Paul Mpagi Sepuya

Paul Mpagi Sepuyapresents the work of one of the most prominent, up-and-coming photographers working today.

Sepuya primarily makes studio photographs of friends, artists, collaborators, and himself, inviting viewers to consider the construction of subjectivity. He challenges and deconstructs traditional portraiture by way of collage, layering, fragmentation, mirror imagery, and the perspective of a Black, queer gaze. In contrast to the slick artifice of contemporary portraiture, Sepuya suggests the human element of picture takingfingerprints, smudges, dust on the surface of mirrors. He also allows glimpses into the studio settingincluding tripods, backdrops, lenses, and the photographer himselfencouraging multivalent narrative reads of each image. For Sepuya, photography is a tactile and communal enterprise. Although the creation of artist books has been a long-standing part of his practice,Paul Mpagi Sepuyais the first publication of his work to be released widely, co-published with the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis on the occasion of a major solo exhibition.

Paul Mpagi Sepuyais a Los Angelesbased artist. His work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, and Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among other institutions. Notable recent exhibitions include a solo survey exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, a solo exhibition at Amsterdams Foam museum in 2018, the 2019 Whitney Biennial, andBeing: New Photography 2018at the Museum of Modern Art.

Wassan Al-Khudhairiis chief curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, where she has organizedPaul Mpagi Sepuya,Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Earwitness Theatre, andGuan Xiao: Fiction Archive Project, among other exhibitions. Previously, Al-Khudhairi was the Hugh Kaul Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

Malik Gainesis a writer, performer, and associate professor and director of undergraduate studies at New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts. He is the author ofBlack Performance on the Outskirts of the Left: A History of the Impossible(2017). Since 2000, Gaines has performed and exhibited extensively with the group My Barbarian, whose collective has presented work at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Biennial, and Performa Biennial.

Lucy Gallunis associate curator in the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York. She has curated and cocurated many exhibitions at MoMA, includingBeing: New Photography 2018, which included multiple works by Sepuya. Gallun is also coeditor ofPhotography at MoMA, a three-volume history of photography at the museum.

Ariel Goldbergis a writer and artist, whose publications includeThe Estrangement Principle(2016) andThe Photographer(2015). From 2014 to 2017, they organized readings at The Poetry Project. Goldbergs art criticism has appeared ine-flux,Artforum,Afterimage, andArt in America.

• Paperback:96 pages
• Publisher:Aperture (April 7, 2020)
• Language:English
• ISBN-10:1597114804
• ISBN-13:9781597114806
• Product Dimensions:8.2 x 0.5 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight:15.2 ounces