Ruth Ossai, London, 2017© Ruth Ossai. From The New Black Vanguard (Aperture, 2019)
The new book from Aperture, The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion, celebrates the work of 15 contemporary black fashion photographers, including Campbell Addy, Nadine Ijewere, Daniel Obasi, Ruth Ossai, Stephen Tayo, Film & TV alum Tyler Mitchell, and Deborah Willis, chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging.
The book’s author, Antwaun Sargent, is an art critic and a writer who has contributed to the New York Times and the New Yorker, among others. “I’ve been watching these photographers – both from up close and from afar – reimagine our notions of what a photograph can be in the space of art and fashion,” he told AnOther Magazine.
Sargent credited DPI chair Deborah Willis as inspiration in an interview with ARTnews.com: "Part of [writing the book] was trying to recontextualize some of the art history, too—trying to say, 'Yes, these images exist in art-historical contexts because of the work by people like Deb Willis, bell hooks, Thelma Golden, Sarah Lewis, Skip Gates, a lineage of black curators and thinkers who have placed them there.'"
The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion by Antwaun Sargent is published by Aperture on October 15, 2019.
The exhibition of the same name is at Aperture Gallery, New York, from October 24, 2019 – January 18, 2020.