MING SMITH: CATCHING THE LIGHT

Kathleen Coleman, Arts Editor

Art is Bond is delighted to present “Catching the Light,” a solo exhibition by Ming Smith opened May 26, 2023, and is on view through Saturday July 8, 2023.

The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is also presenting her first career survey exhibition “Ming Smith: Feeling the Future,” curated by James Bartlett from May 25 - October 1, 2023.

With a gentle but decisive eye and a deep love for the spirits of the figures and spaces she captures, Ming Smith holds in her hands a truly unique world. A pioneer in her field, Smith has been telling stories for decades through her dynamic and considerate photographs; they follow her life as she modeled, danced, and explored through the Midwest and east coast, and they follow all the lives she touched along the way.

Following in her father’s footsteps and beginning a lifelong passion, photography found Smith at a very young age—as early as Kindergarten. Born in Detroit, Michigan, she grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and her midwestern photographs emanate nostalgia and the softness of family and home.

After studying microbiology and getting her degree from Howard

University, Smith moved to New York in the early 1970s and found her creative community. Smith was the first woman member of the Kamoinge Workshop, a collective of influential Black photographers in the 60s and 70s who worked to capture and celebrate Black life in the city.

Her innovative work has inspired many aspiring artists from the beginning of her career to the present day, impacting not only individuals but the scope of photography overall. Ming Smith is indeed art history—as Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, puts it, Smith “lives deep in our history,” and is “central to how we think about photography in the 20th century and as we move into the 21st.”

As the first Black woman pho- tographer to be acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York after simply dropping off her portfolio in the 70s, Smith’s journey came full circle at the beginning of 2023 with a featured solo exhibition curated by Oluremi Onabanjo. Recently lauded with International Center for Photography’s

(ICP) Lifetime Achievement Award, and with an upcoming exhibition at the Guggenheim, Smith is finally seeing the profound recognition her phenomenal and extensive career deserves. She has been included in exhibitions internationally, including “Pictures by Women” at MoMA, “Soul of a Nation” at Tate Modern and the Brooklyn Museum, and “Working Together” at Whitney Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Smith is also featured in the collection of the Tate Modern, Whitney Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, in addition to many more.

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