A Black Gaze

African American Studies at Princeton University

How do we look at, and respond to, work by Black contemporary artists? In this episode, we sat down with Tina Campt, Visiting Professor in Art & Archaeology and the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton. We trace the arc of Prof. Campt’s career, from her earlier research on family photography in the African diaspora and how one can “listen to images,” all the way to her current writing and recent trip to this year’s Venice Biennale. Along the way, we discuss concepts that elucidate the aesthetic, political, and experiential dynamics of work by artists like Jennifer Packer, Cameron Rowland, Stan Douglas, and Simone Leigh.

Deep Dive: How to “listen” to a photograph

Tina M. Campt, Listening to Images (Duke University Press, 2017).

Tina M. Campt, A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See (MIT Press, 2021).

The Breakdown - Guest Info

(Photo credit: barnard.edu)

Tina M. Campt (https://artandarchaeology.princeton.edu/people/tina-m-campt)

Professor Campt taught a multidisciplinary seminar called “Radical Composition” as a Visiting Professor at Princeton for the Spring 2022 semester. She is the Owen F. Walker Professor of Humanities and Modern Culture and Media at Brown University, and heads the Black Visualities Initiative at Brown’s Cogut Institute for Humanities. In addition to the five books she has authored and edited, such as Listening to Images and A Black Gaze, Professor Campt is the lead convener of the Practicing Refusal Collective and the Sojourner Project.

See, Hear, Do

• “Radical Composition” course materials:
• Saidiya Hartman, "Venus in Two Acts." Small Axe 12, no. 2 (2008): 1-14.
• Flying Lotus, “Until the Quiet Comes,” dir. Kahlil Joseph (2012).
• Carrie Mae Weems, “People of a Darker Hue” (2016).
• Jay-Z, “4:44,” dir. Arthur Jafa (2017).
• Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes, The Sweet Flypaper of Life (First Print Press, 2018).
• Practicing Refusal Collective, The Sojourner Project (ongoing).
• Whitney Museum of American Art, “Ask a Curator: Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing” (2022).
• Taylor DaFoe, “How Curators David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards Tackled the 2022 Whitney Biennial to Show ‘What America Really Looks Like’,” artnet news (March 29, 2022).
• Simone Leigh, Sovereignty, Official U.S. Presentation, 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, April 23–November 27, 2022.
• National Gallery of Art, Afro-Atlantic Histories, April 10–July 17, 2022.
• Tina M. Campt, fourth lecture in the series Image Complex: Art, Visuality & Power, University of Sydney (online lecture, October 19th, 2022, register here).