Micaiah Carter - Photographs & Helmut Newton: Provocateur London Thursday, May 16, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “I want to feel free to what our imagination can be and what we can be, breaking the barriers of what Blackness is and making it feel like we’re people versus a trend.”
    —Micaiah Carter
    Micaiah Carter’s (American, b.1995) evocative image-making practice focuses on ‘family lineage, community and blending of the past and present in African American life.’ Adeline in Barrettes, 2018, the timeless work offered here, is nostalgic, forward-looking and current in equal measures. It shows the back of musician Adeline’s head, her hair adorned with multi-coloured, plastic barrettes in the shapes of carousel horses, butterflies and bows. ‘It gives a remembrance of girls getting their hair done for school or for church, and those little barrettes with the little twist-ups are just very nostalgic, reminding you of that feeling,’ Carter comments. ‘Also, the colours and the background give that childhood type of nostalgia that a lot of people are still searching back to in a way.’ It was during a shoot for Vogue with Adeline at New York’s Afropunk Festival, an annual event celebrating black culture and music, that Carter spontaneously asked her to turn around and photographed the back of her head, transforming a behind-the-scenes moment into a celebration of black voices and true diversity while ‘giving a nod of homage to the cultural lineage behind us.’ 

     

    Featured in British Journal of Photography’s ‘Ones to Watch’ in 2020, the artist has shot for international publications such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ and has collaborated with many high-profile brands, including Nike and Apple. His work has been exhibited internationally and his debut monograph Micaiah Carter: What’s My Name, featuring photographs he has created over the last decade, was published in 2023, Additionally, he is one of the founders of See In Black, an artist collective highlighting and supporting the advancement of black photographers. 

     

    This offering marks the artist’s debut at auction. 

     

    Video interview with Micaiah Carter for The New Black Vanguard, 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

    • Exhibited

      Mickalene Thomas: Better Nights, The Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, 1 December 2019 - 16 November 2020, another
      Tools of Revolution: Fashion Photography and Activism, Houston Center for Photography, Texas, 6 March - 10 May 2020, another
      The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion, Aperture Foundation, New York, 24 October 2019 - 18 January 2020; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, 8 May - 11 September 2022; Saatchi Gallery, London, 28 October 2022 - 22 January 2023; Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, 5 October 2022 - 5 March 2023; Sarasota Art Museum, Florida, 28 May - 17 September 2023, another

    • Literature

      A. Sargent, The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion, New York: Aperture, 2019, p. 63
      Micaiah Carter: What’s My Name, Munich: Prestel, 2023, p. 97

ULTIMATE

1

Adeline in Barrettes

2018
Archival pigment print, mounted.
Image/Sheet: 157.5 x 118 cm (62 x 46 1/2 in.)
Frame: 162.5 x 123 cm (63 7/8 x 48 3/8 in.)

Signed in ink, printed title, date and number 1/1 on an artist label accompanying the work.

This work is number 1 from the edition of 1 and is unique in this size.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£12,000 - 18,000 

Contact Specialist

Rachel Peart
Head of Department, London
RPeart@phillips.com
 

Yuka Yamaji
Head of Photographs, Europe
YYamaji@phillips.com
 

General Inquiries
+44 20 7318 4092

Photographs & Helmut Newton: Provocateur

London Auction 16 May 2024