Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Dark Room A-Z New Monograph Indexes Artistic Process and Portraiture

New York, October 1, 2024—Aperture presents Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Dark Room A–Z, a new volume that reflects on the methodologies, strategies, and points of interest behind a single, expansive body of work at a pivotal moment in his career. The book is Sepuya’s most comprehensive monograph to date, serving as an artist-guided tour through the processes and approaches within his work, after nearly two decades of practice.

Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s photography is grounded in a collaborative, rhizomatic approach to studio practice and portraiture. This volume unpacks his Dark Room series (2016–21), offering a deep dive into the thick network of references and the interconnected community of artists and subjects that Sepuya has interwoven throughout the images. The excavation and mapping of intellectual and artistic data points across the artist’s work is presented through three distinct “voices,” allowing for a comprehensive cross-referencing of conceptual categories.

Each category is alphabetized and illuminated via texts by curator and scholar Gökcan Demirkazik; selections from previously published texts about the work by critics, colleagues, and friends; quotations of other writers’ work that inspire the artist; as well as writings by the artist on his thematic preoccupations as they appear and reappear throughout this ongoing body of work. Dark Room A–Z serves as an iterative return and exhaustive manual to the strategies and generative ways of working that have informed Sepuya’s image-making. Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Dark Room A–Z is available at aperture.org/books.

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Public Programs
Public programs will include two book launches to celebrate the release of Dark Room A–Z. On Friday, October 11 at 6:30 p.m. EDT, Michael Bullock, writer and political organizer, will moderate a discussion about Dark Room A–Z between Lesley A. Martin, former creative director of Aperture and editor of this title, Silas Munro, founder of Polymode and the book’s designer, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya, at Bortolami, 39 Walker St, New York, NY. A reading with the artist and Gökcan Demirkazik on Saturday, November 2, from 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. PDT at Arcana: Books on the Arts, 8675 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA. Further details and additional programs will be listed at aperture.org/events.

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Paul Mpagi Sepuya (born in San Bernardino, California, 1982) is a Los Angeles–based artist. His work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Studio Museum in Harlem, all in New York; as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among other institutions. Notable recent exhibitions include a solo survey exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, a solo exhibition at Foam, Amsterdam, in 2018, the 2019 Whitney Biennial, and Being: New Photography 2018 at the Museum of Modern Art.

Gökcan Demirkazik is an art historian, curator, and critic, and is currently a PhD student in art history at University of California, Los Angeles. His writing has appeared in ArtAsiaPacific, Artforum, ArtReview, Di’van: A Journal of Accounts, Even, and Frieze. An alumnus of the Ashkal Alwan Home Workspace Program, Beirut, Demirkazik holds a BA in art history from Harvard College.

This project was made possible, in part, with generous support from Dawoud Bey and David Dechman. Special thanks to Bortolami, New York; Document, Chicago/Lisbon; Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Paris/Zurich; and Vielmetter Los Angeles. Additional thanks to the Department of Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego, for their support.

Aperture’s programs and operations are made possible by the generosity of our board of trustees, our members, and other individuals, and with major support from 7G Foundation, Charina Endowment Fund, Documentary Arts, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Ishibashi Foundation, Joy of Giving Something, Anne Levy Charitable Trust, Henry Luce Foundation, Mailman Foundation, MurthyNAYAK Foundation, Grace Jones Richardson Trust, San Francisco Foundation, Thomas R. Schiff Foundation, Jane Smith Turner Foundation, Stuart B. Cooper and R. L. Besson, Kate Cordsen and Denis O’Leary, Thomas and Susan Dunn, Michael Sonnenfeldt, Jon Stryker and Slobodan Randjelovic, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts, with support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

About Aperture
Aperture is a nonprofit publisher that leads conversations around photography worldwide. From our base in New York, Aperture connects global audiences and supports artists through our acclaimed quarterly magazine, books, exhibitions, digital platforms, public programs, limited-edition prints, and awards. Established in 1952 to advance “creative thinking, significantly expressed in words and photographs,” Aperture champions photography’s vital role in nurturing curiosity and encouraging a more just, tolerant society. For more information on Aperture, visit: aperture.org.
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Press Contact
Lauren Van Natten, +1 212.946.7151, publicity@aperture.org