All right, let's do this, peanut, if you're staying in the room, no talking. Hello, and welcome to the Photo Work Podcast, the talky and touchy feely version of my book, 40 photographers on process and Practice. Hello, everyone. I'm Sascha Wolf, recording from Woodstock, New York, and joined as usual, by my friend and producer, Mr. Michael Chovendalton. Hello, Michael.
Hey there.
How are you?
I'm doing all right. We're recording just before Thanksgiving, so that means my semester is, like, going to wind down so quickly. It's one of those weird breaks.
Yeah, it is. It's always so strange. I remember that even when I was in college, like, you had this Thanksgiving break and then you went back for like a couple of weeks or something.
Yeah.
And then you had the wrong Christmas. Yeah. Everyone's already checked out. You have to just accept it.
Yeah.
You think after 20 something years of teaching, I would be used to it, But I come back, I'm like, oh, my God, we have no time left.
And no one's paying attention.
That's right.
Get in the lab.
Well, that's awesome, though, that you're close to the end of the semester. Yeah, I. I was thinking. I was scheming last night about. My partner is actually in the city this week, and I'm upstate and I am Jewish. My partner is not. But I really love a Christmas tree. My partner does not. And I was thinking last night when I was laying in bed that I should go out and get a Christmas tree.
A surprise tree.
Yeah. When she gets back there via Christmas tree. But I think I might get bonked on that head by the Christmas tree. So I've decided not to do it just to, you know, risk injury. But I don't know. As a Jew, I just. I. What can I say? I love a Christmas tree. I just. I find it very jolly. I love the lights.
I think we. We've shared this before. You know, I. I spent my teenage years on Long island, and we all consider ourselves very Catholic. Jewish or Jewish? Catholic. So our. Our holiday celebrations were very overlapping.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Just. Yeah. I. I really do get that some people hate. I know some people hate the whole holiday thing, and I get it. I totally get it. It's not lost on me, the, like, over commercialization, the emphasis, the pressure to do things. Material things. Yeah, all of that. The forced jolliness. But I don't, like, participate in any of that, so it doesn't. I just like all the lights. I don't know. I just like the twinkly aspect of it. What can I say?
Nice.
But anyway. Yeah. So we're coming into the season. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we hope everyone has nice holidays. And we have a great show today. But before we get into it, I just want to make my. I was gonna say yearly, but it's probably bi. Yearly. But I. I wanna make our.
We might not be so consistent.
No, definitely not. Just throwing it out there. Appeal for donations. And I'm hoping that this year my message sinks in. It has not really in the past. So there's only one way to go here, folks, and that's only one way to go. Please, please take the time. I'm not even really sure, to be honest, why people don't do it. I mean, I'm not sure. I'm sure there's some sociologist out there who's marketing professional and whatnot, who's studied this, but I don't know whether it's the time or the money or both. But I really think it takes just a couple of minutes. We have a donate button on the website, Photowork Foundation. You just hit the donate button. We don't care if it's $10 or if you can do more. That's great. We are a non profit and.
And this is not a Kickstarter. This is a nonprofit.
Yeah.
Yes.
We really could be helped. Like, I mean, it's not. Look, we raise just to give you a little bit of inside baseball. We raise our budget through individual donations from significant supporters and by grants. Right. And so we've been very fortunate. We're a young organization, young nonprofit. We've been really fortunate to have secured some really significant grants from incredible granting institutions, including state funding, which is wonderful, by a handful of really dedicated supporters. And there would be no photo work foundation, literally, without this support. I'm not independently wealthy and funding it on my own, it doesn't work that way. So, you know, a big part of my job. You guys are used to hearing me on the podcast, you know, I think our audience knows the other work that I do, which is putting the fellowships together and running the fellowships with Taylor. But a big part of my job is actually fundraising. And I'm constantly looking for new grant opportunities and new opportunities from individuals, and that is a slog. But it's a part of the job of the executive director of any nonprofit, so I accept that. But, you know, any help above and beyond that gives us the opportunity to do more. And for instance, let me just give you an example so it doesn't feel so abstract. We have hired an additional person part time to work on the podcast specifically because we needed more help. And I needed more help.
Is that what you're trying to say?
I did not say that we. We. It's the communal we. And he was not in this year's budget, so that's been very tricky already. Next year, we're about to approve the budget with the board of directors for next year. And not in that budget is a new initiative that I want to do that I think is very important. And I'll have to figure out a way to go above and beyond to make that happen. And it's something that be available to all of you listeners and everyone who's involved in the foundation. So, you know, the foundation's main goal is free education. And that's for you guys. And, you know, so I hope this is as concrete as it can possibly be. I'm sorry, I can't tell you what the initiative is yet, but anything you can do to help, if you can just take a few minutes and go to the website or every time you get a newsletter from us, there's a donate button there. Anything you can do would be really helpful. And I love you guys. I love our audience. You know, you guys communicate with us all the time and it's really wonderful. But you're not going to win any awards in the donation category, to be honest. And I'm trying not to hold it against you, but come on, we're in this together, people. So we're trying to build a community and we need your help. And if you can just toss in, you know, a few bucks, we'd be so grateful. Okay, that's it. That's my spiel. Yep. Let's get to the show, Michael, now.
For some fun stuff.
Yeah. What are you saying? Our guest was the wonderful photographer, and I would just say artist Tyler Mitchell. What did you think of the episode?
I think there is so much in this episode for photographers who might be risk averse, for photographers who, you know, maybe they're offered something that they don't think they're ready. What I really took away from this episode is the importance of taking risks. The embracing the idea that you can learn as you go. You don't need all these sort of traditional paths to photography. There are different ways to get where you want to be. And Tyler is just sort of emblematic of the success of being willing to take risks and saying yes. Yeah, saying yes, exactly.
