NEW NUEVA LUZ

Nueva Luz: Wendel White | Mentor Issue Vol. 26.2

En Foco is pleased to announce the new Nueva Luz Mentor Issue featuring twenty-five black-and-white images from Wendel White's series Schools for the Colored (2002–2010) selected and curated by photographer Dawoud Bey, and an interview with White by artist-curator, Victor Davson. 

The issue explores White's eight-year project Schools for the Colored. White writes: "I began making photographs of historically African American school buildings during the very first weeks of the Small Towns, Black Lives project more than twenty-five years ago. In this project, I began to pay attention to the many structures and sites (also making photographs of places where buildings once stood) that operated as segregated schools." 

Wendel White’s photographs, as curated by Dawoud Bey, present a profound depiction of racism without editorializing the inequities of segregation. The images speak volumes, and the viewer can imagine their impact and feel their gravity. At the same time, the photographs are a provocative political statement.

Complementing the photographs is Dawoud Bey’s essay Excavating Histories, which chronologizes the limits of educational opportunities present for enslaved people, as well as those who were free. Dawoud cites anti-literacy laws from the 1740s to present-day de facto educational policies. 

Victor Davson's interview with Wendel White provides a closer look at the genesis of the Schools for the Colored project. White describes his experiences of visiting historically Black communities for the Small Towns, Black Lives series and discovering the significance that segregated schools held in each community—either as a vanished or still-standing structure—and formed the conceptual framework for the project.

This "Mentor Issue" of Nueva Luz highlights a seminal body of work while presenting new critical writings and insights from three luminaries who continue to influence the direction of contemporary image-making today. Since the launch of Nueva Luz in 1985, there have been only four other mentor issues representing artists who are essential voices in the discipline of photography.

Featured Artist

Wendel A. White was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. He holds a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York, New York, and an MFA in photography from the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas. White is the recipient of various awards, fellowships, and artist residencies, including a grant from Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, a Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Photography, and three artist fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, among others. His work is held in numerous museum and corporate collections. He currently holds the title of Distinguished Professor of Art at Stockton University, Galloway, New Jersey. Recent projects include Manifest: Thirteen Colonies (2009–present), Red Summer (2011–2019), Village of Peace: An African American Community in Israel (2004–2006), Small Towns, Black Lives (1989–2002), and others.

CURATOR

Dawoud Bey is considered to be one of the most significant American photographers working today. He began his career in 1975 with the series Harlem, USA, which was later exhibited in his first one-person exhibition at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York, in 1979. His work has since been the subject of numerous exhibitions and retrospectives at museums and galleries worldwide for four decades, including his 2020 retrospective exhibition Dawoud Bey: An American Project which traveled to multiple museums. His work is included in museum collections in the United States and abroad. Bey is the recipient of various awards and fellowships, including the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowship and National Endowment for the Arts, among other honors. Bey holds an MFA  from Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut, and is currently Professor of Art and a former Distinguished College Artist at Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, where he has taught since 1998.

ESSAYIST

Victor Davson was born in Georgetown, the capital of what was then British Guiana. He received a BFA degree from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, and in 1983 co-founded Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art in Newark, New Jersey, to support artists outside the mainstream. He has exhibited widely throughout the United States and abroad, including solo exhibitions at The Center for Contemporary Art, Bedminster, New Jersey, Bertha V.B. Lederer Gallery, State University of New York, Geneseo, New York, Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba, New York, New York, Berrie Center Kresge and Pascal Galleries, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Mahwah, New Jersey, and Akwaaba Gallery, Newark, New Jersey, among others. His work is held in museum and private collections internationally. Davson has been been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper Fellowship, and three New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Awards.