ARTS & CULTURE
Text and photos courtesy of the Momentary
The Momentary Brings Photography to the Forefront with Dark Waters and Mystic Parallax
This spring, the Momentary will open two photography-focused exhibitions exploring the popular medium in greater breadth and depth.
On May 11, the Momentary will open Kristine Potter: Dark Waters. In Dark Waters, a tour de force of Southern gothic noir, Potter reinvents a centuries-old genre with coolness and clarity. With this recent collection of seductive and darkly brooding photographs, Potter reflects on the Southern gothic mythos found in the popular imagination of “murder ballads” — traditional songs from the 19th and 20th centuries that often end in death and despair.
Potter’s richly detailed black-and-white images channel the setting and characters of these songs, capturing the landscape of the American South and creating portraits that stand in for the often-unnamed women at the center of their stories. In doing so, she both evokes and exorcizes the ambient sense of threat women often grapple with as they move through the world.
Kristine Potter
Balladeer 2, 2022
from Kristine Potter: Dark Waters
(Aperture, 2023)
© 2023 Kristine Potter
Dark Waters is accompanied by Potter’s second monograph, co-published by the Momentary and Aperture, which continues her engagement with the American landscape as a palimpsest for cultural ideologies.
On May 19, Awol Erizku’s Mystic Parallax opens at the Momentary. Encompassing photography, film, painting, sculpture and installation, Erizku’s work references and reimagines African American and African visual culture, from hip-hop vernacular to iconic symbols from across history, including the Pan-African flag and the image of Nefertiti. Erizku’s vision is expansive, drawing on traditions of spirituality, surrealism and conceptualism to create uniquely powerful art.
Mystic Parallax is the first major monograph, co-published by the Momentary and Aperture, and exhibition by this rising interdisciplinary artist. It blends his studio practice with work made as an in-demand editorial photographer and features his conceptual portraits of leading Black cultural figures, such as Amanda Gorman, Michael B. Jordan, Pharrell Williams and Solange.
As Erizku has said, “It’s important for me to create confident, powerful, downright regal images of Black people.”
Dark Waters is on view at the Momentary from May 11 through Oct. 14. Mystic Parallax is on view at the Momentary from May 19 through Oct. 13. The exhibitions are free and open to the public.
Kristine Potter
The Medium, 2017
from Kristine Potter: Dark Waters
(Aperture, 2023)
© 2023 Kristine Potter
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Awol Erizku
Untitled (Donna Summer Still Life), 2018
from Awol Erizku: Mystic Parallax
(Aperture, 2023)
Courtesy the artist
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