Antwaun Sargent Curates Genre-Bending Photography in "Just Pictures"

St. Louis-based Barrett Barrera Projects announced a new group exhibition titled “Just Pictures” curated by acclaimed critic and author, Antwaun Sargent. The forthcoming presentation will feature the works of interdisciplinary photographers who work across fine art, fashion, commercial, and conceptual photography. Participating artists include Arielle Bobb-Willis, Yagazie Emezi, Joshua Kissi, Mous Lamrabat, Renell Medrano, Ruth Ossai, Rafael Pavarotti, Justin Solomon and Joshua Woods.

Channeling the vibrant portraits of familial members found in the post- independence African studio portraiture of Malick Sidibe alongside the mise-en-scène imagery of Mickalene Thomas, photographer Ruth Ossai references elements from high fashion to stage photos that introduce narratives rooted in her own personal experiences while celebrating cultural diversity. Contrasting those images is the work of Arielle Bobb-Willis who draws on the figurative abstractions of 20th-century modernist painters such as Jacob Lawerance and Milton Avery to develop surreal compositions.

“I am particularly interested in bringing together young image makers who are working between the commercial and conceptual by creating worlds entirely their own; photographers who set their gazes on rethinking the possibility of photography by embracing its boundary blurring potential which allows the images to address desire, beauty and being,” said Sargent in a statement. “The resulting work has an aesthetic all its own and a power that is drawn from the way that the images operate in many different contexts, photographically and culturally.”

View select images in the slideshow above. “Just Pictures” will take place from September 10 to November 21 at projects+gallery in St. Louis, Missouri.

Elsewhere in art, a selfie-taker has damaged a 19th-century Antonia Canova sculpture in Italy.

projects+gallery
4733 McPherson Ave
St. Louis, MO 63108