US | Deborah Willis on ’Posing Beauty’

Posing Beauty By Deborah Willis

Beauty is, among many things, deeply personal. Deborah Willis’ new collection, “Posing Beauty” is a compelling presentation of how African Americans have used this amorphous concept of beauty—whether, real, staged or invented—as a tool of self-empowerment.

Over 200 photographs weave individual expressions of beauty to a subtle yet powerful visual commentary on the American social and political landscape over the past century. “Posing Beauty” adds to the conversation that the personal is indeed political. In a 21st century context where beauty can be taken out of the hands of the subjects’ control, easily manufactured, and digitally mastered, Willis reminds us that beauty is perhaps most powerful when we define it for ourselves.

Deborah Willis is one of the nation’s leading historians of African American photography and curator of African American culture. She is a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and 2000 MacArthur Fellow.