Recipients of the 2024 Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship in Art are Larry W. Cook and Tonika Lewis Johnson. | Images: From left, Courtesy of GPF and Photo by Ken Carl
THE GORDON PARKS FOUNDATION announced its 2024 Fellows. The recipients of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship in Art are conceptual artist and archivist Larry W. Cook and Tonika Lewis Johnson, a photographer and social justice artist (both pictured above). The Genevieve Young Fellowship in Writing is going to author D. Watkins (shown below).
The fellowships recognize creatives whose practices focus on representation and social justice. Each fellow will receive $25,000 to support their work. Throughout the year, they will participate in foundation programs and initiatives and ultimately produce a solo exhibition presented at the Gordon Parks Foundation in Pleasantville, N.Y.
“Through their art and writing, our 2024 Fellows have brought attention to systemic racism and community activism,” said Peter W. Kunhardt Jr., executive director of The Gordon Parks Foundation said in a statement. “We are proud to support Larry, Tonika, and D. as they continue to enact change through their art in much the same way Gordon Parks did throughout his lifetime.”
“Through their art and writing, our 2024 Fellows have brought attention to systemic racism and community activism.”
— Gordon Parks Foundation Executive Director Peter W. Kunhardt Jr.
Cook’s work spans photography, video, and mixed media. His fellowship was awarded in partnership with Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he is an associate professor of photography at Howard University. In 2022, Howard acquired more than 250 photographs by Parks. The fellowship supports a project by a Howard professor and programming related to the historic acquisition. Cook’s background includes:
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From 2007 to 2013, Cook worked as a club photographer throughout the Washington D.C. area, setting up makeshift photo booths that featured backdrops of surrealist landscapes and luxury goods. Cook’s practice explores how the pose and hand-painted backdrops circulate within vernacular club and prison photographs, often re-imagining them through collage, digital manipulation, and staged photography. Cook’s work celebrates the legacy of the pose as a form of individual agency and pays homage to the rich tradition of Black cultural spaces.
Johnson is a photojournalist and former teaching artist laser-focused on preserving Chicago’s Black cultural memory and exposing the injustices of the city’s racial and institutional segregation. A lifelong resident of Englewood, a neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, she co-founded the Englewood Arts Collective and the Resident Association of Greater Englewood. Johnson’s recent work includes:
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Her groundbreaking Folded Map project, showcased at LUMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art, investigates disparities among “map twins” living on opposite ends of the same streets, bridging conversations across Chicago’s racial and economic divides. …In 2021, she assumed the role of Artist as Instigator for the National Public Housing Museum, working on her latest project, Inequity for Sale, which sheds light on the history of homes sold on Land Sale Contracts in Greater Englewood during the 50s and 60s.
The Genevieve Young Fellowship in Writing honors pioneering book editor, Genevieve Young (1930-2020), the former wife of Parks. She served as executor of his estate and played a critical role in the formation and development of the foundation, from 2006 until her death in 2020.
This year’s Genevieve Young Fellowship in Writing will be awarded to Watkins, the author of “The Wire: The Complete Visual History,” “We Speak for Ourselves: A Word from Forgotten Black America,” and “The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America.” His memoirs include “Black Boy Smile: A Memoir in Moments” and “The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir” and he collaborated with Carmelo Anthony on his memoir “Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised: A Memoir of Survival and Hope.” On television, he was a writer for the HBO mini-series We Own This City and hosted the show’s podcast. Watkins is also an editor at large for Salon and college lecturer at the University of Baltimore.
“We are proud to support Larry, Tonika, and D. as they continue to enact change through their art in much the same way Gordon Parks did throughout his lifetime.”
— Gordon Parks Foundation Executive Director Peter W. Kunhardt Jr.
The Gordon Parks Foundation fellowship program was inaugurated in 2017 to honor the legacy of the iconic photographer. In 1942, Parks received a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship to support his photography through a one-year apprentice with Roy Stryker at the Farm Security Administration in Washington, D.C. The fellowship was a transformative experience early in his career.
Previous recipients of Gordon Parks fellowships include Jammie Holmes and José Parlá (2023), Bisa Butler and Andre D. Wagner (2022), Nina Chanel Abney and Tyler Mitchell (2020), Guadalupe Rosales and Hank Willis Thomas (2019), Derrick Adams and Deana Lawson (2018), and Devin Allen and Harriet Dedman (2017). Genevieve Young Fellowships went to Melanee C. Harvey (2023) and Nicole R. Fleetwood (2022).
On May 21, the 2024 Gordon Parks Foundation Fellows will be celebrated at the annual Gordon Parks Foundation Awards Dinner and live auction of Gordon Parks photographs in New York City. The gala will also pay tribute to artist Mickalene Thomas; civil rights activist and former NAACP Chair Myrlie Evers-Williams; and athlete and activist Colin Kaepernick. Art collectors and Grammy winners Alicia Keys and Kasseem Dean (Swizz Beatz) will be honored as patrons of the arts. Special recognition will be paid to the life and work of Richard Roundtree (1942-2023) and the groundbreaking film Shaft, which was directed by Parks and launched Roundtree’s acting career.
All proceeds from the gala benefit fellowships, prizes, scholarships, and educational programming provided by The Gordon Parks Foundation to the next generation of artists, writers, and students who are following in the footsteps of Parks and advancing his incredible legacy. CT
IMAGE: Above right, D. Watkins. | Photo by Devin Allen
BOOKSHELF
Many books have been published about the photography of Gordon Parks. Some of the most celebrated volumes include “Gordon Parks: Segregation Story,” “Gordon Parks: The New Tide: Early Work 1940–1950,” and “Invisible Man: Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison in Harlem” For children, consider “Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America.” Books by D. Watkins include “The Wire: The Complete Visual History,” “We Speak for Ourselves: A Word from Forgotten Black America,” and “The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America.” His memoirs are “Black Boy Smile: A Memoir in Moments” and “The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir.” Watkins also collaborated with Carmelo Anthony on his memoir “Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised: A Memoir of Survival and Hope.”
