LaToya Ruby Frazier (born 1982) is an American artist.

Early life

From

Braddock, Pennsylvania Braddock is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough located in the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, upstream from the mouth of the Monongahela River. The population was 1,721 as of the 2020 United States ...

, Frazier began photographing her family and hometown at the age of 16, revising the social documentary traditional of

Walker Evans Walker Evans (November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist best known for his work for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documenting the effects of the Great ...

and

Dorothea Lange Dorothea Lange (born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn; May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange' ...

to imagine

documentation Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance, and use. As a form of knowledge managem ...

from within and by the community, and collaboration between the photographer and her subjects. Inspired by

Gordon Parks Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, composer, author, poet, and filmmaker, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s—particularly ...

, who promoted the camera as a weapon for

social justice Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has of ...

, Frazier uses her tight focus to make apparent the impact of systemic problems, from racism to deindustrialization to

environmental degradation Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...

, on individual bodies, relationships and spaces. In her work, she is concerned with bringing to light these problems, which she describes as global issues. Speaking to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' about her position, Frazier said: "We need longer sustained stories that reflect and tell us where the prejudices and blind spots are and continue to be in this culture and society.... This is a race and class issue that is affecting everyone. It is not a

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

problem, it is an American problem, it is a global problem. Braddock is everywhere."

Education

Entering college at 17, Frazier studied photography under Kathe Kowalski, who became an important

mentor Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the perso ...

, introducing her to

feminist theory Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or Philosophy, philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's Gender role, social roles, experiences, intere ...

semiotics Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. Semiosis is a ...

and the political uses, good and bad, of photography. graduated in 2004 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography and Graphic Design from

Edinboro University of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Western University, Edinboro (abbreviated as PennWest Edinboro) is a campus of Pennsylvania Western University in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. The campus had an enrollment of 2,259 as of fall 2024. History PennWest Edinboro was foun ...

, and in 2007 received a Masters of Fine Art Photography from the School of Visual Performing Arts at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

. After participating in the 2010–11 Whitney Independent Study Program, she began teaching at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

. Frazier has been extensively educated in photography through education at Edinboro

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

(BFA),

(MFA), the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

Independent Study Program, and she was the Guna S. Mundheim Fellow for Visual Arts at the

American Academy in Berlin The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and German ...

Career

Frazier reports drawing and painting from a young age, and credits her Grandma Ruby's with setting high expectations for her achievements. Since 2009, she has been included in a range of major group exhibitions, including the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...

's ''The Generational Triennial: Younger Than Jesus'',

MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution at 2201 Jackson Avenue in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in New York City, United States. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...

's "Greater New York: 2010'', the 2011

Incheon Women Artists' Biennale The Incheon Women Artists' Biennale, held in Incheon, South Korea, and inaugurated in 2004, subsequently had editions in 2007, 2009, and 2011 that focused on the work of contemporary art, contemporary Female artists, women artists. It is the first a ...

''Terra Incognita'', and the 2012

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...

. Her solo museum exhibition, ''A Haunted Capital'', opened at the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

in 2013. Additionally, she was part of the 2009-2010 cohort of artists who participated in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Workspace residency program. In 2014, Frazier published her first book, ''The Notion of Family'', which received the

International Center for Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP) is a photography museum and school at 84 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. ICP's photographic collection, reading room, and archives are at Mana Contemporary in Jers ...

Infinity Award.

Awards

Frazier is the recipient of many awards, including: Art Matters (2010),

Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation was founded in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany to operate his estate, Laurelton Hall, in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. It was designed to be a summer retreat for artists and craftspeople. In 1946 the estate ...

Award (2011), the Theo Westenberger Award of the

Creative Capital Creative Capital is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in New York City that supports artists across the United States through funding, counsel, gatherings, and career development services. Since its founding in 1999, Creative Capital has co ...

Foundation (2012), and the

Gwendolyn Knight Gwendolyn Clarine Knight (May 26, 1913 – February 18, 2005) was an American artist who was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, in the West Indies. Knight painted throughout her life but did not start seriously exhibiting her work until the 1970s. He ...

Jacob Lawrence Jacob Armstead Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African-American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", an art form populariz ...

Prize from the

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The museum operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in ...

(2013). In 2014, Frazier was named a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated d ...

in Creative Arts. The following year, she became a TED2015 Fellow and her

monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

, ''The Notion of Family'', published by

Aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

in 2014, was awarded the 2015 Infinity Award for Best Publication by the

International Center of Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP) is a photography museum and school at 84 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. ICP's photographic collection, reading room, and archives are at Mana Contemporary in Jer ...

(ICP). In 2015 Frazier was awarded a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

, to which she responded that the award was "validation to my work being a testimony and a fight for social justice and

cultural change Culture change is a term used in public policy making and in workplaces that emphasizes the influence of cultural capital on individual and community behavior. It has been sometimes called repositioning of culture, which means the reconstruction of ...

." In 2018, Frazier was announced as one of

Sundance Institute Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by actor Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and compo ...

's Art of Nonfiction Fellows. In 2020, Frazier was named the inaugural recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book Prize. In 2021, Frazier was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the

Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is the world's oldest photographic society having been in continuous existence since 1853. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as th ...

