“The image is always moving, even if you’re standing still” – Ming Smith
My first steps into Ming Smith’s Wind Chime exhibit at the Wexner Center for the Arts left me wonderstruck. A collage of black and white images framed in thick black lines stared back at me. This grouping of photographs, filled with abstract imagery, showcases moments of intimate human joy. To the left, a dark abyss welcomed viewers into the unknown – but despite the gloomy lighting, Smith’s work illuminated viewers. The self-proclaimed abyss held some of Smith’s most recent artwork, including a larger-than-life projected animation she compiled from still photographs. This part of the exhibition also contained a series of still color photographs, displayed using lightboxes that showcased the full saturation and detail of the images.
I could go on and on about this section of Wind Chime, as I deem it one of my favorite instances of installation art I have ever experienced at the Wex. With Ming Smith’s groundbreaking photography, I find no surprise at the prominent showcases of her work in two of Columbus’ biggest art spaces.
Ming Smith was born in Detroit and raised in Columbus. Her main inspirations for her work come from her dad, who fostered her in photography as a child. Smith earned her Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Howard University in 1972, and moved to New York City shortly afterwards. In the Big Apple, she would meet Anthony Barboza, a photographer working with the Kamoinge Workshop – a collective of all male black photographers located in Harlem, notable for operating in a predominantly white field. Smith was the first woman to receive a welcome into the workshop. 4 years after moving to the city, the Museum of Modern Art selected Smith to join their permanent collection, making her the first Black woman to do so. Since then, Smith has done a plethora of exhibitions, solo and group, and holds great renown in the photography specialization of contemporary art.
Smith’s art has more than one home in Columbus – beyond Wind Chime, he Columbus Museum of Art also currently hosts an exhibit of her work titled Transcendence. As I wandered into the gallery that hosted her exhibition, I felt once again drawn to the artwork that welcomes you to the exhibit: a piece titled Black Girl Dreaming. Black Girl Dreaming presents us with a greyscale photograph of a young girl looking behind the camera off into the distance. Behind her, a ferris wheel looms, illuminated by the glow of pink and yellow paint streaks.
I found the composition of the image incredibly satisfying, especially considering the way she falls perfectly in the foreground with the ferris wheel imposing from the background. Her physical manipulation of the print conceptually illuminates the snapshot of the girl. Moving throughout the exhibition, I was surprised and delighted to find that all of Smith’s images were accompanied by poetry. A photograph can make a viewer’s mind run in all different directions – and consequently, the textual elements really strengthen a viewer’s interpretation of Smith’s journalistic lens.
After my visit to the Columbus Museum of Art, I felt so moved by Ming Smith’s Transcendence that I couldn’t even wait to get home to do some research. I sat in my car and read about Smith’s story, looking at her archives online, and trying to figure out her methodologies for manipulation. After some reading and additional information provided by a professor of mine, I learned that Smith usually waits a longer duration of time to print and manipulate her B&W photographs, making them immediately archival in nature. I also found that Smith almost never goes out in public without her camera. After all of my research, I am most persuaded by Smith’s decision to never be still, and her connection to journalistic photography via movement. As stated before, Ming Smith believes that “the image is always moving, even if you’re standing still” – and that by moving with it, she becomes one with the photograph, and it becomes one with her.
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