Feeling the Future
Ming Smith
Portraiture is the heart and soul of Ming Smith’s photography. For nearly 50 years, Smith’s images have portrayed Black life and embodied the root emotions at the heart of individuals and communities.
Moving to New York City after graduating from Howard University, Smith, a native of Detroit, lived and worked close to other visual artists, models, and musicians. As a result, Smith personally and artistically participated in and was influenced by multiple art movements. In those early years, the New York art world made it difficult for Smith-as a young, Black woman-to be taken seriously as an artist. Carving her own path, Smith became the first woman to join the Kamoinge Workshop in 1972, an influential collective of Black photographers.
In 1979, she became the first Black woman photographer collected by The Museum of Modern Art. These achievements simultaneously speak to Smith’s unlimited artistic vision and the shortsightedness of the era. Today, her influence can be seen and felt in contemporary art of all forms.
Feeling the Future is a collection of works spanning five decades and is the first comprehensive consideration of Smith’s work in a museum. The exhibition combines street photography, figurative imagery, abstract compositions, and new experimental film. Smith’s depiction of life focuses on expressing the spirit of the moment rather than documenting events, making the viewer feel as if they are a part of the experience. Capturing the many experiences life has to offer both in the United States and abroad, Smith blurs the line between art and life, expanding the boundaries of image-making. Unless otherwise noted, all works in the exhibition are archival pigment prints courtesy of Ming Smith Studio.
Ming Smith: Feeling the Future is organized by Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, curated by James Bartlett, and conceived by Janice Bond.
