D'Angelo Lovell Williams

Last updated

D'Angelo Lovell Williams (born 1992) is an American photographer, living in Brooklyn, New York [1] who has made work about queer Black life. [2] In 2022 their book Contact High was published.

Contents

Early life and education

Williams was born in Jackson, Mississippi. [1] In 2015 they earned a BFA in photography from Memphis College of Art in Memphis, Tennessee and in 2018 a MFA in art photography from Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. [3] They also attended Skowhegan School of Art in 2018. [4]

Life and work

Williams is a Black, queer artist whose artwork uses photography to explore queer intimacy. [4]

Their work was included in the 2020 exhibition and related publication, Young Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists, curated by Antwaun Sargent and Matt Wycoff from the Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art at Lehman College from February to May 2020. [5]

The series Papa Don't Preach, according to Maia Rae Bachman writing for Musée Magazine, uses portraits of Black queer intimacy to explore "feelings of closeness through kinship." [6]

"By capturing images of their body in different settings, domestic and public, Williams centers their series around an ethereal realm, one where Black people can examine the generational traumas of the past, and traumas of the present day. With such a diverse range of poses, and subjects, they show a space of exploration for Black and queer bodies, whose narrative has too often been obscured by white storytelling." [6]

The book Contact High (2022) explores queer Black communities that Williams feels a part of. Williams appears in the majority of the photographs with a cast of supporting characters. According to Ravi Ghosh writing for i-D , "a few distinct features stand out: the variety of full-body poses, the connection to the land and vegetation, the air of self-destruction. D'Angelo's unbroken stare into the camera becomes this set's defining quality." [3] Marigold Warner writes in the British Journal of Photography that

"the images are layered with meanings relating to queerness, Blackness, gender, history and Williams' own experiences. [. . .] These dichotomies exist throughout Williams' images: sex and violence; power and subservience; control and chaos; ecstasy and pain", of which Williams says "A lot of our narratives haven't been our own as Black queer people, and that's what I wanted to get at." [7]

Personal life

Williams lives in Brooklyn, New York. [1] They were diagnosed with HIV in January 2020. [6]

Publications

Books by Williams

Zines by Williams

Solo exhibitions

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hank Willis Thomas</span> American artist

Hank Willis Thomas is an American conceptual artist. Based in Brooklyn, New York, he works primarily with themes related to identity, history, and popular culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuki Kihara</span> New Zealand artist

Shigeyuki "Yuki" Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist of Japanese and Samoan descent. In 2008, her work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; it was the first time a New Zealander and the first time a Pacific Islander had a solo show at the institution. Titled Shigeyuki Kihara: Living Photographs, the exhibition opened from 7 October 2008 to 1 February 2009. Kihara's self-portrait photographs in the exhibitions included nudes in poses that portrayed colonial images of Polynesian people as sexual objects. Her exhibition was followed by an acquisition of Kihara's work for the museum's collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deborah Willis (artist)</span> American artist and photographer (born 1948)

Deborah Willis is a contemporary African-American artist, photographer, curator of photography, photographic historian, author, and educator. Among her awards and honors, she is a 2000 MacArthur Fellow. She is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts of New York University. In 2024, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leslie Hewitt</span> American artist (born 1977)

Leslie Hewitt is an American contemporary visual artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zanele Muholi</span> South African artist and visual activist (born 1972)

Zanele Muholi is a South African artist and visual activist working in photography, video, and installation. Muholi's work focuses on race, gender and sexuality with a body of work that dates back to the early 2000s, documenting and celebrating the lives of South Africa's Black lesbian, gay, transgender, and intersex communities. Muholi is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, explaining that "I'm just human".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiona Pardington</span> New Zealand photographer (born 1961)

Fiona Dorothy Pardington is a New Zealand artist, her principal medium being photography.

Sarah Anne Johnson is a Canadian photo-based, multidisciplinary artist working in installation, bronze sculpture, oil paint, video, performance, and dance.

