Autoportrait 2017

Breaking down long-established boundaries, The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion exhibition is set to arrive as part of the Photo 2020 International Festival of Photography. Travelling from New York’s Aperture Foundation and curated by Antwaun Sargent, the exhibition presents fifteen artists whose vibrant portraits and conceptual images challenge the idea that blackness is homogenous, with works serving as a form of visual activism.

Reinfusing the contemporary visual vocabulary around beauty and the body with new vitality and substance, works include those that have been widely consumed in traditional lifestyle magazines, ad campaigns, and museums, as well as on their individual social-media channels.

As part of Photo 2020, London based artist Luke Willis Thompson who tackles traumatic histories of class, racial and social inequality, institutional violence, colonialism and forced migration, will present autoportrait 2017 (as pictured left) from 23 April to 10 May.

Image:
Luke Willis Thompson
autoportrait 2017
35mm, b&w, silent
Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery and produced in partnership with Create. Courtesy the artist.