Art & culture
Black Photobooth: everyday portraits in a 2023 exhibition
Private collections brought small portraits of Black Americans into public view.
The people in an old portrait do not need to be famous for the photograph to matter. Black Photobooth at the Center for Photography at Woodstock presented everyday portraits whose small scale could otherwise make them easy to overlook.
What was exhibited
CPW dates the exhibition to 25 March–4 June 2023 and describes more than 100 miniature portraits of Black Americans, mostly from the 1930s and 1940s, drawn from the collections of Näkki Goranin and Oliver Wasow. Its account includes strips, single pictures and larger arcade portraits.
Evidence: Exhibition archive
Keep the categories visible
That range is important: an arcade portrait with a backdrop is not automatically an automated booth strip. A shared exhibition theme can connect different formats without making their production identical. Look at how the curator names an object before extending a claim about one photographic process to the whole display.
Read without inventing biographies
Describe visible clothes, gestures and arrangements, but do not turn them into certainty about an unnamed person’s occupation or feelings. Where an inscription survives, transcribe it accurately and identify it as an inscription. An honest unanswered question is more useful to a future researcher than a confident invented story.
Sources & further reading
Sources for the specific facts and product descriptions above. Our worked examples, interpretations and practical suggestions are original editorial guidance.
- CPW — Black Photobooth, 2023Exhibition archive