On Being Black at the Arnika Dawkins Gallery

There is an important show up now at the Arnika Dawkins Gallery in Atlanta, through January 22, 2016. 

Entitled On Being Black, this show features work by 23 nationally renowned, mid-career and emerging fine art photographers. 

The work in this show, which, as the folks at the Dawkins Gallery describe it, "explores issues of race, colorism and racial identity," reminds us that the person who makes the image controls the image, and that the most widely-known Southern photographers are white. 

All the more reason, therefore, to welcome and celebrate a show that emphasizes work by African-American photographers seeking "to continue the conversation about race" while also attempting to "make sense of the daily news." 

Photographers in the show explore how they identify themselves in relationship to questions of who gets to define race, and how its done, as well as "what it means to be black in the new millennium."

 

Photographers in the show include Jared Soares (image at the top of this post),  Delphine Fawundu (image second from the top), Janna Ireland (image third from the top). 

You can learn more about this show from Aline Smithson, who has reviewed it on  Lenscratch, here.