Ayana V. Jackson
More images
Ayana Jackson, Saffronia from Intimate Justice series, 2017
Pigment print on Hahnemühle
100 x 130 cm
Article: "Celebrating the Fullness of Black Lives", The New York Times, Sunday, August 9, 2020
Article: "What's that coming over the hill? Photo Basel 2020's monster virtual art show - in pictures", The Guardian by STONE Mee-Lai, 18 june 2020
Article: "Artists from The Continent at Photo Basel 2020", Art And About Africa, 21.6.2020. URL: https://www.artandaboutafrica.com/news/artists-from-the-continent-at-photo-basel-2020/
Past exhibition: "Corps ou âme", December 11, 2019 - February 22, 2020
American photographer Ayana V. Jackson, born in 1977, a descendant of one of the earliest African families to settle in the New Jersey, is interested in the representation of black portraiture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. She questions the role of the history of photography and fine arts in the construction of racial and gender stereotypes.
From a sociological perspective, using archival material to assess the impact of the colonial gaze on the history of photography and its relationship to ideas about the body, the artist composes with historical allusions or richly laced re-appropriations to create portraits that depict various constructions of African and African-American identities. Ayana V. Jackson stages her own body to interpret this complex array of identities.
Ayana V. Jackson
Biography
Born 1977 in Livingston, United States; based between New York, Paris, and Johannesburg
Education
2005 Universität der Künste, Berlin, Germany
1995 - 1999 Spelman College Atlanta, United States
Selected solo exhibitions
2022 - From the Deep: In the Wake of Drexciya, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC
2019 - Paris Photo, with Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Paris, France
2019 - Take Me to the Water, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Chicago, IL
2019 - Dear Sarah, David Klein Gallery, Detroit, MI
2019 - Untitled Art Fair, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2018 - Intimate Justice in the Stolen Moment, Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris, France
2017 - Intimate Justice in the Stolen Moment, Gallery MOMO, JHB
2017 - Dear Sarah, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Seattle, WA
2016 - Future - Past - Imperfect, gallery MOMO Capetown, RSA
2015 - Archival Impulse, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Seattle, WA
2015 - Archival Impulse, Galerie Capazza, Nancy, France
2014 - Archival Impulse, 33 Orchard (Curated by Michael Steinburg), New York, NY
2013 - Distant Selves, Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
2013 - Archival Impulse & Poverty Pornography, Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris, France
2013 - Archival Impulse, Galerie MOMO, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
2013 - African by Legacy, Mexican by Birth, Consulate General of Mexico, Los Angeles, CA
2011 - Projection Surface, Galerie MOMO, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
2010 - African by Legacy, Mexican by Birth, Angkhor Photo Festival, Cambodia
2008 - Looking Glass Self, Peter Hermann Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2007 - African by Legacy, Mexican by Birth, Mijares Gallery in Collaboration with UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
2006 - Viajes Personales, Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University, Bluefields, Nicaragua
2006 - African by Legacy, Mexican by Birth, Guadeloupe Arts Center, San Antonio, Texas
2006 - Galeria de la Raza, organized by the San Francisco Mexican Museum, San Francisco, CA
2005 - Viajes Personales travelling exhibition, US Department of State: Instituto Universitario de Barlovento, Higuerote, Venezuela Biblioteca Virgilio Barco, Bogotá, Colombia
2005 - UNAN-Leon, Leon, Nicaragua
2005 - Museo dele Hombre, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
2004 - African by Legacy, Mexican by Birth (Series 1), Inter-America Foundation/National Council of La Raza/Inter-Agency Consultation on Race in Latin America, Washington, DC
Selected group exhibitions
2022 - Picturing Black Girlhood: Moments of Possibility, Newark, NJ Black Venus, Fotografiska, New York, NY
2022 - La Vie en Rose, Mariane Ibrahim, Chicago, IL
2021 - True Pictures? Contemporary Photography from Canada and the USA, February Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany
2021 - J’ai Deux Amours..., Mariane Ibrahim , Paris, France
2020 - Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
2020 - What Does Democracy Look Like?, Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia Chicago, Chicago, IL
2020- Photo Basel/Berlin Art Fair, with Gowen Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2020 - Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
2019 - Corps ou âme, Gowen Contemporary, Geneva, Switzerland
2019 - ARCOmadrid, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Madrid, Spain
2019 - Smart to the Core: Embodying the Self, Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, IL
2019 - American African American, Phillips, New York, NY
2018 - The Legacy of Lynching, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford, PA
2018 - Nine Moments for Now, The Cooper Gallery, Cambridge, MA
2018 - In Their Own Form, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL
2018 - Not A Single Story, NIROX Sculpture Park, Krugersdorp, South Africa
2018 - New Feelings, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR
2018 - Africa Is No Island, Museum of African Contemporary Art Al-Maaden, Marrakech, Morocco
2018 - All Power: Visual Legacies of the Black Panther Party, Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle, WA
2017 - Art Paris Art Fair, with baudoin lebon, Paris, France
2017 - AIPAD, with baudoin lebon, New York, Etats-Unis
2017 - Transparency Shade/Seeing Through the Shade, Projects + Gallery, St. Louis, MO
2017 - What Do They Call Me ?, Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg, RSA
2017 - Arts of Global Africa, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
2017 - Back Stories, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Seattle, WA
2017 - Artissima, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Turin, Italy
2016 - In Context 2016: Africans In America/Black Portraitures III, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2016 - African Forecast: Fashioning Contemporary Life, The Spelman College Museum, Atlanta, USA
2016 - Being and Becoming: Complexities of the African Identity, University of South Africa, South Africa
2016 - 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, London, UK
2015 - 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, New York, NY
2015 - 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, London, UK
2015 - A Constellation, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
2015 - Something Else, Off Biennale Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
2015 - Seattle Art Fair, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Seattle, WA
2014 - Warm Heart from Africa, Prima Noctis Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland
2014 - 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Primo Marella Gallery, London, UK
2014 - Névralgies I – Carte blanche à Myriam Mihindou, Galerie Maïa Muller, Paris, France
Collections
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ
Museum of African Contemporary Art Al-Maaden, Marrakech, Morocco
Fondation Blachere, Apt, France
World Bank Art Collection, Washington, DC
The Wedge Collection, Toronto, Canada
Alcatel Lucent Foundation, New Jersey, US
The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL
The Mott Collection, Flint, MI
The JP Morgan Chase Art Collection, New York, NY
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA
Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI
Hessel Museum of Art, NY
Awards & residencies
2018 - Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art
2013 - Ifitry, Essaouira, Morocco
2012-13 - Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France
2010 - Gallery Momo/Goethe-Institut, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 - Light Works, Syracuse, NY
2009 - Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France
2006 - The Bakery Photographic Collective, Portland, ME