This is a lesson on just saying yes to stuff.
Absolutely.
Yep.
If an opportunity comes your way, just Jump on it. Regardless of whether you feel you're 100% ready or not. I mean, you're. You're never ready. I mean, until you've done it once before, right?
Yeah. You can't know. You just can't know.
You can't know.
Yeah. But also, Tyler is a person who is incredibly, endlessly curious and learning and open, and that goes hand in hand with being open to risk as well. And you've had, I think you've had quite a few conversations about collaboration, and this is a really interesting one because Tyler has a filmmaker background, and that lends itself to a very different kind of collaboration. And I think that conversation is wonderful.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. Well, I really love talking with Tyler. I learned a lot, and I think this is going to be a great episode for you all listening. So let's get to it because I know my spiel went on long. Michael, if you don't mind, please take it away.
My pleasure. And here is your conversation with Tyler Mitchell.
Tyler Mitchell, welcome to the Photo Work podcast. It's great to have you on. I know you're a busy guy, so thank you so much for. For being with us today.
Yeah, thank you.
So, Tyler, we start every podcast with guests giving us their background in their own words and, you know, with a sort of sense of what's important to them. So if you could just tell the audience about yourself, that would be great.
Yeah, sure. I'm born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, specifically a suburb just outside the city called Marietta. It's a fairly. I would categorize it as a fairly bucolic, quiet suburb, not rural, but squarely American suburban. I think that informed my upbringing a lot. And I think when I look back on it, I realize how much it shaped my understanding of not only myself, but identity, my relationship to race, Atlanta being a city with a distinctly black core, with rich black artistic production, history of black artistic production, and black cultural pride. I wasn't necessarily raised in the church. I wasn't raised explicitly religious. I think my parents were Christian, but we didn't go to church regularly. I would say. But I was raised around. I would say, yeah, predominantly other middle class or upper middle class families. And it was an interesting thing. My family is not at all artistic explicitly. You know, I'm not from a family of artists, but I think my family are more entrepreneurial. My dad had a small business in our basement, growing up in the basement of our house, which was related to financial consulting and helping other businesses realize their goals. And my mother was an Event planner that worked with my father. And so I think of their skills as definitely being passed on to me in a way think maybe photography as an art form is also quite mechanical in certain ways. And one must plan and one must consider and one must think through variety of outcomes. So maybe that shapes me in one way or another. But I went to a school from third grade until I graduated high school, which was quite specific. It's known as quite a posh school in Atlanta called Westminster. It's very fancy, it's very old money, it's very white. It's quite homogenous, both ideologically and racially. Background wise. I would say most of the kids in my school who were sort of seen as the most popular for whatever reason, however that shakes out. Because I think also school becomes about assimilation in a way. They were generally kids who had generations of wealth, unlike my family. They were kids who lived near to the school, who lived in the inner city, who lived in Buckhead, which is the sort of wealthy area. So I sort of did feel outside of that, I guess, regime of assimilation. I suppose it did create inside me a desire to understand my own self in relationship to that. And I guess it informs my work in one way or another.
Was there a sense of anxiety being in that environment when you were there? Or is it something you look back? I mean, I know I have this. I think myself about like high school, which is of course such a incredibly intense time for almost every human being right in the modern world. And, you know, there are things I look back on and I can't quite always tell if the way I feel now about it is the way I felt then. But can you identify how you felt then?
It's interesting how I don't think it was as turbulent as others might characterize it. And what I mean by that is the word I would use mostly is survival. I saw the school as sort of means to an end, in a sense to be able to move up to New York City, which I did. I was always thinking of it as a way to hopefully be able to pursue other things. And I'm not sure, I'm not sure I would characterize it as explicitly traumatic or anxiety inducing. Of course there were moments of these sort of hyper awareness or hyper vigilance of the glaring differences between myself and most of the other kids who were. Who had, I would say, social prominence or value within the like regime and system of the school. So there are these sort of like out of body moments. But it was not a time characterized by out and out anxiety through and through, if that makes sense. I think it was one of realizing difference and of survival and of perseverance in a way and of and of end of guiding me towards finding my sense of value outside of those structures. Which kind of leads me into talking about skateboarding because somewhere along the way it became very important to me to teach myself skateboarding. And it doesn't. I don't think it came to me in the way it might have for other kids my age at that time in 2008, 9, 10, 11. I mean, at that time versus now, skateboarding was much more subcultural, whereas I think it's moved much more into the mainstream of cool. But it was also not. It was also later than, let's say, the punks who discovered skateboarding in the 90s.
Right.
It was something I just felt passionate for that was outside of anything, supported by or encouraged by my school. And I didn't think of it as a racialized thing. I didn't think of it as a identity or a class thing, though, of course, it always is layered with those things. Later I realized, you know, most of the kids I befriended through skateboarding were of course kids of black and brown background, kids on the margins, more than the kids I went to school with on a day to day basis. These were kids from other areas of Atlanta. So it sort of opened up my worldview even within my city. And it also led me to creativity and to photography eventually. So I think my school experience stands in contrast to that discovery for myself.
It's so interesting. I feel like I know a lot of people, particularly guys who. For whom skateboarding is this sort of inexplicable gateway into art making.
Yeah.
You know, I was just talking to Mike Brody a few weeks ago and that was his entree. I know you know, my friend Raheem Fortune's a big skateboarder. It's interesting. I mean, it's almost as if there's something very creative in that environment somehow.
