Alon Skuy | The Beautiful Struggle: A Journey Through Post-Apartheid Realities

This exhibition, A Beautiful Struggle: A Journey Through Post-Apartheid Realities, aims to capture and reflect upon a series of multifaceted experiences of South Africans and the nation itself in this contemporary post-Apartheid era, with not only its unfathomable strength and endless celebration, but also its continued violence and entrenched hierarchies. The juxtapositions of joy with pain, abundance with destitution, and unimaginable power in the face of devastation, mark the images on the walls made by South African-born, award-winning photojournalist and iWitness Fellow at FIU (Florida International University), Alon Skuy.

The magic that Skuy brings is his depiction of beauty in struggle. Award-winning Skuy is thrilled to have Miami audiences see his work: “I deeply appreciate the opportunity to communicate to a new audience the stories of South African resilience, beauty and strength. It is a society marked by contrasts - inequality progress, and diversity. This in the continuing struggle for an equitable, democratic society”.

The exhibition gives the viewer an intimate tour of day-to-day realties of South African life.  Skuy, by elevating these singular frames, each marking a moment in time, allows the viewer into intimate spaces that reflect the strength in the beautiful struggle, one that marks our collective humanity and continues in South Arica – and around the world – every single day. As curator Carl-Philippe Juste puts it: “Through Alon’s lens the veneer of race dissipates as humanity emerges.  The beautiful struggle speaks not only through post-apartheid South Africa, it also is a reminder to each of us of the challenges that are ahead of us; for those who strive for equality, dignity and equity.”

The Iris PhotoCollective (IPC) and IPC ArtSpace present A Beautiful Struggle: A Journey Through Post-Apartheid Realities to audiences in Little Haiti, Greater Miami and around the nation and world. This opening takes place on Saturday September 28, at IPC ArtSpace with curator Carl-Philippe Juste and the featured photographer, Alon Skuy. In collaboration with Florida International University’s Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab (WPHL-FIU), Iris PhotoCollective/IPC ArtSpace will present a series of programs that bring in audiences to discuss the show’s themes, from South Africa’s struggles with democracy-making to the continuous fight for equity and justice.

This is the second large-scale exhibition as part of iWitness ArtSpace, a collaborative project between the WPHL-FIU and IPC ArtSpace, funded by the Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation at the Miami Foundation (The Pérez Family Foundation), as part of the third edition of the Pérez CreARTE Grants Program. This exhibition and programming is presented in association with the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance (HCAA). 

Due to strong public reaction, the show has been extended to run throughout Miami Art Basel, as part of BLACK.BOLD. BALDWIN. 

The Exhibition Bold. Black. Baldwin. opens at IPC ArtSpace in Little Haiti on December 1, 2024, commemorating the 100th year of James Baldwin’s birth. 

MIAMI, FL- October 5, 2024 - The exhibition Bold. Black. Baldwin., a collection of original, mixed media pieces and documentary photographs combine with a handful of Baldwin’s powerful and poignant words, opens at Little Haiti’s IPC ArtSpace for Art Basel in Miami. The show embraces the images already on the walls as part of the exhibition by South African-born photojournalist, Alon Skuy: The Beautiful Struggle: A Journey Through Post-Apartheid Realities. 

Together the two exhibitions create a symphony of hope amidst the constant noise of daily despair. 

Exhibition co-curator and Founding Director of the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab at FIU, Dr. Rebecca Friedman, highlights the centrality of connecting the textual and the visual: “Bold. Black. Baldwin. allows audiences to imagine how Baldwin’s artistry and brilliance move easily off the page to create a universe of images and ideas about humanity, beauty, struggle, individuality and collectivity all at once. To read Baldwin is to see, to feel and to transform with each word, phrase, passage.” 

The show, curated by Carl-Philippe Juste, owner of IPC ArtSpace and Rebecca Friedman, PhD, of Florida International University, highlights the deep connection between the written word and the visual language. Inclusive of words and images, Bold. Black. Baldwin. pairs Baldwin’s quotations from the arc of his oeuvre with visual images – including documentary photographs and mixed-media art – made by our award-winning iWitness Fellows and a series of artists from Miami, NYC and New Orleans. Together, the words and the images celebrate Baldwin and inspire audiences to meditate not only on his individual genius, but also on how the past occupies the present and portends the future in Baldwin’s words and work. 

Exhibition co-curator and Founding Director of the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab at FIU, Dr. Rebecca Friedman, highlights the centrality of connecting the textual and the visual: “Bold. Black. Baldwin. allows audiences to imagine how Baldwin’s artistry and brilliance move easily off the page to create a universe of images and ideas about humanity, beauty, struggle, individuality and collectivity all at once. To read Baldwin is to see, to feel and to transform with each word, phrase, passage.” 

The show too embraces place. A particular emphasis is placed on Baldwin’s influence on -- and understandings of -- notions of Blackness, Queerness and global liberation movements across Latin America, the Caribbean and its Global Diasporas. Curator, Founder and Owner of IPC ArtSpace, Carl-Philippe Juste comments: “Miami is a global city in the center of the Global Borderless Caribbean. It is where democracy comes to thrive or to die. It is up to us. And, as immigrants, we are leading the charge to preserve hope. James Baldwin was a global citizen. He had the audacity to be seen, to be heard and for his presence to be acknowledged wherever he went. We honor him with this show. Happy Birthday, James Baldwin.” 

Bold. Black. Baldwin. insists that from memoir to fiction through political treatise and poetry, Baldwin continues to show us how decency and humanity prevail amidst the persistent scourge of racism and inequality. Bold. Black. Baldwin. ultimately allows us to (re)imagine such fundamental notions such as home and humanity.