Jonathan Calm
Green Book (Jackson 1), 2016/2020

Archival pigment print, 20 x 24 inches
Edition 1/6, signed, verso
Unframed
Courtesy of the artist and Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
Estimated value: $4,000

This image is part of a series that rendered Calm's visual impression of his first road trip through the American South, traveling from Tallahassee, FL, to Ferguson, MO, on an assignment to document what has become of the "safe places" listed in the Green Book guide for travelers of color during the last three decades of the Jim Crow era. While some sites have been preserved as surreal time capsules, and others summarily commemorated by way of signs and plaques, many have disappeared altogether, with only street names and fragments of buildings, long-unoccupied properties, and weed-covered lots bearing silent witness to formerly thriving black businesses and communities.

About the Artist:
Jonathan Calm

Jonathan Calm is a visual artist and assistant professor in photography at the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University. Calm's interests include urbanism and public housing, and his most recent work focuses on the representation of African American automobility through performance, reenactment, and portraiture.

Calm's art practice is international in scope and has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including Frequency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2005); Role Play at the Tate Britain (2006); Black Is, Black Ain’t at the University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society (2008); Streetwise at the Reina Sophia Museum in Madrid (2008) and the Chelsea Art Museum in New York (2011); Reconstruction at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia (2013); Rooted Movements at LMAKprojects in New York (2014); Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College, 1933–1957 at the ICA in Boston (2015); and Jonathan Calm: African-American Automobility, starting at Stanford Art Gallery, Stanford University, and traveling to Cart Van Vechten Art Gallery, Fisk University, Nashville, TN (2018).

Numerous publications, including The New York Times, Art in America, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, Artforum, and The Washington Post, have given significant mention to his work.

Website: jonathancalm.com | stanford.edu | renabranstengallery.com
Instagram: @jonathancalm | @renabranstengallery