I would agree. Yeah. It's a conducive environment for creativity. It's an encouraging environment. It's an environment where, you know, other people are pushing each other to do better, to be better, to. To try new things. It's also a sport that's interwoven with style. It's about how you do something more than what you do. I think others, other sports can feel very score and goal oriented and quite concrete. And skateboarding has nothing to do with that, so.
Oh, that's a really good point. Yeah. Style, I think that, that's. That makes a lot of sense. So tell me about starting to photograph in that space and whatever realization sets in that this is something that's obviously really meaningful to you, becomes very meaningful and turns into your life's work. How does that happen?
Yeah, sort of organically, without even thinking about it. I had a friend in a group of skaters I had met at that point who had a camera, had a really kind of fancy or expensive DSLR camera. And he was often the sort of the host of the group. People would stay at his house. His house was almost like an open door policy. And so a lot of us were sort of hanging around and always filming each other, skating. It became like the way to document the crew and what we did and how we skated. And of course, like, I have to bring up the history of filming skateboarding itself also, because it's a big deal in the sport. The idea that there would, in a crew of skaters, be a dedicated filmer who would chronicle what the crew, where they were traveling, what spots they were skating, what tricks they were doing. And it's this creative ethos beyond just a sport, I would say, and I can't emphasize that enough for people who don't understand it or haven't lived it like that was a big part of the dynamic. And filming is the central part of that. So it encourages sort of creativity around that filming too, and perspective and all these things. And, yeah, I just became obsessed with it myself. I became more obsessed with the filming of other skateboarders than I did skating itself. And alongside this, my dad was taking me to many movies. It was sort of our bonding activity to watch old Hollywood classics like Hitchcock and Poirot and detective stories and murder mysteries and film noir. He was obsessed with all of that. And I hadn't connected the dots, but I was kind of growing a taste for visual storytelling and a possibility, I guess a light bulb was going off inside me that maybe I could study filmmaking, maybe I could pursue it as a career. And thought I might become a director and told my parents that I'd like to apply to film schools across the country. So that was what led me to photography. And of course, my friend's camera itself had a video mode and a photo mode. So I've never been someone who's considered film and photography as divorced from each other. I've always been obsessed with both. And of course, photography has gone very well for me and sort of avalanched into a whole load of opportunities and a career and, you know, becoming an artist. But Also becoming a fashion photographer. But I think, I think of those things as very connected. I've never divorced photography and video making and filmmaking in my mind.
So you wound up at nyu. Tell me about that experience and how you sort of went from. I think you were, you know, studying filmmaking and cinematography, but then you really. And I'm sure there's, I mean, I know you're also making films and I wonder if there'll be a sort of full circle moment as far as the moving image becoming even more central at some point. But for now you're still more dedicated to, I think, and certainly well known for your still images. But tell me about that evolution once you got to NYU that, you know, leads you to become the photographer you are now.
Yeah, I applied to all kinds of film schools and got accepted to nyu and of course it's, you know, one of the, it's regarded as one of the great film schools in the country and I was just very excited and I'm not sure my journey sort of started just about exposure learning when I moved here. There's so many things when you're dropped off on Washington Square park and basically no one's telling you what time to be home anymore and it's not a school campus and it's not a traditional university and you're just thrown in the deep end of so many inputs and directions and possibilities and it was beautiful. I really thrived in it. I think it's easy to go to feel underwater with all of it, but I think it's why I still live in New York. Love the exposure to so many different circles and things. And I think it shapes my taste in who I am now and how I have friends in multiple disciplines and parts of culture. But the biggest shift or evolution going from film into photography was going to frequenting a bookstore called Dashwood Books where I was just falling in love with the art form of the photo book and I was falling in love with photographers and I was discovering all sorts of image makers and, and then probably thinking myself that this might be an interesting way to speak to culture more immediately than a film where one must wait, you know, 18 months at minimum to make a feature length film from inception to completion. And I wouldn't say it was impatience that drove me to photography, but it was a desire for the immediate visual story in one frame that I became fascinated by and inspired by.
Well, you're extremely prolific and so that makes so much sense. And as a ex filmmaker myself, I really understand what you're talking about. So I know that, or my understanding is that, you know photographers. And I, of course, know Dashwood very well, and I know how seductive that space itself is. It's just. It's like a photo book womb. I mean, it's just, you know, incredibly comforting, cozy, wonderful, imaginative space. And even the street it's on in the city, the way you sort of go down the stairs and it's. Yeah, it's a wonderful space to just let yourself go and get completely caught up in all the offerings. You've talked a lot about folks like Ryan McGinley, Larry Clark, Gordon Parks being sort of big influences. All of which makes sense to me. Can you tell us a little bit about some other photographers you discovered early that maybe you haven't mentioned before, that that had a big impact.
Those are the main ones. Did we mention Vivian Sassen?
No.
Yeah, she was a big deal for me. I mean, I think I. I think just from a representational level. I mean, you know, I wasn't thinking on any of these terms as a student. I was just being guided by what I was drawn to visually. But I think her work set something off inside me at the time where I hadn't seen images of black people the way she had depicted them, and specifically not of African life. I think I had this very, I would say, mainstream understanding of how Africa was depicted in photographs. I think it was much. Which was much more photojournalistic, which was much more.
Yeah, Nat Geo.
Yeah. And perhaps burdened by telling the stories of tragedy on the continent. But I hadn't seen something totally free from that. And I think Vivian was very. It was amazing. I mean, you know, getting to know her now and still revering her and understanding that it just can't. You know, she's a white Dutch woman, which makes it very interesting to me. You know, she was raised on the continent, and I don't think it ever occurred to her that she was doing something out and out against the grain of representation in the way. And the way it struck me, I think she. Maybe she was aware of it, but I think for her, she's just an amazing formalist. And perhaps there was something that awoke in me about the way form can speak to politics without being didactic. And I think. And aesthetics and that photography is the medium that uniquely can do that, beyond language, I suppose. Mm.
