Image courtesy Matt Black
World-renowned photographer Matt Black will review his award-winning body of work at the Cincinnati Art Museum during a milestone anniversary of FotoFocus’s annual Lecture and Visiting Artist Series.
Black, a MacArthur Fellow based out of Exeter, California, has been featured in publications like TIME Magazine, The New Yorker, and National Geographic, and has more than 240,000 followers on Instagram. His acclaimed photography explores poverty, marginalized communities, and people living in economic crisis in the U.S., one of the world’s richest countries.
During his March 26 lecture, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in the CAM’s Fath Auditorium, Black will share his experience creating American Geography, a powerful photography book in his signature all-black-and-white style. The book documents Black’s 100,000-mile, six-year journey across the U.S., which included 46 states and Puerto Rico. His photography captures the lives and stories of those neglected in America’s most impoverished communities, often rural or post-industrial regions that he says are either ignored or misrepresented by the media.
Image courtesy Matt Black
The photography series is, as Black says, “about the time that we’re living in. These whole ideas of inclusivity: What kind of country are we, and what kind of country do we want to be?” He says he’s grateful the event in Cincinnati will give him a chance to have his work seen and be the subject of discussion.
Kevin Moore, artistic director and curator of FotoFocus, says the non-profit arts organization values having photography guests—such as Black —speak about current political or social issues at its annual event.
Black’s lecture will mark the 30th anniversary of the Lecture and Visiting Artist Series, which originated as the Lightborne Photography Lecture Series in 1996. Over the years, it has welcomed internationally distinguished photographers, filmmakers, and artists to Cincinnati, including Roger Ross Williams, an Oscar and Emmy award-winning director; William Wegman, a famous Weimaraner dog photographer; and Roe Ethridge, whose work is featured at The Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Image courtesy Matt Black
Moore says Black was chosen to lead this year’s lecture because his work reflects critical themes about current American life. “I think it will be very powerful,” Moore says. “He’s got a … sober approach to the social and political world around him, so I think it’ll be a very grounded and eye-opening talk.”
During the lecture, Black will also revisit two other major bodies of his work: Mixteca and The Central Valley. Both are grounded in documenting marginalized communities. Mixteca follows the lives of indigenous immigrants from crumbling villages in Oaxaca, Mexico who journeyed to California. The Central Valley explores Black’s own hometown, the Central Valley in California, highlighting the struggles and resilience of communities in an overlooked area of the U.S.
Image courtesy Matt Black
Black began working in photojournalism in the late 1980s at his small hometown newspaper. He was just a teenager at the time, but says photography quickly became more than just a craft; it became his storytelling tool and his way of reporting to the world around him.
The paper ran in all black and white, and he says it became clear that he didn’t need colored pictures to bring emotion to his work. “I haven’t seen any need to change that because it just fits with the realities I’m trying to portray,” Black says. “It goes deeper in a strange way. I think color can be very distracting, very surface level.”
Rather than worrying about technique or owning the newest equipment, Black instead focuses on the narrative power of his photography. He wants his work to complicate the “simplistic narratives we have about understanding our country.”
Image courtesy Matt Black
Photography has a natural way of pulling viewers in, forcing them to engage in ways other media can’t. Black says humans are constantly scanning their environments, trying to connect with what’s happening around them. He wants his work to offer a lens into the realities of being poor and neglected by the nation in which you live.
“The incredible power of photography is that it taps into this deep human way we relate to the world,” Black says. “A good image has a kind of spark in it. It’s not like reading and understanding through words, it’s more an immediate, emotional kind of reading.”
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