Ming Smith

Ming Smith: Jazz Requiem - Notations in Blue

Jazz Requiem – Notations in Blue is an invitation to explore Smith’s practice in relation to the complex notions of place and identity formation that shaped the early stages of her career. Smith came of age as an artist during a time when many Black visual artists, dancers, writers, musicians, and poets found Europe more receptive to their work, providing them with greater opportunities and the freedom to hone their craft. The exhibition underscores the profound influence of intuitive expressions found in dance and music, particularly jazz, as a throughline in her work. It also reveals how Smith draws inspiration from figures like Brassai and Cartier-Bresson, whose work she encountered firsthand while in Paris in the 1970s. This selection of images, many printed for the first time, aims to capture the intricacies of the Black experience, both subtle and stark, within and beyond specific localities. Her images are known for their elusive yet poignant depictions, conveying the soon-vanishing qualities of a moment in movement.

Throughout her travels, the artist embodies a central tenet of the Black Arts Movement: the idea of “owning the images that we saw of ourselves.” She expanded photography beyond the so-called realism previously attributed to photographs of Black people as a means to document, catalog, and analyze them. Smith confronts notions of the gaze inherent to photography, thereby internalizing and subverting the medium’s objectifying tendencies. Through experimentation and visual meditation, Smith positions herself as a vanguard, pursuing image-making as a way to remember, share, and deeply feel the world around her.