LaToya Ruby Frazier, Huxtables, Mom and Me, 2009, from The Notion of Family. Courtesy of the artist and Michel Rein, Paris/Brussels
Award-winning artist LaToya Ruby Frazier’s exhibition, “Riveted,” will be on view from Nov. 7 through Dec. 6 at the Visual Arts Center at UT Austin.
Frazier’s work documents the effects of economic and environmental decline on her rustbelt hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania using photography, narrative performance, video and installation. The exhibition is only the second venue to display Frazier’s new body of work—a series of large-scale aerial photographs.
“Riveted” presents a range of artwork that explores identity, place, complex familial relationships and the legacies of industry and illness on Frazier and her family. Through the creation of this work, Frazier engages with the history of social documentary photography and attests to her particular experience of localized racism reinforced though social and environmental conditions.
“Riveted” was curated by INGZ, a curatorial collective, which was founded by UT Austin graduate students Uchenna Itam, Julia Neal, Rebecca Giordano and Natalie Zelt. INGZ uses curatorial practice as a platform from which to rethink the intersections of race, gender, class and representation in art and life.
“Given Austin’s recent rapid socio-economic changes and their disproportionate impact on poor communities of color, we believe Frazier’s work offers an important view of the lived experience of that comes in the wake of unregulated economic booms, including gentrification,” says INGZ.
LaToya Ruby Frazier, Fifth Street Tavern and U.P.M.C. Braddock Hospital on Braddock Avenue, 2011, gelatin silver print. Courtesy of the artist and Michel Rein, Paris/Brussels
Two on-campus events accompany “Riveted.” A reception for the exhibition takes place from 6 – 8 p.m. on Nov. 20 at the Visual Arts Center. Additionally, the Harry Ransom Center will host a talk with the artist on Nov. 21 from 7 – 9 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
INGZ is presenting a second installation of “Riveted” featuring additional works by Frazier at the Warfield Center ISESE Gallery from Jan. 15 – May 9. Frazier will serve as an artist in residence at the Warfield Center during the week of March 23, where she will meet with students, conduct studio visits and give a narrative performance.
“The Warfield artist residency will allow the conversation about Frazier’s activist and artistic practice to continue throughout the spring semester and give students the chance to engage with the full range of her photography,” says INGZ. “The spring exhibition echoes the themes of the VAC exhibition in photographs that are more intimate in tone and setting.”
“Riveted” is co-presented by the Visual Arts Center in the Department of Art and Art History, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies ISESE Gallery and the Harry Ransom Center in partnership with the Ford Foundation, the Center for Art of Africa and Its Diasporas (CAAD), the Department of American Studies, the Department of Art and Art History, the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Austin Center for Photography, the Blanton Museum of Art, Fluent~Collaborative, and the Humanities Institute.
Press images are available.
For more information, contact Emily Nielsen, Office of Public Affairs, 512-232-6504; or INGZ Curatorial Collective, info@ingzcollective.org