Opening Reception: Thursday, April 2, 6 – 8PM
Jackson Fine Art is delighted to announce our spring exhibition Gordon Parks: The South in Color organized in partnership with The Gordon Parks Foundation. The exhibition is timed to commemorate two important milestones—the 70th anniversary of the landmark publication of Parks’ images of the segregated South in Life magazine and the 20th anniversary of the founding of The Gordon Parks Foundation. The South in Color will present more than thirty photographs from the artist’sSegregation Story series and debut a brand-new portfolio published by the Foundation. The exhibition brings together many of Parks’ images not previously shown in the gallery, alongside some of his most recognized such as At Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile, Alabama, to offer a fresh look at the series, and deepen its emotional and historical resonance.
The South in Color is curated by acclaimed American photographer Dawoud Bey, and presented in alliance with the Foundation’s yearlong celebration of Parks and his impact on the current generation of Black artists and writers. Our exhibition brings to life Bey’s 2022 essay, "The South in Color" from the expanded edition of Gordon Parks: Segregation Story (2022), in which he writes about the visual poetry of Parks’ photographs taken in and around Mobile, Alabama in Summer 1956 for Life magazine. Bey writes about Parks’ artistic vision for this series and how, “these photographs deserve as much consideration for the quality of their making as the mission that brought them into being.”
Gordon Parks, At Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile, Alabama, 1956
(Cora Taylor at right, in sunglasses)
Dawoud Bey
Parks employed a handheld, twin lens Rolleiflex camera to photograph the daily lives of the Thornton family and their extended relatives, among them the Causey and Tanner families. His camera selection and decision to shoot in color resulted in the carefully composed, lush, square format images in the exhibition. Bey writes how Parks’ “deliberate choices of tool, material, and sensibility lend the Black Southern presence, often under siege, a sense of lives fully and expressively lived.” Bey’s curation provides a new perspective into the creative genius of Gordon Parks.
Additionally, the exhibition will premiere a limited-edition portfolio entitled The South in Color, published by The Gordon Parks Foundation in celebration of their 20th anniversary. The ten photographs in this new portfolio highlight Parks’ attention to children, whose presence anchors many of the series’ most powerful images. A printing of Dawoud Bey’s essay "The South in Color "is included in the portfolio. The South in Color portfolio is printed in an edition of 25 with 5 Artist’s Proofs.
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