Image: Mitchell, Tyler. Untitled. 2019. New York. American Vogue.

On the occasion of the recently released Aperture photography book, The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion, the objects speak series proudly presents its inaugural event: a conversation with art critic and curator Antwaun Sargent and Dr. Isolde Brielmaier, Assistant Professor of Critical Studies in the Department of Photography, Imaging and Emerging Media at Tisch School of the Arts, on redefining representation of the Black body.

Conversation to be followed by audience Q&A and a book signing. The first 20 students will receive a free copy of the book, The NEW BLACK VANGUARD. Copies will also be available for purchase.

About the Publication:

In The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion, Antwaun Sargent addresses a radical transformation taking place in fashion and art today. The presentation of black figures and black runway and cover models in the media and art has been one marker of increasingly inclusive fashion and art communities. More critically, however, the contemporary visual vocabulary around beauty and the body has been reinfused with new vitality and substance thanks to an increase in powerful images authored by an international community of black photographers.

In a richly illustrated essay, Sargent opens up the conversation around the role of the black body in the marketplace; the cross-pollination between art, fashion, and culture in constructing an image; and the institutional barriers that have historically been an impediment to black photographers participating more fully in the fashion (and art) industries.

Fifteen artist portfolios feature the brightest contemporary fashion photographers. Alongside a series of conversations between generations, their images and stories chart the history of inclusion, and exclusion, in the creation of the commercial black image, while simultaneously proposing a brilliantly reenvisioned future.

The publication is presented in partnership with Airbnb Magazine.

About the Speakers:

Antwaun Sargent is a writer and critic living and working in New York City. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, W, Vogue, and other publications. He has contributed essays to museum and gallery publications on Ed Clark, Mickalene Thomas, Arthur Jafa, Deborah Roberts, and Yinka Shonibare, among other artists. Sargent has lectured and participated in public conversations with artists at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Brooklyn Museum, MCA Denver, Art Gallery of Ontario, and Harvard and Yale universities. He has also co-organized a number of exhibitions, including The Way We Live Now at Aperture, Then and Now: Chase Hall and Cameron Welch at Jenkins Johnson Projects, and the traveling exhibition Young, Gifted and Black. The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion is his first book.

Dr. Isolde Brielmaier is a scholar and curator whose areas of interest include: global visual culture; race, gender, class studies; social media; technology, and the on-going dynamic between art, artists and the international art market as well as the public and private sectors. She is currently Assistant Professor of Critical Studies in the Department of Photography, Imaging & Emerging Media at New York University’s Tisch School of the Art as well as the new Curator-at-Large at the International Center for Photography (ICP). She also serves as curator of several large-scale artist commission projects with organizations including The Peninsula Hotel Group, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Throughout her curatorial career, she has collaborated with noted contemporary artists including Ellen Gallagher, Carrie Mae Weems, Uta Barth, Leonardo Drew, Richard Mosse, Fred Wilson, and Bharti Kher, to name a few. Isolde has written extensively on contemporary art and culture including numerous books and articles. Previously, she has held senior posts at the Guggenheim Museum, the Bronx Museum of Art, and as Chief Curator for the SCAD Museum of Art. Brielmaier serves on The Board of Trustees of the New Museum and the Women’s Prison Association (WPA). Isolde holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

This event is hosted by the Department of Art & Public Policy-NYU and co-sponsored by the Institute of African American Affairs & Center for Black Visual Culture-NYU, Tisch School of the Arts Department of Photography & Imaging-NYU, and Aperture.

#thenewblackvanguard
#objectsspeakseries
#antwaunsargent
#isoldebrielmaier
#newyorkuniversity
#tischschoolofthearts
#artandpublicpolicy
#tischphoto
#aperture
#airbnb