No, that's a really good point. I think you're a formalist. Do you think of yourself as a formalist?
Yeah. Yeah. I love form. Beauty is important. I have no shame about that. Yeah. I Think that it's the hook in which to draw a viewer in to other conversations. And it's a visual medium, photography. It's one that goes beyond language. It's not an essay. And so form must be the tool we all use to have the conversations we want to have with our viewers.
Well, I happen to agree with everything you just said, as people who listen to the podcast or know me know often give out Robert Adams beauty and photography as gifts to young artists. So let's talk about. And there's a lot of things beyond this that I want to get to, but I feel like we have to talk about sort of rocket ship that you've been on. So how does it feel? What is the sequence of events that propels you so quickly into the mainstream consciousness of the photography world? How does this. How do you go from a guy who's hanging out at Dashwood and student at NYU to being represented by Gagosian Gallery and having huge shows, which I think started with foam in Amsterdam when you're quite young. So what's that trajectory?
Yeah, I mean, it's funny. All of it happens startlingly, organically. And what I mean by that is, again, that obsession, once I got to New York, to immersing myself into multiple sectors of culture, exposing myself to artists, exposing myself to movies, it was all happening while I was a student here. And I was also very fascinated with making things while I was in school. I think I knew, I was very aware, maybe it was a survival tool, that I wanted to remain in this city, which is expensive even then, 10, 10 or 12 years ago.
Yep.
As an artist. And that I wanted to. I wanted to have that autonomy of being an artist in New York City as soon as I got out of school, if I could be able to. And there was this realization of the commission space having a lot of fruit and possibility, seeing, like I said, artists like Wolfgang Tillmans or McGinley or Vivian Sassen navigate those spaces where I discovered them from a pop cultural lens or in the bookshops rather than going to galleries. Right. And I wasn't in a fine arts school. And I think that distinction is very important because that was what set me on the path to making the work I made, which were mostly commissions for magazines. Another thing was happening at the time, which was a trip I made in the middle of my time at university, to Havana, Cuba, in 2015. So exactly 10 years ago this time, 10 years ago, I was publishing a book of that work I made in Cuba without much preconception of what that might do for me or how that might shift people's perception of me into being like a real photographer, able to hire four magazines, I suppose. And it was all with the encouragement of the Dashwood Books team with Miwa and David. I brought these photographs into them and I said, I really love my time in Cuba. I was there for a little over a month and I just made all these works. I made these works that were kind of Luigi Ghira esque, you know, just kind of snapshots of architecture and buildings and light and beauty and sometimes people and also skaters that I met there as well, because there was a budding skate scene in Cuba. But I walked back, I came back with all the. And the colors and the light really set the barcode for my work thereafter. I was really obsessed with these pastel colors that Cuba was. Was filled with. And I brought the work back and Miwa encouraged me to self publish a book. And I had enough money to ask a printer to give me a student discount to print 200 copies of a little soft cover, small book digitally printed. And I mostly gave them out to friends and people who were doing things in New York at the time. And an editor of Dazed magazine saw them and we started a relationship. And I was commissioned to make a piece for them around fashion and black masculinity. And this was in 2016. I wanted to do something where I was seeing and drinking up a lot of editorials around in the fashion space. It seemed like a really free space to play visually. But I hadn't seen a lot about black masculinity specifically in the contemporary fashion conversation in magazines like Dazed or ID or these youth magazines. So that started me off on this journey of the commission space being one where I could also insert messages that were important to me politically and about identity. And of course, now it's been interesting to talk about it because the discourse around identity and photography and even black masculinity has evolved so much. And I think it's been great to reflect on because in the last 15 years, we've seen that conversation come to the fore in a way that's very important. And we've seen many proliferations of it. And I think I was trying to insert myself within this space of the commissioned editorial in a way that I guess people found themselves drawn to. So I would say that's how it started. And there were other layers to it as well, including my interest in music and musicians. And I was making portraits for the Fader magazine. I remember because my work was so colorful. One of the photo editors there actually assumed, falsely, that I lived in Los Angeles, and there was a cover assignment with an artist actually in Hawaii, and she assumed I lived in Los Angeles. So she wanted to send me to Hawaii. But of course, I didn't tell her the truth. I said, sure, I'll go to Hawaii. And I think all these things were coalescing into people seeing me as somewhat multifaceted within the photo realm, as someone who was fascinated by the realms of music, but also fashion and, of course, how politics intersect with both of those sectors. So. And how identity is at the center of both of those sectors also. So, yeah, that's kind of how it started and took off, I guess.
You know, it strikes me that, you know, a lesson for people listening to this is the sort of obvious just do it message, which is, you know, comes up again and again, but also that it's okay to be figuring out these things as you're doing it. Right. Because I imagine you haven't said that explicitly, but I imagine that that was sort of happening in real time, that you're figuring out your themes and your. These messages that you want to inject into the work as well as the look. You know, you come back from Cuba, as you said, and you're sort of like, realize you have these pictures that have this very distinct look, a product of both what Cuba itself looks like and what you were drawn to. So it really strikes me that, you know, it's important for people to remember you don't have to necessarily have it all figured out before you say yes to whatever the yes is an assignment, you know, whatever opportunity, but that just things will make sense, you know, in this sort of combination of your. Your intellect and your subconscious, you know, moving in tandem. I mean, does that sort of sound like what was happening to you?
