Light, Memory and Resilience: Ming Smith’s vision in contemporary photography
Milan, April 1st, 2025 – M77 has inaugurated the exhibition Ming Smith – I Paint with Light: the first solo show in Europe dedicated to Ming Smith, one of the most influential and innovative photographers on the contemporary scene. The exhibition pays tribute to her extraordinary career, celebrating her visionary approach that masterfully blends traditional photographic techniques and bold artistic experimentation, resulting in powerful and timeless images.
Ming Smith – I Paint with Light traces and celebrates Ming Smith’s entire artistic journey, bringing together more than five decades of photographic production, from her earliest works in 1972 up to her most recent production. This broad selection of images offers a comprehensive overview of her artistic evolution, showing how the artist came to establish herself as one of the most authentic and innovative voices in contemporary photography. The exhibition project, transversal and anthological in nature, is curated by Gallery Director Chiara Principe, in collaboration with the artist herself and her studio, and marks the start of her representation by M77.
Ming Smith, the first black female photographer whose works were to be included in the MoMA permanent collection, had the courage to explore and represent the African American experience with an extraordinarily personal gaze, through an intuitive and deeply poetic approach. Her images not only document but also explore the emotional, cultural and social nuances of a complex reality, addressing issues such as identity, memory, resilience and the struggle for acknowledgment. Born in Detroit in 1947 and based in Harlem, Ming Smith grew up in a vibrant yet complex environment, characterised by the cruelty of racial segregation laws, which profoundly influenced her life and artistic approach. After moving to New York in the 1970s, Smith joined Kamoinge, a collective of photographers who had been documenting the life of the African-American community since the 1960s, and began to collaborate with key figures on the cultural scene, giving rise to a visual language that combines elements both of reality and surrealism. Her photographs are visual narratives with a strong emotional impact that explore identity, memory and the sense of community in all their many facets; portraits of moments, feelings and intuitions brought to us through an approach that she describes as “having to capture a moment that will never come back, and do it justice.”
The exhibition offers a complete overview of Smith’s work, through a selection of a hundred photographs, including previously unpublished vintage images as well as more recent works. Among the pieces on display, iconic images stand out, such as those belonging to the Invisible Man series: a powerful tribute to the work of writer and critic Ralph Waldo Ellison, and the images dedicated to playwright August Wilson – a great source of inspiration for Smith – which reflect the depth and complexity of African-American stories and bring back the echo of a past as difficult as it is close, steeped in poetry and resilience. There is no shortage of self-portraits and iconic portraits, such as those of Grace Jones and Brassaï, emblems of Ming Smith’s production.
The exhibition is split into several thematic sections to best represent the variety of this artist’s production: on the ground floor, visitors are greeted by four walls dedicated to the representation of African-American life. Going upstairs, the exhibition continues with portraits and an entiresection dedicated to works in which the artist explores with paint, often applied directly onto the film surface using her fingertips. The latter is reflected in the title of the exhibition, toying with the very subject of photography, light, and the experimental approach adopted by the photographer. The exhibition also includes wonderful large-format works where photography and painting converge, like a jazz piece, in a symphony of rhythm and color. Along the corridors, there are shots dedicated to travel, with photographs representing places that are symbolic for Ming Smith, such as Paris, Italy, Egypt and Japan, among others. Smith’s work is striking in its honest and lively depth, and stands witness to the human condition in its deepest and most spiritual sense. Two years after the monographic project at MoMA, and a few days after the opening of the group exhibition Paris Noir at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Ming Smith. I Paint with Light offers a unique opportunity to discover the work of one of the most influential artists of our time.
The exhibition will open to the public until May 24, 2025.
Via Mecenate, 77, 20138 Milano MI
