Matt Black
Magnum Foundation, Magnum Photos, and Thames and Hudson invite you to an evening event celebrating two new publications that explore the ways photographers activate archives to present nuanced portraits of the United States.
The event will begin with a conversation between photographer Matt Black and curator Pauline Vermare about Matt's new book American Artifacts, which documents discarded objects from poverty zones across the United States to assemble a revealing image of an unseen and forgotten America—and a powerful archeology of dispossession. Then, photographer Peter van Agtmael, professor Laura Wexler, and book designer Yolanda Cuomo will discuss their new book Magnum America, which dives into Magnum's vast archive to present an interwoven visual portrait of the USA, past and present, as the country stands once again at a crossroads of history.
Books will be available for purchase, with a signing and reception following the conversation.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024 | 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM ET
Doors open at 6:00 PM
In-person and online
59 East 4th St, 7W | New York, NY 10003
About American Artifacts:
American Artifacts is a compelling continuation of Matt Black’s critically acclaimed American Geography (2021) which charted his six-year, 100,000-mile journey across the United States to designated “poverty areas” (places with a poverty rate above 20 percent) in forty-six states and Puerto Rico, finding that they are never more than a two-hour’s drive apart. In this new book, Black showcases the objects that he collected in the locations he visited—objects that, over time, began to take on symbolic significance. As he traveled across an unseen and forgotten America, Black’s collection grew into the thousands of items: plastic spoons and forks, lottery tickets, liquor bottles, lighters, and matchbooks. Some items were practical and important, like job applications, medical paperwork, and driver’s licenses; some were lost personal effects, like family photographs, bracelets, eyeglasses, notes, and letters. Black also found the residue of hard work along the way: work gloves, broken tools and supplies, wire, bolts, padlocks, and bent nails. American Artifacts presents photographs, assemblages, and collages of these humble, discarded objects, gathered from roadways and sidewalks, along with previously unpublished images from American Geography and the voices of those who are cut off from the “American Dream” to form a revealing portrait of the United States and a powerful archeology of dispossession. Pre-order the book here.
About Magnum America:
What is “America”? What does it look like? Where can it be found? What does “America” mean and for whom? This ambitious publication does not attempt to present a comprehensive photographic history of the United States but uses the stories and photographs in the Magnum Archive to offer potential answers to those questions. In doing so, it presents a compelling visual portrait of the USA, past and present, as it stands once again at a crossroads of history. Magnum America is arranged into decade-by-decade chapters from the 1940s to the present day. Each chapter includes individual “Moments” capturing that decade; deeper views through “Collective Portfolios” where multiple Magnum photographers documented a major historic event; and long-form, story-led individual portfolios that examine issues, peoples, and events as portrayed by Magnum photographers. Commentaries and texts appear throughout and there are innovative metadata visualizations based on the Magnum archives, highlighting the multiple voices and perspectives that define both Magnum and the United States. The book looks beyond the fifty states to invite us to consider the concept of “America as Empire,” with military and political adventures and misadventures abroad, including Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as soft power and “America” as a cultural export. Breathtaking in scope and abundant with the photographic riches and intelligent, insightful authorship for which Magnum’s photographers are renowned, as well as texts by Professor Laura Wexler alongside other contributing writers, Magnum America is a vital contribution to the documentation of contemporary American history and a future classic. Pre-order the book here.
About the presenters:
Matt Black is from California’s Central Valley, a rural, agricultural area in the heart of the state. Between 2014 and 2020, he traveled over 100,000 miles across 46 states for his project American Geography, published by Thames and Hudson in 2021 accompanied by a traveling exhibition that opened at the Deichtorhallen, Hamburg. Other works include The Dry Land, about the impact of drought on California’s agricultural communities, and The Monster in the Mountains, about the disappearance of 43 students in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. Both these projects, accompanied by short films, were published by The New Yorker. His work has appeared regularly in the US and international press, including TIME Magazine, The New Yorker, Le Monde and Internazionale. He has been honored three times by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Prize, received the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award, named a senior fellow at the Emerson Collective, and is the recipient of an exploration grant from the National Geographic Society. Other honors include the National Press Photographers Association, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the California Arts Council, and World Press Photo. He was nominated to join Magnum Photos in 2015 and became a full member in 2019.
