Aperture Conversations: The New Black Vanguard

Celebrating the forthcoming Aperture title The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion, this conversation will address the radical transformation taking place in fashion and art today. The featuring of the Black figure and Black runway and cover models in the media and art has been a marker of increasingly inclusive fashion and art communities. In the book, curator and critic Antwaun Sargent opens up the conversation around the role of the Black body in the marketplace; the cross-pollination between art, fashion, and culture in constructing an image; and the institutional barriers that have historically been an impediment to black photographers participating more fully in the fashion (and art) industries.

The panel will include Antwaun Sargent and photographers and New School alumni Quil Lemons and Renell Medrano. The event will be moderated by educator Kimberly Jenkins.

This conversation is presented by Aperture Foundation and the Photography Program of Parsons School of Art and Design at The New School.

Kimberly Jenkins is an educator who specializes in the sociocultural and historical influences behind why we wear what we wear, specifically addressing how politics, psychology, race, and gender shape the way we “fashion” our identity. Based in New York, with a background in cultural anthropology and art history, she is a lecturer at Parsons School of Art and Design. In Fall 2016, Kim debuted the undergraduate course Fashion and Race, examining the implications of the social construct of race in fashion history, business, and image-making. In Spring 2019, Kim worked as an education consultant for Gucci to support their efforts on cultural awareness and sensitivity.

Antwaun Sargent is an independent writer, curator, and critic whose work has been published in the New Yorker, New York Times, W, Vogue, VICE, and various museum catalogues, among other publications.

Aperture Foundation’s public programs are supported, in part, by generous donations from our Board of Trustees, our members and other individuals, and from corporate foundations and private foundations including: Grace Jones Richardson Trust, and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.