Rediscovering the Photographs of Ernest Cole | Aperture Conversations

Overview

About the Guests

Overview

Learn more about the Aperture photobook, Ernest Cole: The True America.

Leslie Matlaisane, chairperson of the Ernest Cole Family Trust and nephew of Ernest Cole, Aperture’s Denise Wolff, editor of this title, and curator and contributor Leslie M. Wilson discuss the first publication of Cole’s photographs depicting Black lives in the United States during the turbulent and eventful late 1960s and early 1970s. After fleeing South Africa to publish his landmark book House of Bondage (1967) on the horrors of apartheid, Cole resettled in New York. He photographed extensively on the streets of New York City and documented Black communities in cities and rural areas of the United States—traveling across the country in the months leading up to and just after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. “The True America” provides an important window into American society and establishes Cole’s place in the history of American photography.

This conversation originally took place on February 27, 2024.

About the Guests

Denise Wolff is senior editor of the Aperture book program, where she focuses on commissioning and editing books for a broad audience, including The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip by David Campany (2014), Girl Pictures by Justine Kurland (2020), and House of Bondage by Ernest Cole (2022 reissue). In addition, Wolff spearheads the Photography Workshop Series, featuring titles by Dawoud Bey, Larry Fink, Todd Hido, Mary Ellen Mark, Richard Misrach, and Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb. Her projects have won numerous AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers and D&AD Awards, as well as an Alice Award and the Henry Luce Foundation’s American Art Exhibition Competition. She is currently an adjunct professor at Fordham University, New York.

Leslie Matlaisane is a nephew of Ernest Cole and trustee of the Ernest Cole Family Trust, responsible for preserving and promoting Ernest Cole’s body of work and legacy. He has worked as a finance accountant and finance manager for the Get Ahead Foundation, was cofounder of Grand Finance, a retail lending institution, and later served as finance director for both Blue Dot Finance and Vengrow Capital. In addition to his work with the Ernest Cole Family Trust, Matlaisane is an external project manager for the South African Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA).

Leslie M. Wilson is associate director for academic engagement and research at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her research, teaching, and curatorial endeavors focus on the history of photography, the arts of Africa and the African diaspora, modern and contemporary American art, and museum studies. Her current and forthcoming projects include not all realisms: photography, Africa, and the long 1960s at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art where she was a curatorial fellow from 2019 to 2021, and David Goldblatt: No ulterior motive at the Art Institute of Chicago with cocurators Matthew Witkovsky and Judy Ditner. She has written for numerous publications, including Dear Dave, FOAM, and Manual. From 2017 to 2021, she was assistant professor of art history at Purchase College, SUNY.