Blackness

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11 Essential Photobooks for Black History Month

From monographs by Ming Smith and Deana Lawson to compendiums about activism and fashion, here are must-read books that envision Black lives.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Every Moment Counts (Ecstatic-Antibodies), 1989

How Autograph’s Photobooks Champion Black British Photography

Since the 1980s, the London-based organization has propelled a commitment to the visibility of Black artists by centering identity and human rights.

Donavon Smallwood’s Photographs Envision Black Tranquility in Central Park

Winner of the 2021 Aperture Portfolio Prize, Smallwood was inspired by the history of Seneca Village, a nineteenth-century Black community in New York.
James Barnor, Drum Cover Girl, Erlin Ibreck, London, 1966

How James Barnor’s Photographs Became Symbols of Black Glamour

A solo exhibition celebrates six decades of Barnor’s cosmopolitan photography in Ghana and the United Kingdom.
Anthony Barboza, Kamoinge Members, 1973

The Belated Celebration of the Kamoinge Workshop

In the 1970s, a group of photographers made poetic, affirmative representations of Black life. But why did most museums fail to recognize or validate their efforts?
Tyler Mitchell, Untitled (Family Time in the Park), 2019

Tyler Mitchell’s Love for a Common Way of Life

By showing Black life as leisure, repose, and outdoor play, Mitchell expands our visual vocabulary of race and space.
Shikeith, Prince, 2019

The Queer Black Artists Building Worlds of Desire

In these photographs, queer acts and communal yearning flourish beyond the confines of mainstream gay culture.
Clifford Prince King, Untitled (Grapes), 2017

Clifford Prince King’s Intimate Photographs of Black Queer Men

Creating tender scenes with friends and lovers, the LA-based artist offers a stirring vision of everyday ritual.

Black Is Beautiful

In the 1960s, Kwame Brathwaite’s fashion photographs sent a riveting message about Black culture and freedom.

Mikael Owunna’s Photographs Show the Essence of Black Healing

In his glittering portraits, the artist is building an alternate world.

A Visual Record of Black Lives, Four Decades After Emancipation

A new book revisits W.E.B. Du Bois’s landmark 1900 exhibition on Black American identity.

Fashion, Politics, and the Black Imagination

Theaster Gates revisits the legendary archives of the Johnson Publishing Company.

Zanele Muholi On Resistance

In an interview, the visual activist speaks about courage, rethinking history, and the politics of exclusion.

For Durimel, Black Humanity is Not a Fashion Trend

The young photography duo Jalan and Jibril Durimel are transforming the fashion world’s visions of beauty.
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Aperture No. 259

Guest edited by Tanisha C. Ford, Liberated Threads explores style and fashion as a language of Black resistance, refusal, and joy. This issue features image-makers who remix and reimagine twentieth-century “soul style,” creating a contemporary dialogue between photographers, filmmakers, and stylists from around the world.

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