Newsroom: Columbus Museum of Art Presents Landmark Exhibitions by Legendary Photographer Ming Smith
The artist returns to her hometown, presenting works which ruminate upon her racially-divided upbringing and the contours of Black life across Columbus and Pittsburgh
COLUMBUS, Ohio — May 21, 2024 — The Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) is pleased to present Ming Smith: Transcendence and Ming Smith: August Moon, two exhibitions that are among the acclaimed photographer’s first institutional presentations in her hometown of Columbus, OH. Spotlighting two of Smith’s major bodies of work, Transcendence and August Moon encompass sightlines into the landscapes which have informed the artist herself as well as the late playwright August Wilson, in a profound rumination upon memory and place in dialogue with various artistic media. Transcendence and August Moon are curated by Brooke A. Minto, Executive Director and CEO at CMA, and will be on view at the museum from September 19, 2024 through January 26, 2025.
Transcendence and August Moon will be unveiled alongside concurrent exhibitions of Smith’s work at the Wexner Center for the Arts and The Gund at Kenyon College, comprising a sprawling presentation across Central Ohio. CMA and the Wexner Center for the Arts’ exhibitions also number among the featured projects of the 2024 FotoFocus Biennial, taking place throughout October 2024 with programming spanning Greater Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Northern Kentucky.
For nearly five decades, Smith has charted a groundbreaking artistic legacy, including as the first woman member of the Kamoinge Workshop — the influential collective of Black photographers formed in New York in the 1960s — and later as the first Black woman photographer to have their work acquired by the Museum of Modern Art. Widely recognized for her portraits of Black cultural leaders, including James Baldwin, Grace Jones, and Nina Simone, Smith’s photographs conjure a vibrancy and aliveness akin to the rhythms of jazz and the blues, as the artist herself has noted. Smith’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many institutions across the globe, and was previously included in the group exhibition Family Pictures at CMA in 2018.
In celebration of Smith’s artistic legacy, Transcendence and August Moon showcase the resonance of the artist’s vision with the cultural tapestries of Columbus, OH and Pittsburgh, PA, interweaving facets of personal and communal remembrance among portraits of everyday life. The two oeuvres amplify Smith’s work in conversation with other artistic forms, creating a symphony of narratives that unfurl from Smith’s imagemaking. August Moon illuminates the settings which inspired August Wilson’s iconic Century Cycle plays, while the Transcendence series, originally inspired by Alice Coltrane’s discography, is here juxtaposed with Jacqueline Woodson’s poetry.
Transcendence comprises the most complete showing to-date of Smith’s series of the same name, featuring 43 photographs of Columbus that mine the artist’s upbringing in the city’s Hilltop neighborhood. Born in Detroit, Smith spent her childhood and adolescence in Columbus, a period of her life in which she endured widespread racial discrimination and segregation. In the years following her departure from the region as a young adult, Smith began a process of inner reconciliation with the region, beginning the Transcendence series as a lens into her past and a means of parsing through the fraughtness of her memories.
Dating largely to the 1990s, the images within Transcendence traverse the landscapes and scenes amongst which Smith located her youth, including visions of her childhood home, her family’s former neighborhood, family members themselves, and several depictions of the Ohio State Fair, a space of joy and wonder where Smith worked as a teenager. Among formative locations from her youth, Smith dually intersperses urban silhouettes and architectural archetypes that resonate with her memory of the ever-evolving city, with landscape photographs such as Cornfields (Columbus, Ohio) (1973) and October Nightskies (1981) reflecting the quintessential Columbus of her childhood. Across several photographs, the artist utilizes her technique of hand-painting on archival prints, further evoking an animated layering of time and space.
In this major presentation at CMA, Smith’s Transcendence series is presented alongside the work of Columbus-born, National Book Award-winning author and Macarthur Fellow Jacqueline Woodson, whose books have been recognized for grappling deeply with nuanced issues of race and gender. Including newly commissioned poems as well as previously published pieces, Woodson’s verses elucidate and echo the emotive journey of Smith’s return to Columbus, offering multidimensional entryways towards greater understanding. In lieu of interpretive texts, Woodson’s writing gives voice to Smith’s subjects and articulates the memories embedded within her images through dynamic storytelling.