Yeah, that's exactly what was happening. And the importance of learning in public, you know, I'm not afraid to say that I've really. It's been a journey of 10 years of learning in public, which is what making art is and not, and being unafraid to make missteps along the way and to have to explore. Like, I know that sounds trite, but actually, now that I'm thinking about it, like I said, I was acting mostly subconsciously and just creating the things I wanted to see without the burden of where it might end up or how it might be perceived. And that's gotten me quite a long way, but also it's really made it pleasant for me to live in and to do and to make. Yeah. And perhaps the power and naivety of youth is tied in with that. I think, like, the beauty of not knowing also helped.
Yeah, that's what a lot of people say, you know, after they have a child. Right. You know, or start a business or whatever. It's like, you know, if I knew it was going to be this difficult, I might not have done it, but I'm so glad I did it. And so I do think that a certain amount of naivete is really important, frankly. And you've said before that you were taught to be specific is to be universal. The more specific, the more universal. I want to talk about that because again, it's something that I try and teach all the time and really believe and think is incredibly important. So can you talk about that as it pertains to your work and what that means to you?
Yeah, I think. I guess what I mean is, in any body of work is to dig deeply into your own experience as a wellspring of inspiration for how to connect to others. And I think my work is obviously first and foremost about black representation, identity, history. And so I think this idea, first of all, I've been doing lots of shows in Europe and I've been thinking about what it means for Blackness to be of global concern, not just something that is dealt with in America where there was chattel slavery. And as if that this is the only country in which that conversation has any relevance. And we know that to not be true. And yet it's funny how ahistorical things can be sometimes where people forget or feel, you know, you get this feeling that people think these conversations don't need to be happening globally. So that's what I mean about conveying something specific, being having global possibility, but even more specifically the region of the American south for me, and my own experience is my own vantage point on those things which is quite particular. It's not this sort of, I would say, generic viewpoint on the American south from the outside looking in. I think it's one that is laced with nuance and free from belabored over explanation and often is about a coexistence of joy and leisure with sometimes protection and tension and hyper vigilance. And I think these are emotions that I know about and can speak about in my work because I've experienced them. So that's what I mean about the specific being able to connect more widely and more globally.
So something you just touched on was something I wanted to ask about, which is your work and its interpretation or possible interpretation, potential in other places. So your first big show was at FOAM in Amsterdam. And I do wonder about how that show was received or your experience of how that show was received. Conversations you may have had with people. I assume you had many, and I just assume that was an interesting and enlightening experience. But can you talk at all about that? What it felt like to be having discussions about black American culture in the Netherlands?
Yeah, I accepted the show kind of with the thinking that, you know, if I make a horrible mistake, at least it happens in Amsterdam and nobody knows me there. And I think. I think it was wonderful to be invited because otherwise, I don't know if I would be doing exhibitions now, if I'm honest with you. Like I said, I think photography is a wonderful medium that we. That is beloved, but. And of course, by me and by our community. But, you know, it's not always one that garners the sort of space that painting does within the exhibition realm. Right. And I think, of course. And it is a medium layered with many complications of where images exist in the world and how and what purpose they play. And that promiscuity is part of my fascination with it and part of its superpower, not its detriment. But, of course, when we're talking about a museum exhibition and an invitation to do that, I was so concerned because I'd primarily been making images on a commission basis for magazines and I hadn't gone to art school. And so there was that question in the back of my mind about my own preparation or ability to do such a thing. But it went over really well. It went over well because I. I think I led with work that I did the show with, work that was charged with just that. That specificity that connects globally, that emotional. That emotional resonance that I think connected with people there. And, you know, I'm not saying the show was perfect, but I. But I do think that I was positively encouraged after the show by other people. And it was so nice to have my friends who also came, too, and who flew all the way there and recognized what a moment it was to be doing such a show with the work I make in a place like Amsterdam. And then to see other young people in Amsterdam who were drawn to my work from multiple backgrounds. Dutch, Surinamese, African. You know, there are diasporic communities in the Netherlands that also wanted to feel themselves seen. And there were Dutch people who had other relationships and stories and connections to blackness in the Dutch context, of course, that are not the same as America, but that have parallels. And I think hearing those stories and hearing people's reaction to the work on the walls and seeing just also the sense of youth that showed up to the opening. Because I myself was young and the work was young and mostly depicted other young people, a light bulb went off where I was like, this is photography at its greatest potential, is to invite those conversations and have people see themselves and feel reflected. And to actually represent something is a powerful possibility. So, yeah, it was a wonderful experience and encouraged me to do all the shows I've done between then and now.
It sounds very moving, honestly. It sounds like it could have been an experience that. Not just sort of the perfunctory, well, that went well. I'm going to keep doing this, but, wow, this has immense power. And the reactions could change. The reactions could change my life in the sense that it can open you up to, you know, a deeper understanding that you have right. Of other people. And I can imagine that was just so powerful to realize at that point, really, what the tool the camera is capable of doing for the way you move through the world and possibility of sharing things you are grappling with with people, you know, really far and wide. I mean, that seems like something to happen when you're 25, 26 years old.
Yeah.
Must have been really incredible.
