Projects: Ming Smith

February 04, 2023 – May 29, 2023

The Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art announces Projects: Ming Smith, on view in the Museum’s street-level galleries from February 4 through May 29, 2023. A photographer who has lived and worked in New York since the 1970s, Ming Smith has served as a precedent for a generation of artists engaging the politics and poetics of the photographic image. Through a deep exploration of the artist’s archive, the exhibition will offer a critical reintroduction to Smith’s work through her distinctive approach to movement, light, rhythm, and shadow, highlighting how she transforms the image from a document of photographic capture into a space of emotive expression.

Projects: Ming Smith is organized by Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Oluremi C. Onabanjo, Associate Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, with the assistance of Kaitlin Booher, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Curatorial Fellow, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, and Habiba Hopson, Curatorial Assistant, The Studio Museum in Harlem.

The Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series is made possible in part by the Elaine Dannheisser Foundation and The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art.

Press Kit

Images

Important: By downloading images you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity of The Museum of Modern Art's and MoMA PS1's current and upcoming exhibitions, programs, and news announcements. Permission to use images is granted only to the extent of the Museum's and MoMA PS1's ownership rights relating to those images—the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. The images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.

Ming Smith, August Blues, from “Invisible Man.” 1991. Courtesy of the artist. © Ming Smith.

Ming Smith. Womb, 1992. Courtesy of the artist. © Ming Smith.

Ming Smith, The Window Overlooking Wheatland Street Was My First Dreaming Place. 1979. Courtesy of the artist. © Ming Smith.

Ming Smith, Sun Ra Space II. 1978. Courtesy of the artist. © Ming Smith.

Ming Smith, African Burial Ground, Sacred Space, from “Invisible Man.” 1991. Courtesy of the artist. © Ming Smith.

Installation view of Projects: Ming Smith, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York from February 4, 2023 – May 29, 2023. Photo: Robert Gerhardt.