Ocean Vuong: Sống & Nona Faustine: What My Mother Gave Me

Center for Photography in Woodstock, 25 Dederick Street, Kingston, New York
Through May 10

This season, the Center for Photography in Woodstock presents several poignant photography shows at once, including works by writer Ocean Vuong and visionary images by the late Nona Faustine — the first retrospective of her powerful self-portraiture. Both Vuong and Faustine explore and interrogate notions of representation, history, and place, among other thundering themes. Vuong’s images reveal his dynamic creative sensibilities as a poet, novelist, and photographer; “American Brothers” (2024), for instance, depicts two young Asian men holding an American flag, capturing a moment of seriousness that feels like the opening line of a story. Faustine is utterly fearless in her presentation of her exposed body in locations around New York, highlighting historical atrocities through works such as “From Her Body Came Their Greatest Wealth, Wall Street, NYC” (2013), a candid title that aptly discloses her truth-to-power illumination of the past.