Yeah, no, it was. It was. And it was, you know, it's only something I can really understand with hindsight. But of course, all those things were. I was thinking while they were happening, and it was emotional. Absolutely. You know, I was doing things again that I was just led by my interest. I was, you know, at nyu, even though I was a film student, I was taking. I started taking courses on the back half of my university time with Deborah Willis, who means so much to all of us in the photo world, but at the time was just, you know, a teacher roaming the halls of the eighth floor. And then I realized, you know, so much. She exposed me to so much, but I also exposed her to quite a few things also. And I think that relationship has been very central to my journey too. And so I bring her up because I was able to get the museum to bring her to Amsterdam to be in dialogue with me and with a designer who. A designer whose work I introduced Deb to, who goes by the name Grace Wells Bonner. And the three of us, you know, on the stage in Amsterdam at my first museum show, you know, that's not a bad way to start. And, you know, I think it was, you know, I think that was also emotional and encouraging. I saw myself or I. I didn't Realize it then. But now I see myself as someone who is bringing together different generations of black artistic production, even within my show. And. And, yeah, it was really moving. Yeah.
Tell me about. I know collaboration is a word that we all use a lot now. Photographers are much more mindful of using that word and hopefully employing its meaning. And I know it's very important to you and certainly your signature images, or I would say the. You know, the meat of your work is either landscapes that, you know, where the land and how we see the land is incredibly important, but it's important primarily because of black people's place in it. And so what I'm saying is there are people in most of your pictures, and certainly the ones that are very stirring. How do you think, truly about collaboration? What does it really mean? Because you have such a distinct visual style and you're obviously very confident, even though I know all very confident people are also human and, you know, of course, struggle with the same anxieties and insecurities. But tell me about what collaboration really means to you, both philosophically and also practically.
Yeah, it's easy. Collaboration means everything to me. I'm not shy about talking about that aspect of my work because I feel. First, I feel I was trained in the form of directing, which, you know, directing a film is basically. Of course, it's having a strong idea, but it's. Once you're off to the races of making a film, it's knowing that you're not the smartest person in the room, and it's about knowing that you are. Your vision is being embodied by your actors, and it's knowing that your actors may have a more nuanced or interesting understanding of your material than even you do. So I think that being drilled into me during school carries on into my photography work. And I think I work much like a director. I think. I. Of course, I'm making my photographs myself. I'm very meticulous about my composition and my ideas and my concepts, but I in no way try to pass myself off as the sort of sole genius of my practice because it's done in collaboration with other people. Photography is a medium opposite of painting in that way, where it's not me, my brush and my studio, but it's really how I relate to the world, especially in portraiture. So, yeah, I would just say that it's. It's always been bringing people together in the right way. It's been about bringing the right ingredients together, whether it's families in the American south, whether it's conversations with My studio manager. Whether it's studio visits that waken. Awaken something in me, whether it's, you know, collaboration with writers or with thinkers in a way, or dialogues with my sitters, it's. It's really like a 360 approach to finding inspiration, siphoning it through the meaning of my own emotional kaleidoscope, if you will, and then making the work I make. Yeah, it can't be understated. I can't be understated in the realm of photography. How? You know, I look at a practitioner like Wolfgang Tillmans, whose practice is so inherently social, and I like to think of mine in a similar light. Of course, my work is very different and has other dimensions to it, but when you go to one of his openings, you see the people reflected in the photographs there in the same way you do at my openings. And that's because the people are collaborators in the work.
Let me ask you what that means, practically speaking. So if you're working with a group of people, and let's say it's one of your sort of tableau, a real wide shot where we're getting a real sense of place and also a group of people spread throughout an image, how are you talking to those people? Well, why don't we start by saying, who are those people? And how do you communicate to them what the picture is about? Do you communicate that to them? What do they know?
They probably know my work, what it looks like they might know, what they're doing on that day. I've maybe called them and asked them to bring family members. I've told them probably a little bit about the environment and the project and where it will end up. Of course, they are consenting in that. And I think, yeah, the tableaus are an act of discovery. It's obviously led by me directing them and creating the compositions that I find exciting and making my picture. But what I mean by collaboration is, you know, allowing that sense of discovery and play and an unfolding of what's human and what happens when you gather families and people together to also inform the final work. So that's why I call my pictures, like, even my tableau, sort of loosely staged, because there is a magic that happens between what I'm hoping to set up and what just actually unfolds between people interacting that allows for the final work to get made. So that's what that means.
So, speaking of collaboration, and you mentioned writers, I really want to get to your new incredible monograph with Aperture that's just recently come out called Wish this Was Real. And I want to ask you. So there's a lot of writing in the book, so you put your money where your mouth is and really collaborated with a lot of wonderful, wonderful writers. And the text in the book is really fantastic. But tell me about how that came about. It's basically a mid career survey, hopefully early career. Early career? Yeah. No, it is early career, but it's. But it's so comprehensive. But tell me about that process because I know that it's a lot of work and it can be difficult. This is another real collaboration. You're working with an editor who has their ideas and you have your ideas. So how did that process go?
Yeah, definitely it was collaborative with Brendan Emser who edited the book. I think it evolved also organically out of several. A sequence of several events. I have a close relationship with Aperture and I knew they were, you know, interested in making a book with me, but I wanted it to be the right time and place for, for such an occasion. When I think of Aperture monographs, I think of entering a pantheon. A photo history. Right. I think of Diane Arbus, I think of Nan Golden, I think of Mickalene Thomas, Dina Lawson, Zanelli Mohali. These are books that define in my mind's eye who that artist is. And the form of the book plays such a role in that. And so, so thinking of that, I knew I wanted it to be quite an occasion to illuminate the multiplicity of context and layers and meanings and readings of my work. I also was acutely aware that a lot of my work had been seen in other contexts, whether that be just online or in magazines or in other exhibitions. And I wanted this to bring all that together and synthesize it and sort of elucidate it for people by way of the writing and the sequence and the form of the book and the design of the book and of course the beautiful printing as well. And Duncan White, who designed the book, was amazing at finding a container and an object that I feel is very dialed. And that I think signals early career survey rather than mid career survey. I mean, it askews a lot of the traditions of a mid career survey catalog, let's say, you know, we always wanted to make an object that was. That was first of all portable, that you could read and flip through even in bed, actually, that it's quite approachable. It's not this sort of huge, overwhelming coffee.
