In 2013, NOMA and The Gordon Parks Foundation organized Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument. This exhibition explored the making of Parks’s first photographic essay for Life magazine in 1948. At that time, Parks produced hundreds of photographs of the life of a young Harlem resident named Leonard “Red” Jackson that were later whittled down to twenty-one pictures by the editors at Life, often cropping or enhancing details in the pictures in the process. Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument traced this editorial process and parsed out the various voices and motives behind the production of the picture essay. NOMA’s Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Russell Lord, who curated the exhibition explained, “The process raises questions: what was the intended argument in Life magazine, and whose argument was it?” Featuring vintage photographs, original issues of Life magazine, contact sheets, and proof prints, the exhibition addressed the representation of Black lives in media, the role of photography in addressing social concerns, its use as a documentary tool, and its function in the world of publishing.”
Since its original showing at NOMA, the exhibition and the accompanying catalog (Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument: Steidl, NOMA, and The Gordon Parks Foundation, 2013) have had an enormous impact. The exhibition traveled to five other venues: The Faulconer Gallery at Grinnell College, The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley. The catalog for the exhibition has now been used as a text book in at least five colleges or universities. The exhibition also received a number of positive, critical reviews, including one by Dr. Maurice Berger writing in the New York Times Lens Blog.
NOMA and The Gordon Parks Foundation mourn the loss of Dr. Maurice Berger, a great and powerful champion of Parks’s work and an equally outspoken critic of racism and inequality in the art world. Mr. Berger died of COVID-19 on March 23 at the age of 63. His writing was a great inspiration to a younger generation of critical scholars, so we can only hope that the vast hole created by his departure will one day be filled by those he inspired.
NOMA is grateful to The Gordon Parks Foundation and the Google Cultural Institute for producing and hosting a permanent online version of the original physical exhibition. Click on the image below.
NOMA is committed to uniting, inspiring, and engaging diverse communities and cultures through the arts — now more than ever. You can support NOMA’s staff during these uncertain times as they work hard to produce virtual content to keep our community connected, care for our permanent collection during the museum’s closure, and prepare to reopen our doors.
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