The future is always uncertain as an endless list of variables and their unendingly chaotic interactions create an ever-evolving image of what is to come. Efforts are made ceaselessly to parse through the murky silt of information, desperately grasping at forms, trying to concretize intangibles. This drive to extract predictability from pandemonium pervades endeavors of all scales, from the personal to the nationwide, and serves as the backdrop for Ming Smith’s solo exhibition “Feeling the Future” at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. In this photography exhibition, instead of resisting the hazy nature of the future, Smith embraces it. By smothering definition, she conjures what lies ahead.
The first major career-spanning exhibition of the artist also marks Smith’s first time exhibiting in Atlanta. Presenting works from the five decades of the artist’s career thus far, the exhibition emphasizes Smith’s masterful handling of lens-based media. Despite the decades of artworks shown, the throughline of portraiture remains—human subjects occupy nearly every image. Frequently in urban or interior spaces, these figures are rarely seen whole. Cropped by the image edge, blocked by an instrument or shrouded in shadows, the figures are never fully revealed; only a slice of them is observable. What little can be seen is further obscured by blurring. Crisp edges are rare in these works, with Smith regularly capturing figures in motion or photographing her subjects out of focus. This, complemented by low-key lighting, smothers any hope of a clear understanding of an image. If photography is sometimes described as an “objective documentarian” artistic medium, then Smith documents nothing less than the futility of understanding a subject in its entirety.
And yet, from among these tenebrous shadows, fuzzy figures and streaky motion lines, an understanding emerges. Due to their lack of definition, these artworks feel timeless, save for the appearance of identifiable figures such as Sun Ra, Malachi Favors and Grace Jones, iconic Black figures in mainstream culture that provide a sort of timestamp for the images. These prominent Black figures are photographed engaged with their respective crafts, Jones in a dressing room, Favors behind his bass on stage, Sun Ra swirling during a performance. These figures have become known as avant-gardes of music and fashion, statuses they achieved only after hard-fought years of unapologetic dedication to their Black identities and communities. Captured in the 1970s and viewed today in 2024, these photographs show that a vision of the future is already manifesting in the present if one is willing to look beyond what one knows and understands.
At the entrance to this show, and separate from the rest of the exhibition space, is a small meditation area. This darkly painted room contains several of Smith’s Transcendence series—photographs that have been overpainted by the artist. These additions cover the underlying image in a thick net of strokes and muted colors creating a visual static. The least visually comprehensible of any artworks in the exhibition, these Transcendence artworks offer the greatest potential for invocation. As seen in Smith’s portraiture, the future lies in the obscurity of the present. What, then, is present in this visual cacophony? What future may arise from this unintelligibility? As Smith shows quite plainly with her portraits of iconic Black figures, the answer is clear: the future is Black and it is mystical and it is incomprehensible and it is already forming, right in front of your eyes.
“Ming Smith: Feeling the Future” is on view at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art through December 7, 2024.