It's not a tomb.
It's not a tomb that you never pick up and return to. It's not a. It's not a. It's not a masculine assertion of a career. It's not a hardcover, you know.
Well, it reflects your work.
Yeah, I think so. I think it's this object that has a delicateness and a precision, but also an approachability. And I would categorize my work.
It's joyful.
Yeah. And the writer's aspect was also seeing myself as a director and I always talked about it as like casting actors. I was like, you know, we need to cast this person to talk about this angle of the work, you know, I was like, you know, and of course it's like a writer, it's a collaboration. They're gonna elucidate the work, how they're going to do it. Like an actor is going to perform the line the way they're going to say it. They can't say it any other way. But I thought of it in that way where I was like, well, we need someone to talk about the cinematic dimension of my work. We need someone to talk about the photo history, engagement of my work. We need someone to talk about fashion in my work and just the clothes and what those mean and what style, how style plays a role. And then we need, you know, we need someone who's been very important to my journey and whose career I'm intertwined with, such as Anna Wintour, to write the foreword. And I thought such a move might read in other artists careers as like sort of self ingratiating, but it's like it can't be understated how much that moment of collision between Anna and I with Vogue was set my career in the direction it did.
And I think that's when you photographed Beyonce for the COVID of Vogue.
Yes. And that assignment and the subsequent assignments with Vogue and the, the legacy and the work we've been able to make together actually like has real roots in like a very fruitful and human relationship between her and I, which is interesting. And I think it's like every written contribution has those layers to it.
So. Yeah, well, it's really, it is a wonderful book and I encourage everyone to get it. And as you said, it's not intimidating. Even though, as I said, it has a lot of text in it. But it, it's a really wonderful book to sit with. It makes you feel good, it makes you think. And you're really amazing at sort of, I mean this is not going to be easy to articulate, but bringing in all these themes of the arduous and tragic and debilitating experience of black Americans by showing the opposite Right. And it's really incredible. I mean, that ability to make one think of its opposite by portraying it's like a positive, negative, upside down experience. But that, in my experience, leaves one filled with hope. Is that more or less how you think of it or.
Yeah, that is sort of how I think of it. And I think. But I. It's always layered with nuance. And I always try to answer this question with complexity of like, you know, well, is it just joy you're representing? Is it, you know, or the way people sometimes hook into just the devastation and the trauma, which I find so flat and flattening for the work.
Mm.
I think the idea that I'm interested in making pictures that. That first of all, that no one else is making, but also that represent my emotional viewpoint moving through life, which is always layered and laced with nuance. And of course, I've chosen to center and foreground leisure, transcendence, joy, of course, togetherness within that. But of course, it's detonated by the layers of history. And I think that's where the practice was really the most exciting is in that space that's detonated by history, but is foregrounding these visions of unabashed beauty and transcendence and peace and rest also. Yeah, that's how I would talk about it. But I think Sarah Lewis, you know, the other thing is, I was just thinking is Sarah Lewis, who I was just honored with on Monday at the Aperture Gala, has been so exciting to be in dialogue with because she obviously comes at it from this different vantage point, you know, so a lot of it which I don't know about, because she's a true political and art historian and is engaging law and policy in ways that, as an artist, I don't feel I necessarily do. But her essay in the book of my work, which talks about sort of thinking about landscape and the actual physical ground in which most of my pictures are made in the south in connection to the time of stand your ground law, is really fascinating. The idea that these images, which are not didactic or expressly activistic or documentary, but are detonated by the ideas within activism and policy and history, are fascinating to me. So that's how I would talk about it a little bit. And I was also thinking, as you spoke about the text, that, yeah, there is a lot of text in the book. But what's interesting is, again, eschewing that mid career survey formula we started with. It's almost like a. A movie that starts with images and then the credit sequence comes in 15 minutes into it. Like the Text does not. There's not a bunch of homework at the front and the back and images in the middle.
Right, totally.
There's these sections of images and then these interludes of text that are meant to almost like speak more poetically to one another. And that's quite intentional as well. I'm quite proud of that. For those who, like, really derive value from that, I hope that's like something that shapes the experience.
But yeah, no, definitely. I mean, I really feel, when I was spending time with the book, I really felt like I could approach the text when I wanted to, you know, in whatever order I wanted to.
Yeah, I hate feeling like I have to trudge through all this stuff just to get to the work and really feel.
Oh, absolutely, yeah, 100%. So before we wrap up, I want to hear a bit about some of your newer ways of working in terms of materials you're using and, and whatnot, because I think it's incredibly fascinating and very effective. And it's just a real wonderful way of experimenting and I assume keeping yourself fully engaged by, you know, having a feeling, I don't know, excited about some other form or activated by something and then just going for it, which seems to be sort of a. A Tyler Mitchell way of going through life. So tell us a bit about some of the new materials you're using and what that means and how that came about.
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Again, in retrospect, I didn't think of any of these gestures I was doing as risks. I thought of them as objects that were. Now I can see through the perspective of. Of certain people that they're like, well, that was very risky. And I'm like, well, why would that, why would that be risky to do? Because first of all, it excites me visually, but also it excites.
Right.
