Studio (0X5A4983)
Paul Mpagi Sepuya is an American artist whose work focuses on the performative space of the photographic studio. His camera and tripod commonly take centre stage in an approach that is rooted in portraiture. Sepuya is always present in these constructed images, often joined by friends, lovers, and members of the queer community. Other visible tools include black material which highlights the traces left by fingerprints and smudges on the surface of the mirror used to reflect the image. Sepuya describes his work as “an attempt to situate queerness and blackness as a starting point for having to look at photography from the ground up.”. The black material creates a language that references the fundamentals of early photography and the dark room, but also highlights blackness within the studio construction, the body itself, and the camera. This solidarity print was created as a fundraising effort in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Proceeds from sales went to organisations in America that fight for Black lives and queer lives; advocate for equality, justice and inclusion and against systemic and individual racism; police brutality and pretrial detention; unfair and corrupt elections.
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