We are at Les Rencontres d’Arles, the famed French photography festival drawing in worldwide intelligentsia to the South of France. This year is no exception, but its minimalist-clad crowds rush in packs to the city centre’s church of Saint Anne. Which comes as no surprise: the monastic walls bear the much-awaited “The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion’” exhibition, comprising some of the world’s best-known recent fashion photography. The show is based on a book of the same title, curated by Antwaun Sargeant, the art critic and curator behind both projects.
His starting point was a sense of urgency, a desire to celebrate a new generation of Black artists whose visions sit on the edge of art and fashion, and at the forefront of the avant-garde. The exhibition unveils a total of 15 of the most sought-after names, all aged between 25 and 35, and hailing from Johannesburg, New York or London – including Tyler Mitchell’s Vogue 2018 cover featuring Beyoncé, a groundbreaking moment in a still brutally white-centric art and fashion world.
For Antwaun Sargeant, this exhibition continues the book’s commitment to opening a conversation about “the role of the Black body and Black lives as a subject matter.” Both artistic and political, the show presents a community making a difference with images “whose beauty evokes an act of social justice.”
“They celebrate Black creativity and the cross-pollination between art, fashion, and culture in constructing an image. Seeking to challenge the idea that Blackness is homogenous, the works serve as a form of visual activism” he concludes.