It excites me conceptually. You know, it excites me as these objects that have within them layers of meaning and suggest or encourage the viewer to have that physical experience with the work as much as they have visual experience with the image. And so anyway, I think five years ago, it really again, evolved organically. Five years ago, when I was invited to do an exhibition in the ICP Museum, the first, the debut exhibition in their brand new ground up building. There was a unique little space in a hallway that was 60ft long and quite narrow, maybe 10ft wide. And a lot of the scale.
Know that hallway?
Yeah. And a lot of the scale of the work I make, there's just not enough space to stand back within that hallway to really take in the work. And I didn't feel it was so exciting to just hang pictures in a line down that hallway. And so I started to ask, you know, is it. What would it look like to, you know, fabric has played such a role in my pictures in many, many layers and forms. And the laundry line is this symbol I research and come back to and look at other people's photographs and create in my own photographs. What would it look like to create a laundry line? Installation of photography, a constellation of images in the hallway? And I think it went fairly well. It wasn't without its learning moments, but I was very excited by this sort of all encompassing, generous, you know, offering of photographs in this sort of delicate and ephemeral format, such as the laundry line. And I think it provoked and suggested, of course, intimacy and care and washing and, you know, proverbial domestic space, but it also created this very fascinating engagement between the viewer and the space and the work itself. And. And it led to further thinking about how the form and the content of a photograph in such a format could be more intentionally drawn out. So, yeah, five years on, I've progressed it into multiple evocations and evolutions, and I think not one without intentional consideration, but also being guided by what excites me. And same for the works I produce involving mirror, glass being this thing that's been a part of the photographic medium from its inception, and the idea of mirror and looking in the gaze going beyond this very flat, like. Well, the viewer of the picture sees themselves in it. It's this other idea of implying multiple modes of looking, of welcoming the environment into the work as much as the work is in the environment. And, of course, of inciting that history of glass and mirror being part of the medium from the very beginning. And also the fascinating interactions between the photograph and the mirror itself and the way that, you know, the way they're produced. Not to get too technical, but in UV printing, when the printer registers something that is 100% white, it doesn't lay ink down, right? So anything below 100% white is color, and it's an Ink is laid. But 100% white, there is no ink. And that set off the light bulb for the possibility to make those mirror works. Because I was so fascinated by the apple absence of ink, the absence of presence, really, the absence of a photograph that also allows for a different kind of experience, sculptural or photographic experience. So, yeah, that's kind of how it's evolved, and I hope to push it further. I think of myself as wanting to become a better and better exhibition maker as much as I am a better photographer. And I think I've never just accepted the traditional, you know, black and white matted photographs all hung in a line style of, of exhibition making. Just because taste wise, I've always appreciated other forms of experimentation and presentation. So to varying degrees of success, I hope to like keep pushing that forward, I suppose.
Well, I definitely encourage all artists and artists listening to this conversation right now to think about what you just said. Because, you know, as someone who owned a gallery for a very long time, I used to always say to my assistants and try and teach, you know, my interns and artists that the first thing that happens when you walk into an exhibition space is you take in the shapes, colors and objects. You're not taking in the individual information, you're taking in everything as a whole. And so to try and figure out how to activate the space so that the minute one walks in, there's something exciting happening in the, in the shapes that are being created by the things on the wall is actually very important. Now that doesn't mean there isn't room in the world for the traditional hang that you described. Sometimes that works and it's right for the work, but there is room. And I would really encourage people to think about how to activate space in a way that is sort of sky's the limit within reason, I guess. I agree.
I think it has to be in service of the work and I think it should always be thoughtfully considered. But I think why would one not, when presented an opportunity to present work in space, consider how their work sits on the wall, how the shapes, the size, the scale, the presentation, as you said, form an experience for the viewer. I mean, the other goal is, you know, to keep a viewer in the space, you know, not to absolutely 100% not to get them to walk in for two seconds and walk right out, but to think of how to. And it's so interesting. These mirror works just sort of. Sometimes I've been in spaces with my exhibition or my studio manager has been in spaces and we've noticed they're just like these interesting sort of magnetic forces beyond, you know, just people just sort of just find themselves drifting over that way and then, and then turning around and looking at the rest of the room in a different way and then, and then turning back to the work and understanding it differently. It's really fascinating. And it's these, you know, I think if you can create in whatever way possible moments of that, it's Great. I think it's really special.
Absolutely. I mean, you know, my assistants and I used to sort of groan at this thing would happen in the gallery when I knew I had failed an exhibition. If people walked in off the street and did the 360 turn and left, like, you know. Because that's not about the work. That's about the hang. It's about again, because that's.
They've registered first.
That's right. And you need to find a way, especially in this day and age where people are sort of just being bombarded with imagery, to capture them immediately. It's like what you said about the seduction of beauty. That's the first hook. And you need to hook people if you're going to then ask them to engage on a deeper level. Right. So that's the first thing. And so, yes, I really, really encourage people to think about that and feel that they can play and they can let their intuition guide them. Trust your gut, because your gut is in conversation with the way you take in visual stimulation. Well, you know, we could go on and on, but I think we'll end there and appreciate you so much. Appreciate your work and your time and. Yeah. Thanks so much for being with me today.
Well, thank you. No, I'm glad to have the conversation.
Yep.
But thank you so much.
Okay, thank you, Tyler. Take care.
All right, bye.
Photo Work with Sasha Wolff is a production of the Photo Work foundation executive. The executive producer is Sasha Wolf, and the associate producers are Taylor Salzback and Noah Lynn. The show is also produced and edited by me, Michael Chovendalt in a real photo show. Music is by J. Walter Hawks. If you like the show and wish to find out more about the foundation, please visit PhotoArch foundation and be sure to subscribe and review with all the stars on your listening platform.