February 2 - March 30, 2024
From HMAAC:
The Houston Museum of African American Culture is proud to present “Pervs, Peppers, and the High Chaparral: Michael Abramson’s Chicago South Side Photographs,” curated by Christopher Blay. The exhibition opens Friday, February 2, 6-8PM and will be on view February 2 – March 30. The exhibition was curated from a collection of images at the Abramson Arts Foundation, managed by Midge Wilson, Director. Imagine Ernie Barnes’ Sugar Shack painting, but as photographs with a focus on the club patrons seated facing the dance floor and you get a pretty good sense of Michael Abramson’s photographs from the South Side of Chicago in the mid-70s. A selection of these images are part of the HMAAC exhibition which takes its title from some of the South Side clubs where Abramson photographed. The white male gaze can be implied in these images of black bodies in their cultural spaces, but it would ignore the relationships that Abramson built in earnest over the weeks, months and years he spent with the patrons of these clubs who granted him access. The result is an invaluable legacy of black joy expressed in images of people in black and queer spaces in the mid-70s. -Christopher Blay, Chief Curator, Houston Museum of African American Culture
Pervs, Peppers, and the High Chaparral:
Michael Abramson’s Chicago South Side PhotographsAbout the Artist: Michael L. Abramson (1948-2011) was an American photographer best known for his striking black and white photographs documenting the vibrant nightlife of Chicago’s South side during the mid-1970s. Their framing and mood evoke the energy and imagery captured by Brassaï in Paris during the early decades of the 20th century. Abramson’s photographs earned him a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1978, fresh out of graduate school. Over three decades later, the images, now imbued with historical signficance, were featured in Light: On the South Side (Numero Group, 2009), which included a hardbound book of over 100 of the South side prints and 2 LPs of the blues music likely playing in the various clubs at the time the photographs were taken. LOTSS was produced and distributed by a recording company, and as such it ended up being Grammy-nominated, resulting in unusual acclaim for the photographer.In another multimedia release, City Files Press published Gotta Go Gotta Flow (2015), which perfectly paired the South side images with slam poetry by the acclaimed writer Patricia Smith. In addition to his South Side portfolio, Abramson also explored on Chicago’s North side, ballrooms and dance halls, and even a strip club, the images of which can be found in Men Looking at Women in the 70s (Hoxton Mini Press, 2017). Abramson loved to travel and among his many photos taken abroad are those from a 2003 trip to Cuba when he documented that country’s citizens, cars, and housing. From the 1980s until his death in 2011, Michael was a freelance photographer, whose work was regularly featured in Time, Newsweek, Bloomberg, Forbes, Fortune magazines, along with other national news outlets. His subjects included Stephen Spielberg, Ann Landers, Ron Howard, and Oprah Winfrey. Today Abramson’s photographs can be found in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago History Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and the California Museum of Photography.
ABOUT THE HOUSTON MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE
The mission of HMAAC is to collect, conserve, explore, interpret, and exhibit the material and intellectual culture of Africans and African Americans in Houston, the state of Texas, the southwest and the African Diaspora for current and future generations. In fulfilling its mission, HMAAC seeks to invite and engage visitors of every race and background and to inspire children of all ages through discovery-driven learning. HMAAC is to be a museum for all people. While our focus is the African American experience, our story informs and includes not only people of color, but people of all colors. As a result, the stories and exhibitions that HMAAC will bring to Texas are about the indisputable fact that while our experience is a unique one, it has been impacted by and has impacted numerous races, genders and ethnicities. The museum continues to be a space where a multicultural conversation on race geared toward a common future takes place. LOCATION Houston Museum of African American Culture 4807 Caroline Street, Houston,TX 77004 Telephone: (713) 526-1015 www.hmaac.org Museum Hours Wednesday – Saturday, 11 – 6PM. The museum is closed Sunday-Tuesday and holidays, including New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas. We are also closed from the period after Christmas to mid-January.
Reception: February 2, 2024 | 6–8 pm
Houston Museum of African American Culture
4807 Caroline St.
Houston, TX
(713) 353-1578
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