“Black Is Beautiful” Exhibition at Detroit Institute of Arts Highlights 1960s Cultural Movement
The work of photographer Kwame Brathwaite gets top billing via a traveling exhibition now on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts through January 2022.
The large-scale photography of Kwame Brathwaite is now on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA).
The “Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite” exhibition is a touring show that first hit the road in 2019 and is now on display at the DIA through January 2022.
It includes more than 40 photos by Brathwaite, who used his camera as an activist tool to bring Black beauty into the mainstream in the 1960s.
Listen: DIA curator of photography Nancy Barr breaks down the “Black Is Beautiful” exhibition.
While many of the studio portraits he shot of Black models are in full, immersive color, another more intimate part of the show highlights Brathwaite’s love of photographing jazz performances in black-and-white.
As a photographer-turned-fly on the wall in 1950s New York, Brathwaite photographed jazz legends like Miles Davis, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln at a host of jazz clubs throughout the city.
“You feel like you’re right there in the moment listening to that music,” says DIA curator of photography Nancy Barr. “[Brathwaite] has a way of really getting you to see things from his perspective.”
“Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite” is on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts through January 2022. It’s free with admission. For more details, go to the DIA’s website.
Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
