We Don't Need a Black Avedon

By Adraint Bereal

We don’t need a Black Avedon.

Albeit his pictorial legacy is proven glinted and inflammable, his actions and life between each frame aren’t. Why are we so obsessed with the idea of a “Black Avedon”, “Black Mapplethorpe”, Black version of the white narcissist? What do we gain by shrinking ourselves into such narrow pathways? It’s probably the most uncool thing ever, aimless even. We’re born cooler than that! As I’m writing this I hear my brother Casey Gerald saying “There are things we should fight about.” as he told me one weekend in Washington Square Park, and Yash saying, “Nigga talk too much, call him Fred Moten.” (We love Fred Moten.) I was born on a Monday. I talk too much, and I like to fight. Today happens to be Monday, which is a great day for fighting.

I’m reminded of Carrie Mae Weems' work, “Black Boy Said” from her “Ain’t Joking” series. No matter how satirical or stereotypical, life is imitating art. Questions like “who/what are you inspired by?” spoil the thrill of learning someone, learning who they are and where they’re going. It is no different than being asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s a shortcut for reverence to pre-digest what needs time to be realized, a career which can’t be realized in one year. This is the pitfall many Black photographers are falling into by no fault of our own.

This question is premature.

Photography is a portal, a way in. Committing to an artist’s light is committing to the journey. A lot of young artists are forced into an acceleration period to become all that’s desired from an audience in an instant.

Not only are we obsessed with being the Black-White, so are our beneficiaries who have no problem stuffing us into an acute pathway for commercial success, which I would define as the ability to make some bread not just for yourself but for others whilst cultivating a large audience. The sometimes vapid illuminations we leave on paper last lifetimes. We should realize the Black image beyond imitations of people that aren’t here anymore. There are people and places in the world that need lensing from individuals who care enough to be tender with them before and after the image is taken. Lensing someone is often uncompensable, and taken without care. Unfortunately when we put our eyes to the viewfinder it doesn’t read “Take with care” in the way rear view mirrors read “Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear.”

The power white people hold in photography or any art form is not transferable. This is not wealth transference. You can’t transfer a lack of regard for the need to pan the camera. You can’t transfer careers worth years of relationships from just being around. You can not transfer what can not be given. You can transfer access and opportunities to click the shutter and lens the world you live in. You can transfer money.

I’ve never heard a white person say “I want to be the white Denzel Washington.” Aspirational bullshit. White people don’t negotiate the real estate of their existence, they expect it. We should expect the same, not because that’s what they do, but because for 400 years we have been playing catch up trying to negotiate the livelihood of our well-being. I fear we’ve already wasted too much time in conversations like this one talking about the art, or making art, about how hard it is to make the art instead of making the art. There are obstacles such as lack of money or access for artists from lower socio-economic backgrounds which plague them severely more than others. Photography is a pay to play industry, but not all of us need to be photographers. Some of us would make great art directors given that photographers are not the only ones responsible for shaping our realization in the world of commercials. Neither of these truths make up for the fact that much of the success and autonomy of an artist’s career is also based in relationships most aren’t privy to.

And what about the nurturing? Who’s responsible for that? We all are. We owe it to one another to be honest, and pay a debt forward for someone behind us because that is what was done for us. A Black Mapplethorpe, a Black Avedon, it all sounds boring and devoid of real meaning. Our Black predecessors like The Hooks Brothers, James Van Der Zee, Carrie Mae Weems, and Dawoud Bey, who are both still alive, didn’t have Instagram at the start of their careers. They deserve our respect for making space and sending generations of light to the future. We should fight about the uselessness of a Black Avedon or Black Mapplethorpe. I’m not punching you in the face, I’m just simply telling you there’s dirt on your shoulder. And if you have to be a narcissist, carve your vapid illuminations of light in stone. Do it to a degree where we don’t mistake your images for imitations of our explore pages and mood board accounts ripping Weems out of catalogs for content. Commit.

Instead of asking “who do you want to be when you grow up?” let’s ask “where can we help you go?” I reject being crystallized before I’ve had time to fix my eyes on the coast of West Africa, the Tetons, East Texas, the lukewarm apartment in Paris, my niece's graduation, and many nights exchanging oral coordinates with strangers. We don’t need a Black Avedon. Nobody does. Avedon lived. Mapplethrope lived. They turned light to poetry, and it was beautiful. I’m following the light of Elijah Mogley, Casper Kofi, Dean Majd, Casanova Cabrera, Yashaddai Owens, Cassidy Arrington, Ming Smith, Deana Lawson, and those who have something important to say.

We’re at the edge of the frame. The shutter is open. The world is waiting on you to pan the camera. Pan the camera.



Adraint Khadafhi Bereal (he/him) is an artist from Waco, TX based in New York. His work untangles the nuances of American culture by interrogating and provoking the truth to rear its head. Adraint’s work has been published by Penguin Random House and featured by The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Aperture Magazine. He is also showing work with Nina Johnson Gallery for his first solo show, "Different Regard for Life" opening this September. Adraint is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin with a BFA in Design.