Pauline Vermare is the Phillip and Edith Leonian Curator of Photography, Brooklyn Museum. She previously worked at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, in Paris; at MoMA, collaborating with Peter Galassi on the exhibition Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century; at ICP, where she worked with Cynthia Young on The Mexican Suitcase—Rediscovered Spanish Civil War Negatives by Capa, Chim, and Taro; and at Magnum Photos, New York, where she was the cultural director. Her interviews with photographers and writings on photography have been included in many publications, such as Luce Lebart and Marie Robert’s A World History of Women Photographers (2020) and Charlotte Cotton’s Public, Private, Secret: On Photography and the Configuration of Self (2018). Vermare holds master’s degrees in Japanese (INALCO, Paris), international relations (Sciences Po, Paris), and art history (Sorbonne, Paris), as well as a PhD in art history (Université Lumière, Lyon) focusing on the visual representation of Northern Ireland from 1969 to 2022. Vermare grew up in France, Japan, and Hong Kong. Over the years, she has developed projects in the United States, Europe, and Japan, including All About Saul Leiter at the Bunkamura Museum, Tokyo (2017), Akihiko Okamura: The Memories of Others at Photo Museum Ireland, Dublin, and I’m So Happy You Are Here, a recent publication and exhibition focusing on Japanese women photographers. Vermare serves on the boards of the Saul Leiter Foundation, New York, and the Catherine Leroy Fund, Paris.
Peter van Agtmael is an award-winning American photographer based in Paris. He was 20 years old and studying history at Yale on 9/11; an event that would be pivotal in shaping his career. Shortly after graduating, he began documenting America at war and at home, which continues to be the anchor of his work. His previous books include Disco Night Sept 11 and Sorry for the War. Peter is a mentor in the Arab Documentary Photography Program and has been a full member of Magnum Photos since 2013. He is the recipient of numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the W. Eugene Smith Grant, several World Press Photo awards, and an ICP Infinity Award.
Laura Wexler writes about the photographic cultures of the United States. She holds a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, and has been on the faculty of Amherst College, Trinity College, Wesleyan University, and Peking University. She is currently the Charles H. Farnam Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and American Studies at Yale, where she teaches a cycle of courses on “Visuality and Violence;” “Photography, History and Memory;” “Photography and Images of the Social Body:” Visual Kinship: Families and Photographs;” and “Imaging War/Imagining Peace”. She is the author of Tender Violence: Domestic Visions in an Age of U.S. Imperialism (Kelley Memorial Prize, AHA); co-author of Pregnant Pictures, with Sandra Matthews, and of Collaboration: A Potential History of Photography, with Ariella Azoulay, Wendy Ewald, Susan Meiselas, and Leigh Raiford; and co-editor of Magnum America/USA, Interpretation and the Holocaust, and The Puritan Imagination in Nineteenth Century America. She has published many book chapters and essays on crucial figures in the history of photography such as Frederick Douglass, Dorothea Lange, Frances Benjamin Johnston, and Roman Vishniac, as well as contemporary photographers such as Jim Goldberg, Donovan Wylie, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Lorie Novak, Pablo Delano, Jo Ann Walters and George Platt Lynes. She is founding director of the Photographic Memory Workshop at Yale, a founding member of the steering committee of the Feminist Technology Network (Fem/Tech/Net) and a co-director of the award-winning Photogrammar Project, which received NEH and ACLS support to make a web-based interactive research system for visualizing the more than 170,00 photographs created by the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information between 1935-1945. Her most recent publications are “Highway Histories: Photographing Migrant Labor Camps along US Highway 101,” in Dorothea Lange: Seeing People, published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington; and Magnum America/USA, co-edited with Peter van Agtmael, published by Thames & Hudson.
Yolanda Cuomo is an experienced designer, art director and avid educator. She provides the creative vision, direction, and passion behind all of Yolanda Cuomo Design’s projects. Some of Cuomo’s books include New York September 11 by Magnum Photographers, Robert Capa / Photographs, Obama, An Intimate Portrait by Pete Souza, Revelations Diane Arbus, Whatever You Say, Say Nothing by Gilles Peress, American Geography by Matt Black, Disco Night Sept 11 by Peter Van Agtmael, Tar Beach by Susan Meiselas, Paolo Pellegrin by Germano Celant, and A Life In Pictures by Steve McCurry. Cuomo’s Awards include the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) National Magazine Award, and the International Center of Photography Infinity Awards for Design. Cuomo teaches design at New York University and has a BFA from Cooper Union. She lives and works in Weehawken, New Jersey, with her husband Joe. She has two sons; Gianni, actor/filmmaker and Luca, architect.
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Masks are currently encouraged, but not required.
Magnum Foundation events are made possible by the Henry Nias Foundation and our Circle of Friends. .
