Tyler Mitchell, I Can Make You Feel Good
The International Center of Photography (ICP) will open its new integrated center at Essex Crossing on Manhattan’s Lower East Side with Alumnus Tyler Mitchell: I Can Make You Feel Good, one of four inaugural exhibitions. It will be on view at ICP at 79 Essex Street from January 25 to May 18, 2020.
Mitchell, aims to revitalize and elevate the Black body in his work by representing people in his own community as joyful and proud. Characterized by a use of natural light and candy-color palettes, his work visualizes a Black utopia contrasting with representations and experiences of reality, while offering a powerful and hopeful counternarrative.
Over the course of the exhibition, Mitchell will lead a number of multidisciplinary public programs and events which will activate the galleries. In addition, Mitchell will unveil a series of retail products via his new product design endeavor Items from the Studio which will be available for sale in ICP’s new shop. More details will be announced in the coming weeks.
"I often think about what white fun looks like, and this notion that Black people can’t have the same. Growing up with Tumblr, I would often come across images of sensual, young, attractive white models running around being free and having so much fun—the kind of stuff Larry Clark and Ryan McGinley would make. I seldom saw that freedom for Black people in images—or at least in the photography I knew. My work responds to this lack. I feel an urgency to visualize Black people as free, expressive, effortless, and sensitive." - Tyler Mitchell