Books by Kimberly Juanita Brown
Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures
by Sally Mann, Sarah Meister, Julie Ault, Sandra Phillips, Lauren Kroiz, Kimberly Juanita Brown, River Encalada Bullock, Sam Contis, Jennifer Greenhill, Wendy Red Star
On the unique synthesis of word and image in Dorothea Lange's boldly political photography, which defined the iconography of WPA and Depression-era America
Toward the end of her life, Dorothea Lange reflected, “All photographs―not only those that are so-called ‘documentary’... can be fortified by words.” Though Lange's career is widely heralded, this connection between words and pictures has received scant attention. A committed social observer, Lange paid sharp attention to the human condition, conveying stories of everyday life through her photographs and the voices they drew in. Published in conjunction with the first major MoMA exhibition of Lange’s in 50 years, Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures brings fresh attention to iconic works from the collection together with lesser-known photographs―from early street photography to projects on the criminal justice system. The work’s complex relationships to words show Lange’s interest in art’s power to deliver public awareness and to connect to intimate narratives in the world.
Presenting Lange’s work in its diverse contexts―photobooks, Depression-era government reports, newspapers, magazines, poems―along with the voices of contemporary artists, writers and thinkers, the book offers a nuanced understanding of Lange’s career, and new means for considering words and pictures today. An introductory essay by curator Sarah Hermanson Meister is followed by sections organized according to “words” from a range of historical contexts: Lange’s landmark photobook An American Exodus, Life and Aperture magazines, an illustrated guide to minimize racism in jury trials, and many more. These contexts are punctuated with original contributions from a distinguished group of contemporary writers, artists and critical thinkers, including Julie Ault, Kimberly Juanita Brown, River Encalada Bullock, Sam Contis, Jennifer Greenhill, Lauren Kroiz, Sally Mann, Sandra Phillips, Wendy Red Star, Christina Sharpe, Rebecca Solnit, Robert Slifkin and Tess Taylor.
Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) operated a successful San Francisco portrait studio in the 1920s before going on to work with the Resettlement Administration (and later the Farm Security Administration) documenting the hardships of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl migration. During World War II, Lange worked for the US government photographing the Japanese American internment camps, and California’s wartime economy. Lange’s photographs were published widely during her lifetime. Lange worked closely with curator John Szarkowski on a retrospective that opened posthumously in 1966 at the Museum of Modern Art.
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Black Elegies Meditations on the Art of Mourning
A poignant, unflinching study of black grief as a form of elegy found in visual art, music, literature—everywhere, if you know how to see it.
In Black Elegies, Kimberly Juanita Brown examines the form of the elegy and its unique capacity to convey the elongated grief borne of sustained racial violence. Structured around the sensorial, the book moves through sight, sound, and touch to reveal what Okwui Enwezor calls the “national emergency of black grief.” With her characteristic literary skill, Brown analyzes the work of major figures including Toni Morrison, Carrie Mae Weems, Audre Lorde, and Marvin Gaye, among others.
Brown contemplates recognizable sites of mourning: forced migration and enslavement, bodily violations, imprisonment and death. And she examines sites that do not register immediately as archives of grief: the landscape of southern U.S. slave plantations, a spontaneous street party, a quilt constructed out of the clothing worn by a loved one, a dance performance to hold the memory of history, and an aeolian harp installed at an institute of European art, among others. In this, the book offers a framework of mourning while black, within the parameters of contemporary artistic production. Brown asks: How do you mourn those you are not supposed to see? And where does the grief go? She shows us that grief is everywhere: “It spills out of photographs and modulates music. It hovers in the tenor and tone of cinematic performances. It resides in the body like an inspired concept, waiting for its articulation.”
Black Elegies is the second title of On Seeing, a new publication series devoted to visual literacy. Publications foreground the political agency, critical insight, and social impact inscribed in visuality and representation. The MIT Press will publish each On Seeing volume as a print book, ebook, and open access digital edition created by Brown University Digital Publications.
The URL for this publication is https://on-seeing-black-elegies.org.
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