2019 Catalogue Archive

Through his photographic practice, Paul Mpagi Sepuya expands on and challenges traditional understandings of the photographer and the sitter, as well as the role of the studio and the photographer’s equipment. Collage, mirroring, and collaboration are just some of the techniques he utilizes, all filtered through his unique gaze as a queer black male. Figure (_2100565) features a man holding up flower-printed cut-outs over his nude body, a bow shape that both hides and accentuates his nakedness. By holding the photographic cut-outs, the figure is both backdrop and subject of the layered photograph. Sepuya’s work is in the collections of numerous museums, among them the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; International Center for Photography, New York; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; and MoMA, New York. Earlier this year, Sepuya’s work was featured in the Whitney Biennial.