4.6. – 3.7.2026
»Gwendolyn Phillips: A Brownie Hawkeye«
The solo exhibition »Gwendolyn Phillips: A Brownie Hawkeye«, curated by M. Bassy in cooperation with 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. 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 Europe. In 1972, she relocated to Hamburg, where she worked for Zeit magazine 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 and audiovisual contributions, 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 was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1985 where she grew up and went to art school. She moved to New York City in 2013, and later to Chicago in 2018 to join the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. Julia Phillips primarily works in sculpture, and has a long carried interest in her mother’s photography career and archive. The initial scanning of a small portion of her mother's archive took place in 2016, and was revitalized by her partner Casey Lurie who finally retrieved it from a friend’s basement in 2025 to reorganize it.
Julia Phillips has had solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1 in New York, USA, and at the Kunstverein Braunschweig, and was represented at the Whitney Biennial 2024; the 10th Berlin Biennale; the New Museum Triennial and the 59th Venice Biennale. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at the Museum Brandhorst in Munich; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA; the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, USA, among others. 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, USA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, USA; and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. Julia Phillips recently completed her first public art commission, entitled »Observer, Observed« for New York's High Line and published her first monograph »Energy Exchange« with Mousse Publishing Milan. Her artistic and academic work focuses on psychoanalysis, the body and embodiment, choreography, and Afro-German, African-American and Afro-Atlantic culture. Phillips is currently in the research and development phase of a large-scale multichannel video installation entitled »Pentasomnia«. She draws inspiration from the subconscious and explores interpersonal relationships, cross-race dynamics, diversity and power struggles in institutions, using elements of surrealism and Black and psychoanalytical symbolism.
6.6.2026, 7 PM: Artist talk with Gwendolyn Phillips & Julia Phillips
Please reserve via: reservation@m-bassy.org
M.Bassy e.V., Schlüterstraße 80, 20146 Hamburg
Run time: 4.6. - 3.7.2026, Opening hours: Thu - Sun, 2 - 6 PM
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.