Deana Lawson is an American artist, educator, and photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work is primarily concerned with intimacy, family, spirituality, sexuality, and Black aesthetics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zineb Sedira</span> Algerian photographer, artist (born 1963)

Zineb Sedira is a London-based Franco-Algerian feminist photographer and video artist, best known for work exploring the human relationship to geography.

Ajamu X is a British artist, curator, archivist and activist. He is best known for his fine art photography which explores same-sex desire, and the Black male body, and his work as an archivist and activist to document the lives and experiences of black LGBTQ people in the United Kingdom (UK).

Brittany Nelson is an American artist. She works in the medium of camera-less photography.

Elle Pérez is an American photographer whose work explores gender identity, intimacy, vulnerability, and the relationship between seeing and love. Pérez is a gender non-conforming trans artist. They are currently an Assistant Professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University. Pérez is represented by 47 Canal and currently lives and works in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Friend</span> British-Australian photographer

Robin Friend is a British-Australian photographer. His book Bastard Countryside (2018), brought together "15 years worth of exploration" the British Landscape with a large format view camera. Included in this publication by Loose Joints is an essay the landscape writer Robert Macfarlane.

Fariba Hajamadi is an Iranian-born American painter, installation artist, and photographer. Her work is created on fabric, canvas, and wood panels, often presented as large scale installations. Hajamadi work investigates cultural and gender Identity, as well as narratives of displacement, and dissects the cultural institution from the point of view of a cultural outsider both as a woman and as someone born in a non-Western culture. She lives in New York City.

Shawné Michaelain Holloway is a Chicago-based American new media artist and digital feminist whose practice incorporates sound, performance, poetry, and installation with focuses in new media art, feminist art, net art, digital art. Holloway engages with the rhetoric of technology and sexuality to excavate the hidden architectures of power structures and gender norms.

Devan Shimoyama is a contemporary African-American visual artist best known as a painter that uses mixed mediums in their work. Shimoyama's work is inspired by Black, queer, and male bodies from a personal perspective. The exploration of mythology and folklore also plays a key role in Shimoyama's work. Shimoyama uses his work to examine the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality within everyday life.

Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. is a queer black American artist and photographer. In 2019 they received an Emerging Visual Arts Grant by The Rema Hort Mann Foundation.

Diedrick Brackens is an American artist and weaver. Brackens is well known for his woven tapestries that explore African American and queer identity.

Pati Solomona Tyrell is an interdisciplinary artist from New Zealand who focuses on performance, videography and photography. Tyrell is a founding member of art collective FAFSWAG. In 2018 Tyrell became the youngest nominee for the Walters Prize, New Zealand's most prestigious contemporary art award, for the video work Fāgogo, subsequently purchased by Auckland Art Gallery. In 2020 Tyrell won the Arts Pasifika Awards' Emerging Pacific Artist Award.

Aleesa Cohene is a Canadian visual artist based in Los Angeles.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "D'Angelo Lovell Williams" (PDF). Retrieved 2023-02-08.
  2. ↑ "D'Angelo Lovell Williams "Contact High"". CNN. 5 July 2022. Retrieved 2022-09-16.
  3. 1 2 3 Ghosh, Ravi. "D'Angelo Lovell Williams photographs Black mundane surrealism". i-D. Retrieved 2022-09-16.
  4. 1 2 Gallery 400 (2021-10-07). "Exercising Fellowship: D'Angelo Lovell Williams and Derrick Woods-Morrow - Gallery 400" . Retrieved 2024-04-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. ↑ Young Gifted and Black (PDF). Lehman College Art Gallery. 2020.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Papa Don't Preach by D'Angelo Lovell Williams". Musée Magazine. 11 June 2020. Retrieved 2022-09-17.
  7. ↑ Warner, Marigold. "D'Angelo Lovell Williams draws on contemporary culture, history, and their own life to articulate the Black queer experience". British Journal of Photography. Retrieved 2022-09-17.
  8. ↑ Smith, Roberta; Schwendener, Martha (17 August 2017). "What to See in New York Art Galleries This Week". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2022-09-16.
  9. ↑ "Bernd And Hilla Becher". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2022-09-16.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.