PHOTO: John Edmonds

John Edmonds, Collapse, 2019. Digital silver gelatin photograph, 20 X 20 in. (50.8 X 50.8 cm),  Courtesy of the artist and Company, New York, © John Edmonds

John Edmonds is an artist working in photography whose practice includes fabric, video, and text. He received his MFA in Photography from Yale University School of Art and his BFA in Photography at the Corcoran School of Arts and Design. Most recognized for his projects in which he focused on the performative gestures and self-fashioning of young black men on the streets of America, he has also made evocative portraits of lovers, close friends, and strangers.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Foam Archive

John Edmonds, Two Spirits, 2019, Archival pigment photograph, 50 x 38½ in (127 X 97.8 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Company, New York, © John Edmonds
John Edmonds, Two Spirits, 2019, Archival pigment photograph, 50 x 38½ in (127 X 97.8 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Company, New York, © John Edmonds

John Edmonds is best known for his use of photography and video to create sensitive portraits and still lifes that center Black queer experiences and reimagine art historical precedents. “A Sidelong Glance” is the artist’s second solo museum exhibition and features new and recent photographic portraits and still lifes of Central and West African sculptures alongside friends and acquaintances from Edmonds’s creative community in New York. The exhibition draws its title from an essay by scholar Krista Thompson that looks at perspectives on Black diaspora art history, and how they have shifted from examining relationships with Africa to questioning forms of representation in Western cultures. “Whose Hands?”(2019) is showing several arms grabbing a statue made by the Baule people – and 521 notes about the Baule culture, their religious beliefs, use of masks and treatment of sculpture, sourced from Susan Vogel’s Baule “African Art Western Eyes” (1997) and Alain-Michel Boyer’s Baule “Visions of Africa” (2008). In 2019 Edmonds was invited to photograph this collection, and the resulting images present the wooden statues glowing against an iridescent backdrop, spotlighted and regal. In the current rethinking of the colonialist collecting, cataloguing and exhibition practices of institutions, Edmonds’s work asks a more nuanced question, not just about the pitfalls of museum collecting, but also about collecting by private individuals. Ellison is celebrated as the author of the novel “Invisible Man” (1952), but was also later criticised for a perceived lack of engagement with the civil rights movement. The images of his collection question these objects as signifiers in a complicated heritage: how did Ellison live with these objects? Did they glow in his home as totems of a long-lost lineage? In the black-and-white photograph “Anatolli & Collection” (2019), a buff shirtless Black man sits level with, according to the wall text, Edmonds’s own collection of African art. The angled spotlight casts the objects mostly in shadow but illuminates the man’s torso and shoulders. He looks at this collection – but we look at him. Here, as with the objects from the Ellison collection, the statues glisten, but much less so than the eroticised male figure. Anatolli’s body is treated much like an object as well, making visible a desire for bodies. This calls to mind the homoerotic desire present in Edmonds’s previous work, but also the long history of Western ownership over Black bodies.

Photo: John Edmonds, Collapse, 2019. Digital silver gelatin photograph, 20 X 20 in. (50.8 X 50.8 cm),  Courtesy of the artist and Company, New York, © John Edmonds

Info: Curators: Drew Sawyer and Ashley James, Foam, Keizersgracht 609, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Duration: 18/2-19/6/2022, Days & Hours: Mon-Wed & Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu-Fri 10:00-21:00, https://www.foam.org

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/john_edmonds John Edmonds, A Guard for the Gods, 2020. Digital silver gelatin photograph, 48 X 60 in. (121.92 X 152.4 cm), Courtesy of the artist and Company, New York, © John Edmonds
John Edmonds, A Guard for the Gods, 2020. Digital silver gelatin photograph, 48 X 60 in. (121.92 X 152.4 cm), Courtesy of the artist and Company, New York, © John Edmonds

 

 

John Edmonds, Untitled (Marion & Yaure Mask, 2020. Digital silver gelatin photograph, 48 X 60 in. (121.92 X 152.4 cm), Courtesy of the artist and Company, New York, © John Edmonds
John Edmonds, Untitled (Marion & Yaure Mask, 2020. Digital silver gelatin photograph, 48 X 60 in. (121.92 X 152.4 cm), Courtesy of the artist and Company, New York, © John Edmonds

 

 

Left: John Edmonds, Whose Hands?, 2019, Archival pigment photograph, 14 X 11 in. (35.5 X 27.9 cm). Private Collection, © John Edmonds Right: John Edmonds, Untitled (Punu Figure of a Female), 2020, Archival pigment photograph, 14 X 11 in. (35.5 X 27.9 cm), Courtesy of the artist, © John Edmonds, © John Edmonds
Left: John Edmonds, Whose Hands?, 2019, Archival pigment photograph, 14 X 11 in. (35.5 X 27.9 cm), Private Collection, © John Edmonds
Right: John Edmonds, Untitled (Punu Figure of a Female), 2020, Archival pigment photograph, 14 X 11 in. (35.5 X 27.9 cm), Courtesy of the artist, © John Edmonds

 

John Edmonds, Anatolli & Collection, 2019, Digital silver gelatin photograph, 48 x 60 in. (121.92 x 152.40 cm), Courtesy of the artist and Company, New York, © John Edmonds
John Edmonds, Anatolli & Collection, 2019, Digital silver gelatin photograph, 48 x 60 in. (121.92 x 152.40 cm), Courtesy of the artist, © John Edmonds

 

 

John Edmonds, Untitled (Light Passing over Ja’Tovia and Senufo), 2019, Digital silver gelatin photograph, 48 x 60 in. (121.92 x 152.40 cm), Courtesy of the artist and Company, New York, © John Edmonds
John Edmonds, Untitled (Light Passing over Ja’Tovia and Senufo), 2019, Digital silver gelatin photograph, 48 x 60 in. (121.92 x 152.40 cm), Courtesy of the artist, © John Edmonds