It has been very exciting to learn more about the history of the Anderson and the exhibitions held here as a part of my research as the Photography and Social Media intern for the Spring 2023 semester. When diving into all of the past exhibitions held at the Anderson throughout the years, LaToya Ruby Frazier’s A Haunted Capital caught my eye, as I remembered learning about one of Frazier’s more famous bodies of work, Flint Is Family, during my classes in the Photography department here at VCU. Frazier’s A Haunted Capital was organized and curated by Eugenie Tsai, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum.
LaToya Ruby Frazier is an American artist born in 1982 whose photographic practice combines art and activism. She speaks on themes of racial and economic injustice, seeking out subjects that have historically been dehumanized and misrepresented by mainstream media. Frazier’s photographic series A Haunted Capital was on view at the Anderson Gallery from January 17—March 9, 2014. The body of work used striking black and white photographs to create a conversation about family, life, and Frazier’s personal history in a decaying industrial town. A Haunted Capital consisted of 40 images taken throughout many years which capture portraits of Frazier and her family members, as well as images of Frazier’s hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania, which express the town’s decline over the years. Braddock, which was once home to one of America’s first steel mills, now has a population of under 2,500 and has been labeled a financially distressed municipality by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. Frazier uses photographs of herself, her mother, and her grandmother to speak on intergenerational relationships as well as to serve as a metaphor for the town’s decay.
Frazier recalls how each of her family members experienced a different version of Braddock as a result of the town’s rapid decline into poverty. Her ancestors arrived in Braddock from the deep south in the early 1900s during the first Great Migration, looking for better economic opportunities and to escape the Jim Crow South. Frazier’s grandfather was a steel mill worker and her grandmother recalled the town being a bustling suburb of Pittsburgh, filled with stores and restaurants. By the time Frazier was born in 1982, the steel industry had already begun to collapse. The town of Braddock and its residents—specifically women, people of color, and blue-collar workers—began to plunge into a deep poverty. Frazier grew up watching the crack epidemic swipe through her home community and witnessed the rise of the war on drugs and the effects of the policies put in place to criminalize the poor.
Organized by the Brooklyn Museum, A Haunted Capital allowed viewers to peek into Frazier’s past. The wallpaper–like installation of hundreds of images displayed on a wall in the middle of the gallery floor at the Anderson Gallery begged viewers to search for what may be hidden or uncovered within. This series brings to light present histories and realities that are so often overlooked and discarded, and brings them together in the form of striking images which can no longer be ignored.
Frazier is currently a professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and remains a working artist, with her most recent body of work The Last Cruze being completed in 2019. Frazier will have her biggest US survey to date opening in May of 2024 at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which will include a large range of photographic installations completed over the past two decades.
Sources:
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/latoya_ruby_frazier/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/t-magazine/latoya-ruby-frazier-photography.html
https://commonwealthtimes.org/2014/01/27/anderson-gallery-exhibit-explores-decaying-city/
https://latoyarubyfrazier.com/
Anderson Gallery: 45 Years of Art on the Edge https://doi.org/10.21974/v1rn-0t9