Ming Smith: August Moon

Columbus Museum of Art
September 19, 2024–January 26, 2025
Curated by Brooke A. Minto, Executive Director and CEO at the Columbus Museum of Art

Ming Smith: August Moon unveils the essence of everyday Black life, unfolding with breathtaking honesty and reverence. Smith embarks on a poignant journey through the streets of Pittsburgh’s Hill District, intimately familiarizing herself with the landscape that inspired playwright August Wilson’s iconic Century Cycle plays. Smith captures the spirit of Wilson’s characters, immortalizing their struggles, triumphs, and the quiet resilience that defines their existence.

Smith’s upbringing in a literary family fostered an immediate affinity for Wilson’s subtle metaphors and characters, many of whom mirrored the people she knew from her own childhood. With deliberate use of blurred imagery and obscured details, Smith creates a visual language that reflects the complexities of Black life in America, inviting viewers to see beyond the surface.

Through her photographs, Smith documents the fortitude and fragility of Black communities, built amidst the challenges of Jim Crow laws, redlining, and everyday racism. As Smith traverses the streets of the Hill District, she captures moments of daily life that resonate with the themes of Wilson’s plays. From the camaraderie of pool players to the solitude of Aunt Ester in her fur and knitted hats, Smith’s photographs speak volumes about the strength and humanity of Black community.

August Moon is a visual journey that celebrates the richness of Black life and the enduring legacy of August Wilson’s storytelling. Through Smith’s lens, viewers are invited to immerse themselves in the beauty and complexity of ordinary Black existence.

This exhibition is part of a simultaneous presentation of work by Ming Smith, also at the Wexner Center for the Arts and The Gund at Kenyon College.

Curator: Brooke A. Minto, Executive Director and CEO

Solo Photography Family Friendly

Related Events

Visit the Complete Biennial Calendar

Members Opening Reception & Curator Talk for Ming Smith: Transcendence and August Moon

September 18, 2024
5:00pm – 8:00pm

Opening Talk Reception Biennial Program

5pm Members Opening Reception

6pm Curator Talk with Brooke A. Minto, Executive Director and CEO at the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH, for Ming Smith: Transcendence and August Moon.

Additional Information: Wheelchair accessible. ASL interpretation available by advance request. For more information, please visit the CMA website.

Access to the entire FotoFocus Biennial Program is only one benefit of being a FotoFocus 2022 Biennial Passport holder. GET THE PASSPORT for free entry and exclusive events!

Biennial Symposium

September 28, 2024
12:00pm – 5:00pm

Biennial Program

The FotoFocus Symposium is designed to bring together Participants to discuss the backstories theme and its relationship to lens-based art and the world today. These conversations foster timely and in-depth dialogue around art in the current social and political climate.

12pm Light Bites

1pm Memory Fields Conversation
Sso-Rha Kang, Curator of Memory Fields, Curator at The Carnegie, Cincinnati, OH and Artist Jesse Ly, Dayton, OH

1:30pm Chip Thomas and the Painted Desert Project Panel
Moderated by Kevin Moore, FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator, New York, NY; with panelists Chip Thomas, Artist, Flagstaff, AZ; Ken Ogawa, Maker/Artist, Columbia, MO; and Sunny Dooley, Diné Hozhojii Teller, Creator, and Poet, Diné Nation, NM

2:30pm Southern Democratic Spotlight with Filmmaker Michael Almereyda, New York, NY

3pm Ming Smith Conversation
Ming Smith, Artist, Harlem, NY and Daisy Desrosiers, David and Francie Horvitz Family Foundation Director and Chief Curator at The Gund, Kenyon College, Mount Vernon, OH

4pm backstories Keynote Lecture
Kathy Ryan, former Director of Photography at The New York Times Magazine, New York, NY

Additional Information: FotoFocus strives to create a welcoming, supportive, diverse, and inclusive environment in our workplace, in our programming, and in our partnerships with artists, curators, collaborators, and the public. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) will be available at the Biennial Symposium, sponsored by Ohio Humanities. For questions regarding accessibility accommodations during FotoFocus events, please email info@fotofocus.org.

Access to the entire FotoFocus Biennial Program is only one benefit of being a FotoFocus 2022 Biennial Passport holder. GET THE PASSPORT for free entry and exclusive events!

Blues in August

November 7, 2024
7:00pm – 9:00pm

Performance

Mark Lomax’s award-winning musical tribute to August Wilson, presented in conjunction with Ming Smith’s poignant journey through Wilson’s neighborhood, intimately exploring everyday Black life.

Additional Information: Registration required. Visit the Columbus Museum of Art website to register and learn more. Wheelchair accessible. ASL interpretation available by advance request.

Community Day

January 19, 2025
10:00am – 4:00pm

Performance Talk

Community Day features artmaking, Caribbean food and performances, and 10 Minutes on the Dot gallery experiences in Fragments of Epic Memory at 12pm and 3pm. Featuring artmaking inspired by Ming Smith, food and performances, and 10 Minutes on the Dot gallery experiences in August Moon at 1pm and 4pm, and Transcendence at 11am and 2pm.

Additional Information: Wheelchair accessible. ASL interpretation available by advance request. For more information, please visit the CMA website.

  • Ming Smith, Cook and Duke, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from August Wilson Series, 1991. Archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist

  • FP7 CMA MS August Moon 02 14 Greyhound Bus

    Ming Smith, Greyhound Bus, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from August Wilson Series, 1991. Archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist

  • FP7 CMA MS August Moon 03 17 Eddies

    Ming Smith, Eddies Restaurant, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from August Wilson Series, 1991. Archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist

  • FP7 CMA MS August Moon 04 16 God Mary Jesus

    Ming Smith, God, Mary, Jesus, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from August Wilson Series, 1991. Archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist

  • FP7 CMA MS August Moon 05 6 Untitled

    Ming Smith, Untitled, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from August Wilson Series, 1991. Archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist

Venue Details

Columbus Museum of Art
480 East Broad Street
Columbus, OH 43215
(614) 221-6801

Tue–Sun 10am–5pm, Thur 10am–9pm

Free to FotoFocus Passport Holders in October and Venue's Members. $20 adults; $10 children 4–18, college students, seniors; Free children 0–3; $5 Thursdays 5–9pm. Free on Sundays

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PV CMA Fragments of Epic Memory 03 AGO 164718 WebandStandardPowerPoint

Fragments of Epic Memory

Ming Smith: Transcendence

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