Momme (Shadow), from Momme Portrait series
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Object Label
In these photographs, LaToya Ruby Frazier’s intimate depictions of herself and her family simultaneously record the economic decline and social inequities that plague her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania, the site of industrialist Andrew Carnegie’s first steel mill. Referencing early-twentieth-century documentary photographers, who worked in black and white, the artist locates herself through familial connections in portraits with her mother and grandmother, the worn image of the smiling Huxtable family on her T-shirt, or the space of one’s childhood home. At the same time, Frazier’s images mark the passage of time by her and her family’s experiences with illness, a reality reminiscent of the heightened health risks faced by many people working and living in the Rust Belt.
Caption
LaToya Ruby Frazier American, born 1982. Momme (Shadow), from Momme Portrait series, 2008. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 15 1/2 x 19 1/2 in. (39.4 x 49.5 cm) frame: 24 5/8 x 28 5/8 x 1 1/2 in. (62.5 x 72.7 x 3.8 cm) mount: 24 x 28 in. (61 x 71.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Emily Winthrop Miles Fund, 2011.63.2. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Image courtesy of the artist, CUR.2011.63.2_artist_photograph.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Momme (Shadow), from Momme Portrait series
Date
2008
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Classification
Dimensions
sheet: 15 1/2 x 19 1/2 in. (39.4 x 49.5 cm) frame: 24 5/8 x 28 5/8 x 1 1/2 in. (62.5 x 72.7 x 3.8 cm) mount: 24 x 28 in. (61 x 71.1 cm)
Credit Line
Emily Winthrop Miles Fund
Accession Number
2011.63.2
Rights
© artist or artist's estate
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Frequent Art Questions
The LaToya Ruby Frazier photo portrait “Momme Portrait Series (Shadow)" seems to portray the mother figure as oppressive (the artist literally in her shadow), what is the understanding of their relationship?
I can definitely see what you mean, but the artist describes her intention here as presenting the two of them as one, unified in sickness and a struggle to survive. LaToya Ruby Frazier has lupus and her mother, cancer.Frazier said of this image: "The light cast a shadow that for me foreshadowed a departure." It was taken six months before the loss of her grandmother to the same cancer her mother had been diagnosed with. In Frazier’s hometown of Braddock, PA, an overwhelming amount of industrial pollution has caused high rates of cancer and other illnesses among its residents.Thank you—that is a very different relationship than I would have thought.
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