Ming Smith has been active in New York’s art scene since she moved to Harlem in the 1970s and began producing soft-focus, black-and-white photographs that captured the cultural zeitgeist in and around her neighborhood. In the first few decades of her career, Smith exhibited sporadically—mainstream recognition of women artists is chronically tardy—but a recent surge of institutional attention has dramatically raised her profile. In 2020, Smith was included in The Artsy Vanguard in celebration of the overdue laurels she had begun to receive.
This year, Smith reaches a new milestone with “Projects: Ming Smith.” Co-organized by the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem, it is the artist’s first solo exhibition with either institution. It’s not, however, the first chapter of her relationship with them. Smith participated in group shows at the Studio Museum as early as 1972; and in 1979, she became the first Black woman photographer to have her work acquired by MoMA.
Decades later, “Projects,” on view at MoMA’s Midtown location through May 29th, takes a walk through Smith’s archive. With its most recent photographs dating to 1998, this compact show offers not a full retrospective of the artist’s career, but a primer on the kinetic, expressive photographic style for which she’s become known.
An artist who cherishes the improvisatory aspects of her process, Smith finds creative kinship with jazz musicians—subjects of some of her most memorable images. Among the works on view at MoMA is Sun Ra Space II (1978), a portrait of the cosmic jazz pioneer in which his sparkling garments, blurred in a whirl of motion, resemble a celestial phenomenon. In Arthur Blythe in Orbit, Berlin, West Germany (1981), the saxophonist appears with his instrument, but takes up only a small sliver of the frame; he is dwarfed by the background, where a scattering of stage lights give the impression of a starry night sky. While these images capture notable individuals, they move beyond straightforward portraiture, evoking the cosmos to suggest a higher plane.
As Smith has repeatedly noted, spirituality is essential to her practice. Her images hum with connectedness: Behind the camera, Smith seems preternaturally attuned to the movements of dancers, on the stage and in the streets; to sunlight’s soft touch in quiet corners; to intimate moments shared between family members. “It is like God working through me,” she told Artsy in 2020. “I really feel that.”
In the coming months, Smith will continue to add lines to her resume. In March, the International Center of Photography will honor her with its Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement. Later this year, she will also be the subject of “Feeling the Future,” a solo exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston.
