Overview

In this, her first book, LaToya Ruby Frazier (born 1982) offers an incisive exploration of the legacy of racism and economic decline in America's small towns, as embodied by Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier's hometown. The work also considers the impact of that decline on the community and on her family, creating a statement both personal and truly political--an intervention in the histories and narratives of the region that are dominated by stories of Andrew Carnegie and Pittsburgh's industrial past, but largely ignore those of black families and the working classes. Frazier has set her story of three generations--her Grandma Ruby, her mother and herself--against larger questions of civic belonging and responsibility. The work also documents the demise of Braddock's only hospital, reinforcing the idea that the history of a place is frequently written on the body as well as the landscape. With The Notion of Family, Frazier knowingly acknowledges and expands upon the traditions of classic black-and-white documentary photography, enlisting the participation of her family, and her mother in particular. As Frazier says, her mother is co-author, artist, photographer and subject. Our relationship primarily exists through a process of making images together. I see beauty in all her imperfections and abuse. Frazier's work reinforces the idea of image-making as a transformative act, a means of resetting traditional power dynamics and narratives, both those of her family and those of the community at large. Frazier is a 2014 Guggenheim fellow.

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9781683950035

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Reviews

In her first book, Frazier explores themes of economic inequity, racism and personal politics through three generations of her own family, and documents the tolls that big injustices can have on small families and communities alike.--Phil Bicker TIME Lightbox (09/08/2014) The first photograph after the title page in this book is a tightly cropped shot of a welcome sign for Historic Braddock (sponsored jointly by three companies that make air fresheners, odor control products, and do pest control). The second is an expansive aerial view of Braddock's historic steel mill; the third a portrait of Frazier, topless, her hair messy and her gaze unflinching. In three strokes, the artist maps the terrain of her exploration: the family not only as a personal unit but as a broader community, existing in the wider world and intractably affected by it. Frazier's challenging and haunting photographs have previously brought this story to museums and galleries, but in this, her first book, she adds writing to create a powerfully stark family portrait. The brilliance of this volume, and Frazier's work, is in the way it manages to be both documentary and art, deeply intimate and widely important, relentless but so very necessary.--Jillian Steinhauer Hyperallergic (12/31/2014)

Author Information

LaToya Ruby Frazier (born in Braddock, Pennsylvania, 1982) received her BFA from Edinboro University, Pennsylvania, in 2004, and her MFA from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, New York, in 2007. She has received numerous grants and awards, including a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2014 USA Weitz Fellowship, and 2015 MacArthur Fellowship. Frazier teaches in the Department of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is a visiting critic at Yale University. Her work has been included in exhibitions at major institutions worldwide. Laura Wexler is professor of American studies and women's, gender, and sexuality studies at Yale University. Dennis C. Dickerson is the James M. Lawson, Jr. Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of several titles focusing on American labor history and the civil rights movement, including Out of the Crucible: Black Steel Workers in Western Pennsylvania, 1875-1980 (1986). Dawoud Bey is an artist and professor of photography at Columbia College, Chicago. He has exhibited internationally, and his writings have appeared in numerous publications, including Third Text, C: International Contemporary Art and Afterimage.

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