African-American Photography
African-American Photography
From April 6 to June 3, 2001, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art is hosting the exhibit Reflections in Black: Smithsonian African American Photography The First One Hundred Years, 1842 – 1942. This display is a portion of the original from the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture of the Smithsonian Institution. The original exhibit includes works from 1942 to the present. Deborah Willis is the curator of both the original and Bowdoin’s abridged exhibits. The exhibit at the BCMA consists of over one hundred photographs, daguerreotypes, and tintypes from numerous photographers. The prints are displayed in wood frames and cream mats while plates are in original casings. The display’s most notable contribution to the viewer is the chronological order leading from the entrance to the exhibition. The works are grouped according to each photographer starting in 1842. This allows the viewer to see patterns and trends develop and disappear over the hundred years of examples.
Emerging Authenticity
Authenticity is an issue this class has dealt with in terms of display. We have considered how display can add to or detract from the meaning of an object. In this paper I will explore how the photographs in Reflections in Black and others by black photographers changed over time. I assert that as time went on, photographers captured more information along with the subject. Later photography provided a better portrayal of the subject with this extra information. Technologic advances as well as cultural changes allowed photographs to better express time, location, and culture. As with all photography, African American photography moved from posed portraiture and began to relay real scenes from dynamic situations in changing atmospheres. This is captured in the range of works included in Reflections in Black. As museum displays are responsible for making a work appear in its appropriate context, photography is serving a similar purpose. Photographers try to capture an event and visually express the mood, time, and surroundings. Their subjects are like the works in a museum, and the photographer is trying to piece them together so that they make sense to the viewer and reflect the original scene as closely as possible. This process has become easier for black photographers with technological advances, but the more recent photography shares the African American...