Work

The photographic work of LaToya Ruby Frazier includes both images of personal spaces, intensely private moments and the story of racial and economic

injustice Injustice is a quality relating to unfairness or undeserved outcomes. The term may be applied in reference to a particular event or situation, or to a larger status quo. In Western philosophy and jurisprudence, injustice is very commonly—but ...

in America. Her work includes raw

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

s of friends and family members in intimate moments and examples of social injustice. As Frazier explains, "the collaboration between my family and myself blurs the line between self-portraiture and social documentary" Often her work focuses on the plight of her home town of

which became financially depressed after the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970–80s. With black and white photographs, Frazier highlights the beauty of Braddock and how this town has impacted her family's life along with other residents. Her still photographs have a raw sense of strength and vulnerability juxtaposed in an honest and personal way. Besides working on her most famous work ''Notion of Family'', Frazier has worked with other contemporary issues such as the

Flint water crisis The Flint water crisis was a public health crisis from 2014 to 2019 which involved the drinking water for the city of Flint, Michigan, being contaminated with lead and possibly ''Legionella'' bacteria. In April 2014, during a financial crisis, ...

. This particular project, ''Flint is Family'', depicts and focuses on a young woman and her family living their everyday lives amongst the crucial water conditions within their lower class Flint community. She recently contributed photographs to a ''New York Times'' project, "Why America's Black Mothers and Babies are in a Life-or-Death Crisis". Informed by documentary practices from the turn of the last century, Frazier explores identities of place, race, and family in work that is a hybrid of self-portraiture and social narrative. Her primary subjects of these portraits are Frazier's Grandma Ruby (1925–2009), her mother (b. 1959), and the artist herself. The crumbling landscape of Braddock, Pennsylvania, a once-thriving steel town, forms the backdrop of her images, which make manifest both the environmental and infrastructural decay caused by postindustrial decline and the lives of those who continue—largely by necessity—to live among it. As Frazier says, "I see myself as an artist and a citizen that's documenting and telling the story and building the archive of

working-class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

families facing all this change that's happening, because it has to be documented." Through her own family she has been able to recount the history of Braddock by way of the generations who experienced it. Her work begins dialogues about class structure, history, and

social responsibility Social responsibility is an ethical concept in which a person works and cooperates with other people and organizations for the benefit of the community. An organization can demonstrate social responsibility in several ways, for instance, by do ...

. A 2018 special issue of

Atlantic Magazine ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 ...

featured aerial photography and an essay by Frazier documenting the impact of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. on the landscapes of

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Mem ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

and

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

. Frazier's work was featured in the 2019 ''

New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. The magazin ...

'' Money Issue for her photo essay on the people of Lordstown,

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

, after the

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

plant shut down.

Exhibitions

Source: Solo exhibitions: *

, ''A Haunted Capital'' (2013) *

, ''Born by a River'' (2013) * Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, ''Witness'' (2013) * Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, ''Witness'' (2013) *

Gavin Brown's Enterprise Gavin Brown's enterprise was an art gallery with venues in New York City and Rome owned by Gavin Brown between 1994 and 2020. In 2020, it merged with Gladstone Gallery. History Broome Street The gallery was established by Gavin Brown in 1994 on ...

, New York, NY (2018) *

Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg The Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg is an art museum in central Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, opened 1994. It presents modern and contemporary art and is financed by the ''Kunststiftung Volkswagen.'' It takes up aspects of the industrial city of Wolfsburg, whi ...

, Germany (2021) Group exhibitions: * ''The Way of the Shovel, Art as Archaeology'',

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art art gallery, museum near Water Tower Place in the Near North Side, Chicago, Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is on ...

, IL (2013) * ''Empire State'',

Palazzo delle Esposizioni The Palazzo delle Esposizioni is a Neoclassicism, neoclassical exhibition hall, cultural center and museum on Via Nazionale (Rome), Via Nazionale in Rome, Italy. History Designed by Pio Piacentini, it opened in 1883. It has housed several exhi ...

, Rome, Italy (2013) * ''Gertrude's/LOT'',

Andy Warhol Museum The Andy Warhol Museum is located on the North Shore of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is the largest museum in North America dedicated to a single artist. The museum holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archi ...

, Pittsburgh, PA (2011) * ''Commercial Break, Garage Projects'', 54th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

, Italy (2011) * ''Greater New York'',

, New York, NY (2010) * ''The Generational Triennial: Younger Than Jesus'',

, New York, NY (2009) Biennials: * Busan Biennale, South Korea (2014) * ''Recycling Memory: Recapturing the Lost City,'' 11th Nicaraguan Visual Arts Biennial, Managua (2014) * ''Mom, am, I barbarian?'', 13th

Istanbul Biennial The Istanbul Biennial is a contemporary art exhibition that has been held biennially in Istanbul, Turkey, since 1987. The Biennial has been organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) since its inception. Istanbul Biennial p ...

(2013) *

, New York (2012)

References

External links

*
"A visual history of inequality in industrial America"
(TED2015)
LaToya Ruby Frazier (MacArthur Foundation)
* Maurice Berger
"LaToya Ruby Frazier's Notion of Family"
''The New York Times'', October 14, 2014.
LaToya Ruby Frazier
on the African American Visual Artists Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Frazier, LaToya Ruby African-American photographers Social documentary photographers American documentary photographers 1982 births Living people African-American contemporary artists American contemporary artists 21st-century African-American women artists MacArthur Fellows Yale University faculty Pennsylvania Western University, Edinboro alumni Syracuse University alumni Photographers from Pennsylvania People from Braddock, Pennsylvania 21st-century American photographers 21st-century American women photographers American women academics 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American artists 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women American women photojournalists