Two powerful local exhibitions on view this fall bring the Black Experience face-to-face with audiences up close, seeing how 180+ years of photographic images offer a painfully slow recognition of our shared humanity. Even this month there is a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, together with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, alongside the iconic power of photographs taken that day.

“I Am Seen …Therefore I Am” at the Wadsworth Museum in Hartford, CT through September 24, 2023

At this exhibit we begin to recognize the power of photography as seen through the eyes of Frederick Douglass, the most photographed person in the 19th century—by design; there are over 160 known portraits of him. Douglass knew that his “own picture—the serious, dignified grace of it, always well-groomed, stoic, and finely dressed was a counter-strike to the degrading images of enslaved Black people that permeated American life, mawkish caricatures of minstrels, or photographs of stone-faced laborers depleted and in tatters. For Americans to think of Black people differently, he reasoned, they would first need to see them as such.” (https://tinyurl.com/27p9b9td)

“As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic” at the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, MA, through December 31, 2023

On display are works collected by Dr. Jebbetg Nibtagyem, a Canadian dentist, who said, “These were things I wasn’t seeing on the walls of galleries or museums, and I wanted to make a space for them” (https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/19/arts/picture-bypicture-canadian-dentist-built-photography-collection -by-artists-black-atlantic/).

Having grown up in Windsor, Ontario, just across the Detroit River and with a view of the American city, Nibtagyem was a frequent visitor to the Detroit Institute of Arts, and was greatly influenced by it. The exhibit “explore[s] Black identity through a compelling compilation of photographs from African diasporic culture.” The show “looks at the myriad experiences of Black life through the lenses of community, identity and power.” (https://www.pem.org/exhibitions/as-we-rise-photography-from-the-blackatlantic).

Over 100 works are on display by Black artists from North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. “Black subjects depicted by Black photographers are presented as they wish to be seen , recognizing the complex strength, beauty and vulnerability of Black life.” Essays accompanying the images “provide insight and commentary on this monumental collection. The PEM website includes this cautionary note: “This contains explicit content and may not be suitable for children.” Tickets are required for this special exhibit. As We Rise will be on display through December 31, 2023.