Gordon Parks’ ‘Voices in the Mirror’ Takes Over Jack Shainman Gallery

The exhibition is on view until November 6 at 46 Lafayette St.

Photography by Gordon Parks

For the first time, the families of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X can reflect on and examine the photographs Gordon Parks captured during his most active years. Voices in the Mirror, on view at Jack Shainman Gallery until November 6, deeply explores the collaborations and relationships Parks documented to depict Black culture, struggles for equality, and perseverance.

Although Parks has been a world-renowned photographer for decades, new technology has allowed experts to study and analyze details and depth in the photos that were not initially recognized or discovered. Written reflections of photos in Voices in the Mirror include Kathleen Cleaver, Kate Clark Harris, Kyle Johnson, Cora Taylor, Lonnie Ali, Qubilah Shabazz, Anderson Cooper, Isabella Rossellini, Ava DuVernay, Bryan Stevenson, Alice Walker, Rebecca Walker, Thelma Golden, Deborah Willis, Hank Willis Thomas, and Andrew Young.

Photography by Gordon Parks

Photos include portraits of Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Norman Fontanelle Sr., Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver, Whoopi Goldberg, Ingrid Bergman, and more. He also captured candid moments of family life, segregation, architecture, work life, and nature throughout New York City, Washington D.C. Alabama, Kansas, Tennessee, Stromboli, Chicago, and more.

“Over the last twenty years, The Gordon Parks Foundation has built relationships with many of the people that Gordon Parks photographed and got to know personally,” says Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., Executive Director of The Gordon Parks Foundation. “We are honored to have so many of their stories brought together in an exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery, one that will allow us to continue learning from them, so that the past may continue to inspire us.”