallery (before the quarantine).

Thanks for reading (and listening!)

Jon Feinstein

Co-Founder and Co-Curatorial Director

PostedMay 15, 2020

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArt News

TagsRoula Seikaly, photography podcasts, Humble Arts Foundation

The American History of Driving While Black

10 Years and 10,000 Portraits of Queer America

This Photobook is the Sex Education You Missed in High School

What is Black Alchemy? A Conversation on Abstraction and Identity

Meet Roula Seikaly, Humble's Co-Curatorial Director (and listen to this podcast!)