A#22

GRACE WALES BONNER

RHAPSODY IN THE STREET

A Magazine Curated By is pleased to announce the 22nd issue has been curated by the British-Jamaican fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner, who established her eponymous label Wales Bonner in London in 2014.

Since her debut collection Ebonics for AW2015 until the most recent collection Volta Jazz for SS2022, Grace has imbued her designs with cultural narratives that explore the mythologies of Blackness across our planet. Her collections for Wales Bonner, and the performative nature of their presentations, capture a multitude of identities and expressions of beauty. Her aesthetic stands at the forefront of fashion as a quest to align sartorial craft with the insouciant gestures of the street.

Entitled Rhapsody In The Street, A#22 is an academic and visual survey of Grace’s research across 200 pages. Responding to the tradition of Black poetry, literature and portrait photography of the 20th century, the issue features a curation of archival portfolios and other historical ephemera, as well as newly commissioned essays, poems, paintings and portraits. As an object, the issue is treated with reverence, combining matte and gloss paper stocks with gilded pages.

New work includes visual portfolios photographed in Los Angeles, London, Miami, Paris and New York, with the leitmotif of Black portraiture central to each. A self-portrait by Ming Smith joins Steven Traylor’s cinematic capture of the musician Damian Marley, Zoë Ghertner’s intimate depiction of model Selena Forrest, Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s studio works, and a triumphant study of Wales Bonner’s SS17 collection Ezekiel by Tyler Mitchell. In collaboration with the Maison Européenne de la Photographie and the Paris-based Cameroonian photographer Samuel Fosso, a landmark fashion series marks Fosso’s return to fashion with a series of self-portraits wearing Wales Bonner archives. The images are included in Fosso’s first retrospective exhibition in France and appear as a limited-edition print edition inserted within each copy of A#22.

A#22 is treated as a meandering, encyclopaedic document, including Wales Bonner research plates and archival documentation of Wales Bonner collections in dialogue with new commentary by academics and poets alike. Conversations on the tradition of Jamaican dancehall, the Kamoinge photographic group in Harlem, NYC, and archives of unseen Ghanaian film photography sit alongside paintings and poetry by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, John Goto’s seminal Lovers’ Rock series complemented by new poems by Roger Robinson, all bookended by opening and closing blessings by Ben Okri.

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Rhapsody in the Street is an opportunity to experience, honour and revel in a lineage of beauty that unravels and reveals itself over time.”

“Ezekiel’s Chorus”, photography by Tyler Mitchell

Table of Contents

Introduction

Image of Introduction

Kamoinge

Image of Kamoinge

Light and Shadow

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Sun Strings

Image of Sun Strings

On Living With Archives

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Autoportraits II

Image of Autoportraits II

Some Elements and Meaning in Black Style II

Image of Some Elements and Meaning in Black Style II

Ezekiel’s Chorus

Image of Ezekiel's Chorus

For The Sake of Angels

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Lover’s Rock

Image of Lover's Rock

A Yearning That Floats

Image of A Yearning That Floats

Making of Hail Mary

Image of Making of Hail Mary

Brassaï

Image of Brassaï

Dancehall Queens

Image of Dancehall Queens

Now and Forever More

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Preston, 2007

Image of Preston, 2007

Some Elements and Meaning in Black Style III

Image of Some Elements and Meaning in Black Style III

Compression Gliding

Image of Compression Gliding

Contributors in alphabetical order:

Adjoa Armah, Akeem Smith, Anthony Barboza, Beat Streuli, Ben Okri, Chino Amobi, Damian Marley, Dawoud Bey, Florence Wales Bonner, Gregory Tate, Harley Weir, Hilton Als, Ishmael Reed, Jamie Hawkesworth, John Goto, Laraaji, Liz Johnson Artur, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Mahfuz Sultan, Marlon James, Dr. Michael Ralph, Ming Smith, M.J Harper, Patrick Doe Gakpetor, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Peter Miles, Roger Robinson, Sanlé Sory, Samuel Fosso, Shanay Jhaveri, Steven Traylor, Tom Guinness, Tyler Mitchell, Wilson Oryema, Zoë Ghertner

 

Featured artists:

Amiri Baraka, Billy Abernathy, Brassaï, David Hammons, Dennis Morris, Eric N. Mack, George Platt Lynes, Lord Snowdon, Louis Draper, Ntozake Shange, Viviane Sassen

Ghertner, Zoë. Sun Strings (2021). Selena Forrest wears Wales Bonner,
Black Sunlight (Autumn Winter 2021). Adidas x Wales Bonner (Autumn Winter 2021). Los Angeles.

Weir, Harley. (2015) Wales Bonner Spring Summer 2015 Ebonics. Senegal.

Traylor, Steven. (2021) Damian Marley wears Wales Bonner (Autumn Winter 2020). Miami.

Smith, Ming. (ca.1977) Acid Rain – White Socks (Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) by Marvin Gaye, Soul Purrfection Version) [Photograph]. New York.

Smith, Ming. (2021) Self-Portrait in Wales Bonner, Black Sunlight (Autumn Winter 2021). New York.

Sepuya, Paul Mpagi. A Yearning That Floats (2021) Mirror Study for Grace (0X5A4149). Los Angeles.