Mom

2007

Silver gelatin print

43 x 50.8 cm (15 3/4 x 20 in.)

Mom is the unfiltered portrait of a mother by her child, LaToya Ruby Frazier. But if the daughter took the picture, it is between the mother and the viewer that she creates a particular relationship: their respective gazes support each other, falter and call for other gazes. By refusing any kind of theatrical bombast, this portrait encapsulates the full self-conscience of this woman in front of her daughter's camera.

Frazier's oeuvre renews the use of silver photography and the documentary approach by looking at it from an intimate perspective: by photographing the life of her family, she becomes the eye of the American left-behind, documenting their collective history. Her series The Notion of Family is thus deeply political and testament to the artist's militant approach.

LaToya Ruby Frazier's portrait Mom was first presented by the Pinault Collection in the exhibition Dancing With Myself at the Museum Folkwang in Essen (2016).
Exhibitions