Art & Art History ETDs

Publication Date

Spring 5-11-2024

Abstract

Ming Smith is a photographer who has been creating images since the early 1970s and trained with the artist collective Kamoinge Workshop. Throughout most of her career, Smith has been marginalized by art historians, critics, and museum curators. Since the early 2000s, Smith has only been included in museum exhibitions highlighting African-American female artists from 1960 to the present. Before this surge of interest in her work, the art world ignored and silenced her. However, Smith’s creative process allowed her to see and experience going beyond the struggle by being consistent in her strategy to do what she wanted on her own terms as an artist.

I analyze Smith’s work and process instead of her identity, focusing on how her images are composed and function. I use her photographs, self-publications by Smith and other collaborators, and exhibitions featuring Smith to center her work as necessary to the history of photography. Using an alternative archive and her photographs, I argue that Ming Smith constructs portals of transcendence, spirituality, and jazz as signifiers that go beyond her marginalization in the art world.

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Art History

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

UNM Department of Art and Art History

First Committee Member (Chair)

Dr. Kirsten Pai Buick

Second Committee Member

Kevin Mulhearn

Third Committee Member

Aaron Fry

Keywords

Ming Smith, Transcendence, Jazz, Female photographer, Kamoinge Workshop, Marginalization

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