WILMER JENNINGS GALLERY

PRESENTS

SOUND OF LIGHT & THE BLUES AND MEAN REDS 

 

Two Concurrent Photographic Exhibitions Featuring

Iconic Music Figures of Jazz and Beyond 

Through the Lens of

Frank Stewart and Petra Richterová

 

April 26 – June 28, 2025

 

OPENING RECEPTION, APRIL 26, 3–6pm

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba is pleased to present Sound of Light by Petra Richterová and The Blues and Mean Reds by Frank Stewart, two concurrent photographic exhibitions in dialogue, exploring jazz culture and the broader landscape of Black music. The exhibits are on view from April 26th until June 28, 2025. The Gallery is located at 219 East 2nd Street. Gallery hours are: Wednesday to Saturday, 11am-6pm. There will be an opening reception on April 26th from 3-6pm. 

 

ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS

 

Modernist master photographer Frank Stewart, whose career spans over fifty years, and his former student, scholar, and visual artist Petra Richterová, whose work spans three decades, present Black music visually through dynamic, reportage-style approach. Their comprehensive understanding of music as a metaphor for everyday life within the African Diaspora is reflected in oeuvres spanning the United States, the Caribbean, and the African continent. This exhibition is particularly significant as it unites mentor and student, emphasizing the power of intergenerational and interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as the tradition of apprenticeship. 

 

Sound of Light is a deeply personal visual tribute to the art of music and photography, based on Richterová’s 2022 monograph of the same name with text by the late Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Greg Tate. Documenting legendary musicians and dancers across jazz, funk, hip hop, soul, and rock & roll, reveals the spirit of performance both on and off stage. “Cultivating my vision as a photographer has meant seeing beyond the world of forms and discrete artistic mediums, allowing me to transcend the process of my rational mind to work with an iconography of the spirit,” says Richterová.

 

The oeuvre pairs striking imagery with intimacy, revealing collaborations honed over years and decades. Shared trust allows for rare and authentic insights into the creative process. Sound of Light reflects a vibrant, interconnected narrative of Black music and performance, highlighting the aesthetic and spiritual dimensions of these traditions. “Because Sound of Light covers decades of work, the transformative drama of analog black and white film mixed with the hyperreal vividness of digital color photography let us enter a time machine of music history,” adds Richterová.

 

Featured artists photographed include Robert Glasper, Wynton Marsalis, Parliament-Funkadelic, Fishbone, Living Colour, Burnt Sugar, Keyon Harrold, Marcus Strickland, Maya Azucena, Ishmael Butler, Hassan Hakmoun, Marcus Miller, Bernard Fowler, Pedrito Martínez, Cavalier, Chucho Valdés and Karriem Riggins, Storyboard P and Les Twins, among others. 

 

The Blues and Mean Reds is a rich collection of images spanning Frank Stewart’s 50+ year career immersed in the life of the African diaspora through the lens of blues and jazz. The exhibition features lesser-known and previously unseen works. Reflecting on the show’s concept, Stewart draws from his vast knowledge of old Southernisms to explain the title: “The mean reds is a southern idiom. The blues is when something has happened and you are down about it! The mean reds is even worse than that—if that can be possible!” 

 

Stewart’s work not only explores jazz as Black culture holistically but also examines the intelligence of the photographic medium itself. In his book Nexus, he speaks of feeling haunted by photography. Inviting the viewer to experience his subjects from the inside, he reminds us: “Jazz is a part of the culture and it permeates everything. It’s a way of life. It’s not just music.” 

 

The exhibition features analog black and white street photography, including a 1978 funerary procession for the Tubman family in Liberia, alongside classic portraits of Count Basie, Wynton Marsalis, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Wess “Warmdaddy” Anderson, among others. 

 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

 

DR. PETRA RICHTEROVÁ (b. 1978) is a scholar, photographer, and filmmaker who received her doctorate from Yale University specializing in African and African Diasporic Arts under the tutelage of renowned Africanist art historian, Robert Farris Thompson (2010). She was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, raised in Ontario, Canada, and later moved to New York City to apprentice with photographer Frank Stewart and attend Hunter College. It was her father’s record collection and love of jazz and soul that ignited her professional path. She has photographed for Jazz at Lincoln Center and The Black Rock Coalition, and her images have been shown at Columbia University, Fábrica de Arte Cubano, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Petra’s award-winning debut short sonic film, On My Mind (Blue Note Records), premiered with Afropunk in 2020. She followed with Are You Hearing Me? (Vibe Music Collective) in 2021 and Amygdala (Strick Muzic) in 2023. Her 2022 monograph, Sound of Light: Music Photography and Conversations with the Artists, spans 25 years of photography capturing the griots of Black music. As a 2021–22 Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center, she developed her forthcoming scholarly book, Rumba: A Philosophy of Motion. Petra is an Officer of Research at Columbia University’s Center for Jazz Studies, and Professor of African and Afro-Diasporic arts at Savannah College of Art and Design. More information: petra-richterova.com and soundoflightbook.com.

 

FRANK STEWART (b. 1949, Nashville) is a fine art reportage photographer whose work spans over six decades, capturing Black life, culture, music, and the natural world. At 14, he took his first photograph at the 1963 March on Washington. He studied under Roy DeCarava at The Cooper Union and later worked closely with Romare Bearden, photographing him from 1975 until Bearden’s passing in 1988. Stewart has received two National Endowment for the Arts grants, documented African American communities nationwide, and was among the first journalists allowed into Communist Cuba in 1977. He served as an official photographer for the 1984 Summer Olympics and, as part of the Kamoinge Workshop, traveled to New Orleans’ Ninth Ward to document Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath. Best known for his jazz photography, Stewart toured with Ahmad Jamal in the 1970s and has since photographed legendary musicians including Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, and Wynton Marsalis. He has been the senior staff photographer for Jazz at Lincoln Center for over 30 years. His career retrospective, Frank Stewart’s Nexus: An American Photographer’s Journey, 1960s to the Present (Rizzoli, 2023), highlights his lifelong commitment to documenting Black culture and music, cementing his legacy as one of the most significant visual storytellers of his generation. 

 

ABOUT THE WILMER JENNINGS GALLERY AT KENKELEBA HOUSE

Kenkeleba House is an alternative art space that includes Kenkeleba Gallery and The Wilmer Jennings Gallery. Its mission is to present, preserve, and encourage the development of art by African Americans and artists of the African Diaspora, as well as other artists historically overlooked by the mainstream. This includes Latino, Asian, Native American, and mature artists who have not received proper recognition. The gallery is dedicated to preserving the visual and cultural legacy of African and African Diasporic artists. Through exhibitions, documentation, and collections, it fosters appreciation for global African artistic traditions and provides opportunities for experimental work that enriches urban cultural life.