Bruce Davidson, Untitled from the Central Park series, 1992 (printed circa 2000), gelatin silver print on paper, 20 × 24 inches. Gift of an anonymous donor, 2018.58.266. © Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos. A diverse group of young people—each offering a peek into their personality through fashion choices, body language, and relationship to one another—pose in Central Park before photographer Bruce Davidson. The artist, known for his Time of Change series that captured the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, turns his camera here to the youth of New York City in their prom finery with a similar attention to the humanity of his subjects.
New York-based photographer Gillian Laub, whose work is on view in Asheville Art Museum’s Southern Rites exhibition through July 4, 2022, carries on Davidson’s socially minded documentary spirit in her photographs of segregated high school proms in the late 2000s and early 2010s in South Georgia.
