Went Looking for Beauty: Refashioning Self

The August Wilson Center presents Went Looking for Beauty: Refashioning Self, a fine art photography exhibition by Deborah Willis, Ph.D. Through the exploration of two main themes, My Friends’ Closets and Street Views, Willis’ photos reconstruct an imagined past through images depicting its beauty, identity, and cultural memory. This project is a new way of looking at fashion, art, and women and men as consumers through the private space of the closet and the public space of city streets and boxing rings.

Deborah Willis, Ph.D, is Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Her research examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, the photographic history of Slavery and Emancipation, contemporary women photographers and beauty. She received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and was a Richard D. Cohen Fellow in African and African American Art, Hutchins Center, Harvard University and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. Professor Willis received the NAACP Image Award in 2014 for her co-authored book Envisioning Emancipation.

Special note: This exhibition will be located in the Claude Worthington Benedum Gallery. Deborah Willis will be giving a lecture at the Opening Reception as a part of the Cultural Trust Gallery Crawl, Friday, September 22, 2017 at 6 PM.