The Black Image Corporation is the new exhibition by Fondazione Prada at the Osservatorio in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, conceived by Theaster Gates.
The project explores the legacy of Johnson Publishing Company archive: more than 4 million images and have contributed to shape the aesthetic and cultural languages of the contemporary African American identity. Gates has conceived a coral and participatory exhibition where the visitors will be invited to freely explore this extensive visual archive pulling out and contemplating single frames from the artist’s structure or putting them on display outside of it, making them visible for other visitors.
Gates’ selection is focused on the works of two photographers: Moneta Sleet Jr. and Isaac Sutton; their images representing the gamut of Black American standard social elite.
Welcomed by the artist and curator Theaster Gates and the Fondazione Prada’s Artistic and Scientific Superintendent Germano Celant, the exhibition was inaugurated on September 19, with a cocktail attended by leading figures from the world of art, and cinema, including Spike Lee, Joan Jonas, Amii Steward, Francesco Vezzoli, Kimberly Drew, Caroline Corbetta, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Kimberly Drew.
The Black Image Corporation
Fondazione Prada – Osservatorio
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II – Milan
From 20 September 2018 to 14 January 2019