"Published on the occasion of the exhibition 'Paul Mpagi Sepuya' held at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, May 17-August 18, 2019, and Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, October 18, 2019-March 14, 2020. Organized by Wassan Al-Khudhairi, chief curator, with Misa Jeffereis, assistant curator."--adapted from verso of page 95. Includes bibliographical references.
Contents:
Foreword / by Lisa Melandri -- Acknowledgments / by Wassan Al-Khudhairi -- Interview with Paul Mpagi Sepuya / by Wassan Al-Khudhairi -- Grease on glass / by Evan Moffitt -- Plates. Early portraits -- Red Studio / white feet / by Lucy Gallun -- Studio work, 2010-11 -- To empower the fragment / by Ariel Goldberg -- Some recent pictures, 2013-14 -- The studio / by Grace Wales Bonner -- Studies -- A parliament of parts / by Malik Gaines -- Mirror studies -- Dark room -- Exhibition checklist -- Contributor biographies / by Misa Jeffereis.
Summary:
"The exhibition 'Paul Mpagi Sepuya' is the first to survey more than a decade of the artist's practice. It offers the opportunity to trace visual, thematic, and conceptual connections across several bodies of work as well as to chart the artist's evolution in image-making. While we are privy to different strategies and varied nuances in his work, Sepuya consistently makes photographs that deconstruct traditional portraiture, challenging notions of "sitter" and "subject", and recasting the space, idea, and presence of the studio. His photographs feature friends, artists, collaborators, and himself, offering the perspective of a black, queer gaze. Figures are often rendered as abstractions through layering, fragmentation, mirror imagery, and shadow. Sometimes the body is represented only through traces left behind - of fingerprints, impressions in a velvet backdrop, fingertips holding a drape. The portraits are movingly honest, made with no digital intervention ; what you see is what was there. Sepuya's photographs expose their own making with the apparatus of photography as an integral part of the picture - tripod, clamps, lenses, and the camera itself. The resulting work, covering multiple periods of Sepuya's career and life, reveals a profound intimacy between artist and sitters, reflecting a poignant generosity of spirit in its transparency."--adapted from Foreword, page [6].
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.