PARIS.- Gagosian announced a presentation at Paris Photo 2024 curated by Tyler Mitchell, which places Mitchell’s work in dynamic conversation with iconic photographs by Richard Avedon (1923–2004). In his curatorial debut, Mitchell, a leading voice in contemporary photography, brings his unique vision to this exchange. The presentation is centered on Avedon’s works from the 1960s alongside a selection of Mitchell’s photographs from the past six years, including some not previously exhibited.

For Avedon, the 1960s were a period of deepening social engagement that he would continue through the rest of his life. Central to this era is his groundbreaking collaboration with James Baldwin on Nothing Personal (1964), a book that pairs Baldwin’s words and Avedon’s photographs, offering powerful reflections on race, identity, and society. Avedon’s work from this period holds particular significance for Mitchell, as it reflects how Avedon captured both famous and ordinary individuals, weaving together a complex portrait of the people and cultures that shape American society. The balance between elegance, humanism, and social commentary is also a driving theme in Mitchell’s practice.

Mitchell’s images document those who are defining today’s cultural landscape and represent intimate moments of repose and connection. Through these works, he continues his exploration of Black life, community, and self-determination, echoing Avedon’s effective blending of photographic genres.

Both Avedon and Mitchell use portraiture to explore identity, ritual, and belonging, with a shared interest in the role of dress and ceremony in expressing pride. In Mitchell’s A Glorious Wedding and Blessings to Come (2021), the couple’s poise and the serene setting honor love, family, and traditions. Similarly, Avedon’s Debutante Cotillion series, photographed in Louisiana in 1963, captures the grandeur of Black cotillions, in which the debutantes’ regal attire and sense of pageantry reflect the value of community. Both artists elevate these rituals, showing how traditions serve as powerful markers of identity across generations.

The catalyst for this collaboration was Mitchell’s selection of Avedon’s 1946 mirror self-portrait with James Baldwin to hang in the Avedon 100 centennial exhibition held at Gagosian New York in 2023. That intimate image of their friendship—which began in high school—set the tone for this exchange, in which Mitchell explores how photography tells the stories of those who shape our world.

Richard Avedon was born in New York in 1923 and died in San Antonio in 2004. Collections include the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and numerous others worldwide. Avedon’s first museum retrospective was held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, in 1962; many lifetime major institutional exhibitions followed, including at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (1970); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1978 and 2002); and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1994). Posthumous exhibitions include the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (2007, traveled to Fondazione FORMA per la Fotografia, Milan; Jeu de Paume, Paris; Gropius Bau, Berlin; Foam, Amsterdam; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, through 2010); and Murals, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2023). Avedon established the Richard Avedon Foundation in 2004 as the repository for his photographs, negatives, publications, papers, and other archival materials.

Tyler Mitchell was born in 1995 in Atlanta and lives and works in New York. Collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Detroit Institute of Arts; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Foam, Amsterdam; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and National Portrait Gallery, London. Exhibitions include The New Black Vanguard, Aperture, New York (2019); I Can Make You Feel Good, Foam, Amsterdam (2019, traveled to International Center of Photography, New York, 2020–21); An Imaginative Arrangement of the Things Before Me, Gordon Parks Foundation, Pleasantville, New York (2021); Sunlight, Shadow, and A Rainbow: Matt Eich and Tyler Mitchell, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio (2022); Domestic Imaginaries, Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia (2023, traveled to North Carolina Museum of Art, Winston-Salem, 2024); Wish This Was Real, C/O Berlin (2024, traveling to Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki; Photo Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; and Foto Arsenal Wien, Vienna, through 2026); and Idyllic Space, High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2024). In 2018, he became the first Black photographer to shoot the cover of American Vogue.