One of the most significant artists of her generation, over the past two decades LaToya Ruby Frazier has pursued a photographic practice that is driven by her desire to cast light on people, places, and issues that usually remain invisible. Combining a documentary approach with personal experience, her work deals with social and environmental injustices, racial discrimination, inequality of access to healthcare, and the ways in which major economic dynamics condition and constrain lives.

Published to accompany her exhibition at Mudam Luxembourg in 2019, this book includes works from three of Frazier’s major photographic series exploring the relationship between individual lives and social, historical, political, and economic issues: The Notion of Family (2001–14), On the Making of Steel Genesis: Sandra Gould Ford (2017) and And From the Coaltips a Tree Will Rise (2016–17). They are accompanied by an essay by the contemporary art historian Elvan Zabunyan and by an extensive interview with the artist conducted by the exhibition’s curator, Christophe Gallois and Claire Tenu, a photographer and teacher.

This interview arose out of a public discussion held at the École supérieure d’art de Lorraine in Metz on 24 April 2019, part of the Rencontres du soir programme.

Biographies

LaToya Ruby Frazier

LaToya Ruby Frazier (b. 1982, Braddock, PA, USA) has held major exhibitions at The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA; Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg (2019); Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York, NY, USA; 21c Museum Hotels, Louisville, KY, USA (2018); Musée des Arts Contemporains (MAC’s) au Grand-Hornu, Hornu, Belgium (2017); Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston, MA, USA; Seattle Art Museum (SAM), Seattle, WA, USA (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), Detroit, MI, USA; MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY, USA (2010). Her works can be found in major public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY, USA; Seattle Art Museum (SAM), Seattle, WA, USA; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap), Paris La Défense, France; and the Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK. She lives and works in Chicago, IL, USA.

Elvan Zabunyan

Elvan Zabunyan is an art historian, a professor at the University of Rennes 2, and an art critic. Her research focuses on racial, post-colonial, and feminist issues, as well as on the political and cultural history of the United States and the Caribbean in relation to artistic engagement since the 1960s. Her current research examines the legacy of slavery in the Americas and the contemporary arts and will become the subject of a book. She has published Black is a color, une histoire de l’art africain américain (Dis Voir, 2004) and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha – Berkeley – 1968 (Presses du réel, 2013), co-edited books, and written numerous articles for anthologies, exhibition catalogs, and periodicals.

Bibliographic notice

Title: LaToya Ruby Frazier
Complete title: LaToya Ruby Frazier / [texts: LaToya Ruby Frazier, Christophe Gallois ... [et al.]]
Contributor: Latoya Ruby Frazier, Christophe Gallois, Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg)
Publisher Luxembourg : MUDAM
Creation date: 2019
Format: 174 p. : ill. ; 33 cm
Language: Français / Anglais
Identifier: 978-8867493623
Note: "This catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition LaToya Ruby Frazier, Mudam Luxembourg - Musée d'art moderne Grand-Duc Jean, April 27, 2019 – September 22, 2019.“
Subjects : Portraits, Photography, Architecture photography
Bibliographie nationale : Arts, Arts appliqués, Photographie
Dewey classification: Galeries, musées et collections privées
Dewey category: 708.94935