Pace Gallery presents Richard Avedon: Nothing Personal, photographs and archival materials drawn from Avedon’s 1964 collaboration with James Baldwin.
With the recent news of Pace Gallery’s announcement of their representation of The Richard Avedon Foundation, the gallery swings its doors wide open to the first comprehensive presentation of this period of Avedon’s work with the exhibition Richard Avedon: Nothing Personal.
Avedon’s collaboration with James Baldwin began around 1963, when Baldwin was photographed for a magazine assignment. They began discussions on a book, and corresponded frequently, with Avedon creating photographic portraits and Baldwin writing the essays. Their subjects ranged from “civil rights icons like Malcolm X to staunch segregationists like George Wallace, iconic figures like Joe Louis, Adam Clayton Powell, Julian Bond” and so many more, almost all of which will be on view at Pace Gallery for this exhibition.
The original 1964 project, Nothing Personal, was denounced at the time. It has since become recognized as a “masterwork whose powerful message of a confused and often compromised society seeking fleeting moments of joy, grace and occasional redemption remains equally relevant more than a half-century later.”
TASCHEN will republish a facsimile edition of Nothing Personal, with an accompanying booklet containing a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, Hilton All, and rare and unpublished Avedon photographs.
Richard Avedon: Nothing Personal will be on view to January 13, 2018 at Pace Gallery, 537 West 24th Street.