236 pages Edited by Sarah Lewis, Leigh Raiford and Deborah Willis Text(s) by Bridget R. Cooks, Awol Erizku, Rujeko Hockley, Sarah Lewis, Valerie Cassel Olivier, Jonathan Micheal Square, Doreen St. Félix and Salamishas Tillet Designed by Pacific 28 x 22.3 cm Language: English Hardback Publisher: Vision&Justice, Aperture 2025
The second title in Aperture’s Vision & Justice Book Series celebrates the breadth and brilliance of Coreen Simpson: photographer, writer, jeweler, and one of the most versatile visual storytellers of her generation.
From the late 1970s onward, Simpson chronicled New York’s Black cultural life with unmatched intimacy and style, working for publications such as Essence, Unique New York, and The Village Voice. Her portraits, of artists, writers, musicians, and everyday New Yorkers, capture a community in motion, defining an era from the inside out. Her groundbreaking jewelry line, the Black Cameo, would come to adorn figures ranging from Iman to Rosa Parks, cementing her role in shaping a powerful visual language of representation.
This long-awaited first monograph brings together her essential bodies of work: the celebrated B-Boys series, depicting youth on the cusp of hip-hop’s rise; her inventive collages and formal experiments; and a vast archive of portraits that map the intertwined worlds of art, fashion, and Black cultural expression.
Through newly commissioned essays and an extended interview, the book offers an expansive look at Simpson’s sartorial politics, her uncompromising eye, and the fearless path she forged across journalism, art, and design.
