LaToya Ruby Frazier

Coinciding with the European Month of Photography, Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean presents a monographic exhibition of one of the most important photographers of her generation, LaToya Ruby Frazier (*1982). Since the early 2000s LaToya Ruby Frazier has developed a photographic practice that is both personal and engaged with the social, political and economic realities that traverse contemporary society. By making herself the spokesperson for a working class that has been overlooked and left behind, and by dealing with issues such as deindustrialization, environmental justice, unequal access to care or racial discrimination, Frazier’s work draw attention to people, places and issues that often remain unseen. According to the artist: “Activism starts to take place because images become available of something that wasn’t visible.”

Drawing upon multiple histories of photography, Frazier reinvents the documentary approach by considering it from a more intimate perspective. The ambitious series that brought her into the public eye, “The Notion of Family,” was created between 2001 and 2014 and bears witness to the decline of Frazier’s hometown of Braddock, the former steel capital in the Pittsburgh suburbs in Pennsylvania, through the experience of three generations of women: her grandmother, her mother and herself. Through personal experience, Frazier brings to light a collective history that is universal in scope. “Braddock is everywhere,” she says.

For her exhibition at Mudam Luxembourg, Frazier presents a group of images from “The Notion of Family” together with two recent bodies of work that highlight the consistency of her oeuvre as well as the richness of its subjects.

Presented for the first time in Europe, “On the Making of Steel Genesis: Sandra Gould Ford” (2017) is the outcome of a close collaboration with Sandra Gould Ford, a photographer and writer who was employed by the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company in Pittsburgh and documented life and working conditions in the factories in multiple different ways. Frazier’s photographs juxtapose portraits of Ford with reproductions of documents found in her archives. Also presented is the series “Et des terrils un arbre s’élèvera” (2016-17), the result of an ambitious project completed in the Borinage near Mons in Belgium, a major coal-mining area in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It combines large-format photographs depicting landscapes shaped by the region’s industrial and working-class history, many of which are taken from the air, with images shot during meetings with former miners and their families.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by Elvan Zabunyan, art historian, critic and professor at the University of Rennes 2, and an extensive interview with LaToya Ruby Frazier, published by Mudam in collaboration with Mousse Publishing: mudamstore.com

Curator: Christophe Gallois, assisted by Marion Vergin and Maria Fernanda Barrales.

Events
May 16, 2019, 12:15pm, FR
Exhibition opening and visit with Christophe Gallois

July 17, 2019, 6:30pm, LU
Regards croisés on LaToya Ruby Frazier’s work

Detailed programme at: mudam.com

Also on view:
​Nairy Baghramian, Privileged Points
January 19-September 22, 2019

Jutta Koether, Tour de Madame
February 16-May 12, 2019

Bert Theis, Building Philosophy - Cultivating Utopia
March 30-August 25, 2019

Danh Vō: The Mudam Collection and Pinault Collection in dialogue in Luxembourg
April 20-August 25, 2019

Mudam Collection
Subjects of Life
January 31-September 22, 2019

Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean opened in 2006 in a purpose-built building designed by the renowned Sino-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei and located in the Park Dräi Eechelen, overlooking the historic city of Luxembourg. Through its collection, exhibitions, programmes and partnerships, Mudam Luxembourg pursues its mission of presenting the most relevant art of our time.