Smith’s lines of inquiry across artistic disciplines are further demonstrated in August Moon, showcasing 26 photographs from the artist’s Pittsburgh-based series. In a similar investigation into personal and cultural geographies, Smith traveled to Pittsburgh to explore the spaces that inspired August Wilson, meeting those who knew the playwright and spending time in places that informed his iconic plays, known for capturing the spirit of 20th-century Black life in America. Capturing individuals and locales Smith imagined would be reminiscent of Wilson’s lived experiences, August Moon fosters a parallel exploration with Transcendence, contemplating how Wilson’s environments might have informed him as her Columbus upbringing inflected her own.
The photographs in August Moon take root in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, the setting of nearly all of August Wilson’s ten “Century Cycle” plays. Featuring commonplace scenes of the Hill District’s Black communities — akin to the quotidian settings of Wilson’s plays — Smith approaches her subjects with tender care and pause, illuminating the enduring resilience coursing through their everyday life. Through a practice of close looking, Smith refracts the depth of Wilson’s characters, embracing the complexities of their inner worlds with both vulnerability and fortitude.
Presented in the permanent collection galleries for photography at CMA, August Moon is also emblematic of Smith’s homecoming in its very placement — situated within the museum’s original Ross Building, August Moon occupies the galleries and halls that Smith remembers visiting in her childhood. Through both exhibitions, this paramount return to Columbus provides an intimate, wholly unique perspective into the foundations of Smith’s practice, offering a deeply personal lens into the work that has helped situate her among the leading Black photographers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
“We’re thrilled to unveil these two landmark presentations by Ming Smith, honoring her nuanced and deeply personal relationship to Columbus,” said Minto. “While Ming’s upbringing in Columbus informed her own trajectory, her legacy is lesser-known here, and we look forward to welcoming Columbus audiences to learn more about Ming’s practice and immerse themselves in her profoundly moving work.”
Following a retrospective of celebrated Columbus-born, Brooklyn-based painter Robin F. Williams, Transcendence and August Moon demonstrate Minto’s ongoing commitment to showcasing artists with roots in Columbus. Since her appointment to the position in May 2023, Minto has aimed to diversify the city’s cultural narratives by crafting expanded platforms for artists with ties to Columbus, including those who may have not yet seen substantial recognition in the region. In doing so, CMA continues to illuminate the myriad ways Columbus has shaped artists’ practices and further dialogues about the city’s rich histories and futures.
Exhibition Details
Ming Smith: Transcendence
Ming Smith: August Moon
On View at the Columbus Museum of Art
480 East Broad Street, Columbus, OH 43215
September 19, 2024–January 26, 2025
Visitor Hours:
Tues: 10:00 AM — 5:00 PM
Weds: 10:00 AM — 5:00 PM
Thurs: 10:00 AM — 9:00 PM
Fri–Sun: 10:00 AM — 5:00 PM
Mon: Closed
About Columbus Museum of Art
CMA is where creativity and the daily life of its community intersect and thrive, as the Museum champions new and different ways of thinking and doing. CMA celebrates the creative process and sets the stage for people to experience art, ideas and relationships that spark creativity and nurture collective, courageous imagination.
CMA’s collection includes outstanding late 19th- and early 20th-century American and European modern works of art, grounded in the Ferdinand Howald and the Howard D. and Babette L. Sirak Collections. The Museum houses the world’s largest collections of works by beloved Columbus-connected artists Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, Elijah Pierce and George Bellows and acclaimed collections such as The Photo League and the Philip J. and Suzanne Schiller Collection of American Social Commentary Art. The recently established Scantland Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art also continues CMA’s dedication to showcasing the art of our time.
The Greater Columbus Arts Council, Nationwide Foundation, Ohio Arts Council, Paul-Henri Bourguignon and Erika Bourguignon Fund for Visual Arts and Richard H. and Ann Shafer funds with the assistance of the Ingram-White Castle Foundation of The Columbus Foundation provide ongoing support.
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