The Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers and Gordon Parks
in ‘Tyler Mitchell: Wish This Was Real’, C/O Berlin
1 June – 5 September 2024
‘Tyler Mitchell. Wish This Was Real’, 2024, exhibition view, CO Berlin. Courtesy: © CO Berlin Foundation and David von Becker
Since the American photographer’s rise to prominence in the world of fashion, Tyler Mitchell has propelled a visual landscape that expands visions of Black life. C/O Berlin presents Mitchell’s first solo exhibition in Germany, offering new perspectives on his long-standing themes of self-determination and the extraordinary radiance of the everyday, demonstrating how portraiture can be simultaneously rooted in the past while evoking imagined futures.
Central to the exhibition is a display entitled ‘Altars/Acres’, featuring photography and mixed media sculptures by artists whose work deeply resonates with Mitchell’s practice, such as Loretta Pettway Bennett of the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers, Gordon Parks, Garrett Bradley, Grace Wales Bonner, and Carrie Maw Weems. This unique intergenerational dialogue sets Mitchell’s photography within a wide spectrum of experimentation, intellectual heritage, and cultural expression.