How contemporary photographers from Hank Willis Thomas to Libita
Clayton have subverted the constructions and complicities of whiteness
From the advent of early colonial photography in the 19th century to
contemporary "white savior" social-media images, photography continues
to play an integral role in the maintenance of white sovereignty. As
various scholars have shown, the technology of the camera is not
innocent, and neither are the images it produces.
The invention and continuation of the "white race" is not just a
political, social and legal phenomenon; it is also a complexly visual
one. What does whiteness look like, and how might we begin to trace an
antiracist history of artistic resistance that works against it? The
Image of Whiteness seeks to introduce its reader to some important
extracts from the troubling story of whiteness, to describe its
falsehoods, its paradoxes and its oppressive nature, and to highlight
some of the crucial work photographic artists have done to subvert and
critique its image.
The Image of Whiteness includes the work of artists Abdul Abdullah,
Agata Madejska, Broomberg & Chanarin, Buck Ellison, John Lucas & Claudia
Rankine, David Birkin, Hank Willis Thomas, Kajal Nisha Patel, Michelle
Dizon & Viet Le, Nancy Burson, Nate Lewis, Libita Clayton, Paul Mpagi
Sepuya, Richard Misrach, Sophie Gabrielle, Stacy Kranitz and Stanley
Wolukau-Wanambwa.
