Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers.

Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers by Barbara Head Millstein (ed.) Essays by Deba P. Patnaik and Clyde Taylor Merrell Publishers in association with the Brooklyn Museum of Art February 2001, $39.95 ISBN 1-858-94123-7

Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers, an exhibition and publication of works by 94 living African American artists, provides a unique opportunity to appreciate the thematic, technical, and creative range in contemporary photography. It may be true, as curator Barbara Read Millstein states in the catalogue's preface, that "Black photographers are still underrepresented." Despite institutional bias, the images by these photographers evidence the persistence of a long and venerable tradition of photography by African Americans.

Clyde Taylor and Deba P. Patnaik's catalogue essays provide a general yet rich context for the work. Occasionally however, their postmodernist, critic-speak seems to narrow the lens through which we view these often emotionally and spiritually challenging photographs. Compelling images of life in the raw, emotions laid bare, perseverance, mystery, spirituality, pleasure and the world of the imagination confirm photography's power to transform our feelings about the world via the photographer's imagination and technical prowess. The book includes old and new classics like American Gothic (1942) by Gordon Parks and Black Girl with White Flower: Mango Creek, Belize (1992) by Tony Gleaton. Thought-provoking works by younger artists like Cynthia Wiggins and Omar Kharem are also represented. The presence of the photographers' voices throughout the book provides an interesting counterpoint to the essays, as well as invaluable clues to meanings found in the more challenging works. Their inclusion makes a good book even better,

Grace C. Stanislaus, art historian and former executive director of the Museum for African Art, is currently a principal in the New York based management consulting firm of Amato-Milligan & Stanislaus Consultants, based in New York.