User:Adjoajo/MSmith

Ming Smithis a photographer. Her work is very diverse and depicts African American life. She was the first African-American female photographer whose work was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art on New York City. She has photographed many black cultural figures such as; Alvin Ailey, Nina Simone and jazz musicians. Her photography is in many collections such as; the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the Schomburg Center for Research in Culture, New York, the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum & Center for African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Her work was included in the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography in 2010. Her work has a surreal effect as noted in a New York Times article titled "A Photographer Who Made ‘Ghosts’ Visible" Her work in photography is said to have a mysterious aesthetic and ethereal quality. Noted in a New York Times article "A Photographer Who Made ‘Ghosts’ Visible".

Early life
Ming Smith moved to New York after graduating from Howard University. She found work modeling. While in New York she met photographer Anthony Barboza. Who was an early influence.

Career
In 1975 Ming became a member of the Harlem based photography collective Kamoinge. The collective was founded in 1963 by fifteen black photographers. Ming was the first female to join the group. She was first published in the Black Photographer's Annual in 1973. The first director of the Kamoinge Collective as Roy DeCarava.

2017 - Exhibition is a survey of Ming's work from 1977 to 2010. The New Yorker Magazine describes her work displayed in the exhibition as being varied in subjects and locations from (Senegal, Mexico, Italy, Berlin, Coney Island). Her approach as being involved with a fuzz effect, indirection, abstraction, and Expressionist over-painting.

Exhibitions
Ming Smith Exhibitions:
 * 2007 - Celebration Life: Photography as Fine Art, Pounder-Kone Art Space, Atwater Village, CA


 * 2010 - Photographs: 1977-2008, June Kelly Gallery, New York


 * 2013 -Works from the Paul R. Jones Collection, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama

This exhibition which featured 75 vintage black and white prints that represented her career. The images were from her early work to her streets scenes in the 1970s.
 * 2017 - January 13th to February 18th - Steven Kasher Gallery in New York City

Quotes
“Photography is definitely an art form”. “You’re using light, you’re composing, even to the type of print paper you’re using".

“I knew my work was good, because it’s like the god in you kinda. That’s what the true relationship to me is. Art is your conversation with the spirit, the god in you.”