Ming Smith, Ethiopian Crew, 1973. Archival pigment print, 20 x 24 in. Credit: Courtesy of Ming Smith and Melissa Starker
Ming Smith described her first interaction with photography — using her mother’s camera to capture her kindergarten classmates when she was only 5 years old — as being life-changing, setting the course for the future of her career.
Now, over 70 years later, Smith finds herself with not just one, but four ongoing Ohio exhibitions, three of which are in Columbus.
The Columbus Museum of Art will show two photography collections from Smith. One exhibition is titled “Transcendence” and, according to the museum’s website, is being presented alongside the work of Columbus-born, National Book Award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson, whose books, like many of Smith’s photographs, tackle “the nuanced issues of race and gender.”
According to CMA’s website, the second exhibition from Smith, titled “August Moon,” is “a visual journey that celebrates the richness of Black life and the enduring legacy of August Wilson’s storytelling.” Both of Smith’s CMA exhibitions will be on display until Jan. 26.
The Wexner Center for the Arts will be showcasing “Wind Chime” — which, according to the center’s website, explores the topics of spirituality, movement and feminism, pairing Smith’s recent work with the photographic series that started her career in 1972 — until Jan. 5.
Outside of Columbus, Smith has a fourth Ohio exhibition at The Gund — a gallery space located at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. According to The Gund’s website, the exhibition — which will be on display until Dec. 15 — is titled “Jazz Requiem – Notations in Blue” and showcases photographs from Smith’s early career as she traveled throughout Europe.
Smith, who was raised in Columbus, said she would watch her father take and develop photos throughout her childhood, which allowed her to frequently witness photography at a young age.
Smith said it wasn’t until the 1970s, when she spent some time as a model, that her interest in photography re-sparked.
“That’s where I discovered photography as an art form,” Smith said.
A few years later, in 1979, Smith became the first Black woman to have her photography added to the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which she said has been one of her proudest accomplishments.
Melissa Starker, creative content and public relations manager for the Wexner Center for the Arts, said Smith’s collaboration with MoMA was just the start to the long and thriving career she would go on to achieve.
“She said, ‘I’m going to show them my work,’ so she did,” Starker said. “It reflected this adventurous spirit that you can see in the variety of different places that she went to explore and continue her photography practice.”
Smith said since 1979, she has traveled worldwide, initially for modeling but later for photography. She said her travels — particularly to African countries including Ethiopia and Senegal — are what led her to create her first photo series, which is currently being showcased as a part of the Wexner Center’s “Wind Chime” exhibit.
Starker said the series consists of primarily black-and-white images, some of which include the use of double exposure — a photography technique in which artists expose the same frame of film twice, taking two photos on the same piece of film — to accentuate motion and movement in photos.
Starker said one example of this double-exposure technique comes from Smith’s 1992 photograph, “Masque,” which was taken in Egypt.
Smith said other photos in the “Wind Chime” exhibit focus on showcasing the daily lives of people in the countries she visited. In a 1973 photograph, titled “Ethiopian Crew,” Smith said she chose to focus on six Ethiopian children who were all simply standing together, whereas a 1972 photograph, titled “Child Porter,” focuses on a young child in Abidjan, Ivory Coast carrying a basket over their head.
“Really, I just love the images,” Smith said. “Whether it’s of people or a tree, I just love to capture the image.”
Ming Smith, Ailey – Praise (New York, NY), ca. 1981. Vintage gelatin silver print, 15 7/8 x 19 3/4 in. Credit: Courtesy of Lance Brewer
Starker said Smith’s work can be considered revolutionary in its subject matter — with a main focus on highlighting Black communities around the world — for the time period in which they were taken, and yet continue to remain powerful and relevant today.
“It seemed like a great moment to have her work highlighted by Columbus since she was raised in Columbus,” Starker said.
Nicole Rome, director of collections and exhibitions for CMA, said this marks the first time all three institutions — CMA, The Wexner Center for the Arts and The Gund — have collaborated in this way, presenting exhibitions from the same artist during the same season.
“This is actually the first major exhibition or even series of exhibitions that [Smith] has had in her hometown of Columbus,” Rome said.
Rome said “Transcendence” is a collection of several years worth of images taken throughout the ’80s and ‘90s when Smith returned to Columbus as an adult.
“When she was growing up in Columbus, in the ‘50s, it was during the Jim Crow era,” Rome said. “There was a lot of racism in the city, a lot of discrimination that she faced as a child. She wanted to make a body of work that was, in her words, sort of transcending that pain.”
Rome said, on the other hand, “August Moon” takes inspiration from writer August Wilson — particularly from his 1990 play “Two Trains Running.” Rome said Smith read the play and found so much inspiration from it that she decided to travel to Wilson’s hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1991.
“She was really inspired by his work and actually got on a Greyhound bus from New York and went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to see the neighborhood where he grew up, the neighborhood that the bulk of his work is set in,” Rome said.
Smith said although each exhibit is unique in its own way, they all contain similar themes of Black culture and the use of street photography.
“My photographs illuminate African American struggle for visibility in the wider cultural landscape,” Smith said. “My legacy is the continuation and survival of Black culture, love and genius, and its importance and huge invaluable contribution to humanity.”
Smith said she hopes her photography can impact others’ lives in the same way it’s impacted her own.
“Photography has been a spiritual journey,” Smith said. “It’s my responsibility and love, not [just] career. It’s God’s work. I’m a witness.”
For more information about Smith, including her creative projects and current exhibitions, visit her website.
