The Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University presents Ming Smith: Wind Chime. This solo exhibition pairs recent work by the Columbus-raised artist, the first Black woman photographer to be added to the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection, with the series that started her career.
Significantly, Ming Smith: Wind Chime coincides with three additional presentations of Smith’s work across central Ohio, at the Columbus Museum of Art and The Gund at Kenyon College. As Smith’s first institutional exhibitions in and around her hometown of Columbus, Ohio, they explore the full breadth of her influential practice, which began in the early 1970s.
The exhibition at the Wexner Center for the Arts (the Wex) features nearly 30 black- and-white photographs from Smith’s Africa series, taken during her travels to Senegal, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, and Egypt over three decades, starting in 1972. The expansive series documents everyday scenes from across the continent as they happened and shares a narrative of the places she visited from her perspective as a Black woman. “I was affected by the spirituality of the people. Somehow it seemed that our cultures are very different, but we are very much connected,” Smith has stated.
The works on view also expand beyond photography. The centerpiece, a multimedia commission that animates a series of photographs, marks an entirely new direction in Smith’s practice. Also on view are recent collages and color photographs, all set to an ambient soundscape created by Smith’s son, musician Mingus Murray.
Ming Smith: Wind Chime is organized by Kelly Kivland, former head of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts and director and lead curator at Michigan Central.
Ming Smith : Wind Chim
Until January 5, 2025
Wexner Center for the Arts
1871 N High St.
Columbus, OH 43210
www.wexarts.org
