5.6. – 3.7.2026
»Gwendolyn Phillips: A Brownie Hawkeye«
The solo exhibition »Gwendolyn Phillips: A Brownie Hawkeye«, co-curated by M. Bassy and Julia Phillips, is dedicated to the life and work of the photographer Gwendolyn Phillips, born 1947 in Pittsburgh, USA, who was the first Black woman to be permanently employed by the Los Angeles Times West Magazine. During the 1960s and 1970s, she created an impressive photographic portfolio featuring portraits of renowned artists, musicians, and public figures, including Aretha Franklin, Joseph Beuys, Romare Bearden, and the Jackson Five. Her work ranges from documentary photography to artistic portraits, reflecting the social upheavals and political tensions of the time.
Following the American civil rights movement and mounting tensions in the USA, Gwendolyn Phillips relocated to Hamburg in 1972, where she worked for Zeit Magazin and ran her own photography studio. Her extensive archive was stored here in a basement for over four decades and was largely forgotten. This exhibition showcases her photographic works alongside personal documents, contextualising them within contemporary conversations on feminism, Black perspectives in photography, and diasporic narratives.
GWENDOLYN PHILLIPS
Gwendolyn Phillips was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1947 and grew up in Chicago and later Inglewood, California. In 1968 she joined the LA Times as a staff photographer for West Magazine where she eventually met colleagues from the Zeit Magazin Hamburg. She was invited to move to Hamburg and work for Zeit, which she did from 1972-1974. Phillips then moved back to the US to spend three years in New York City working for several international publications, including Der Spiegel, Essence Magazine, Ms. Magazine, and Time Magazine. In 1978 she then made her second and final move to Hamburg. Phillips married in the year of 1980 and had her first daughter in 1982, followed by her second daughter in 1985. The last photographs that she recalls taking were of her children in ca. 1989. Phillips lives in Eimsbüttel, Hamburg.
JULIA PHILLIPS
Julia Phillips has had solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1 New York, Kunstverein Braunschweig, and the Barbican Art Center, London. Her work was represented at the Berlin Biennale; the New Museum Triennial, the Venice Biennale, and the the Whitney Biennial. Her work is included in numerous public collections, including the Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Julia Phillips recently published her first monograph »Energy Exchange« with Mousse Publishing Milan. She is faculty in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. Her artistic and academic work focuses on psychoanalysis, the body and embodiment, cross-race dynamics, and diversity and power struggles in institutions.
6.6.2026, 7 PM: Artist talk with Gwendolyn Phillips & Julia Phillips (sorry, the opening is booked out)
Please reserve via: reservation@m-bassy.org
M.Bassy e.V., Schlüterstraße 80, 20146 Hamburg
Run time: 5.6. - 3.7.2026, Opening hours: Thu - Sun, 2 - 6 PM
(The exhibition will be closed on Fri 19.6.2026, due to a workshop.)
The exhibition is part of the Triennial Expanded as part of the 9th Triennial of Photography Hamburg 2026:
2026.phototriennale.de/triennale-expanded
We would like to thank the 9th Triennial of Photography Hamburg 2026 for their support of the project and the Department of Intercultural Cultural Exchange of the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media for their financial support.
