The images Parks made for Invisible Man have a definite sense of the staged or the imagined.
The result is a show that smoothly moves back and forth between fact and fiction, between real life and literature, all within the context of Parks’ compositional eye. The exhibit dives deep into important single images from the project and the related contact sheets that show Parks’ artistic process, and then pairs them with more documentary-style street photographs made by Parks in Harlem a few years earlier (again with the associated contact sheets).
Curated by the artist Glenn Ligon, it primarily examines the images Parks made in 1952 to illustrate some of the scenes from Ralph Ellison’s ground-breaking book Invisible Man. Comments/Context: Of all the exhibits dedicated to the work of Gordon Parks on view in the city right now (and there are several), this small show is my favorite.