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Mid-Century Harlem Photos Bring “Invisible Man” Center Stage

50 never-before-seen objects from Ellison and photographer Gordon Parks are on view at The Art Institute of Chicago.

In his 1952 novel, Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison writes, "I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."

This sentence encapsulates the ways in which black men in America go unseen. Ellison's novel recalls instances of hyper-visibility and erasure that left a total measure of the complete weight of the black experience in America all but absent. The author's original description, which gave voice to millions, is not only rendered in writing, however. A friendship that Ellison and photographer Gordon Parks struck up while living in 1940s Harlem ultimately produced two visual projects now on display in The Art Institute of Chicago’s Invisible Man: Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison in Harlem. The exhibition features 50 never-before-seen objects created by the two artists that explore the multiplicity of the black condition.

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Invisible Man: Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison in Harlem explores the joint endeavor of two of the 20th century’s preeminent American artists,” writes Douglas Druick and Peter W. Kunhardt in the exhibition's catalog, Forward. In the process, it raises critical questions about the relationship between image and word, and about the artistic and documentary properties of photography.” They add, “Ultimately, it is the two men’s unwavering belief in the social power of art—both image and text—that remains their leading legacy.”

In 1948, Parks and Ellison first collaborated on a photo essay, “Harlem Is Nowhere,” about the Lafargue clinic in Harlem. The story was set to appear in the July issue of '48: The Magazine of the Year. Before the story could run, '48 went out of business. The manuscript for the essay and the captions written by Ellison of Parks' photographs appear partially in the exhibition.

Parks' black-and-white photograph, "Off On My Own," taken that year, which features a man standing in a shadow of towering Harlem buildings, is, for instance, framed by Ellison's caption, “Who am I? Where am I? How did I come to be? Behind the endless walls of his ghetto man searches for a social identity.” The man’s silhouette communicates a sense of hope and independence that were, in turn, inspired by how post-war America and The Great Migration shaped Harlem. Ellison’s final sentence in the caption reads, “Refugees from southern feudalism, many Negroes wander dazed in the mazes of northern ghettos, the displaced persons of American democracy.”

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In 1952, the two collaborated on a project for Life magazine, where Parks was a staff photographer. The collaboration came after the publishing of Ellison’s National Book Award-winning, Invisible Man. The photo essay ran as, "A Man Becomes Invisible," and brought to life scenes and themes from the novel.

Parks' image that led the story is of a man, emerging from underground holding a sewer cap over his head, with only his face visible as he looks out onto the street. The photograph visualizes the symbolic nature of the living condition of the book’s narrator: "I live rent-free in a building rented strictly to whites, in a section of the basement that was shut off and forgotten during the 19th century," says the narrator in the novel's prologue. The contact sheet, which is on view, reveals how the man eventually comes out of the hole to stand on solid footing. It evokes the ways that the novel’s protagonist seeks to understand his identity and experiences.

Parks also recreates the scene Ellison’s narrator describes as living among 1,369 burning lights while listening to Louis Armstrong’s “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue,” in the photo entitled, "Untitled, Harlem, New York," Parks’ photograph clearly communicates what Ellison describes: “the truth is the light and the light is the truth.”

Neither of the photo essays appeared in print as the two men had conceived them, yet by bringing the photographs and manuscripts—which stretch back before the collaborations to the early 1940s—together, the exhibition provides an approximate, powerful picture of Ellison and Parks’ shared objective: to give a voice to a people in transition. Together, the two 20th century artistic giants visualized and recorded the mid-century condition of black life. In doing so, they provided an example of how both literature and photography can be use to give a voice to a kind of visual justice.

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Invisible Man: Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison in Harlem continues through August 28 at The Art Institute of Chicago. For more information, click here.

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