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Stephen Marc

(American, b.1954)

Between 61st and 62nd and Rhodes (“Fresh” Block Party Talent Show) from Changing Chicago, 1988/1989

Untitled, 1997

Throughout his work Stephen Marc has investigated the forms of individual expression – in style, in gesture, in action – that develop within a given community. In his first book, Urban Notions (1983), Marc states his intention to capture the “gestures, symbols, and codes” of the black urban environment. In this untitled image, the pavement becomes a canvas for the familiar markings of play in the city.

Marc has turned to an exploration of digital montage self-portraits that combine African motifs and family portraits in the series Soul Searching. Additionally, he is researching, documenting, and combining images of the underground railroad. His work is included in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the California Museum of Photography, Riverside; The Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC. Mark was born in Rantoul, Illinois in 1954 and attended Pomona College, Claremont, California (BA, 1976) and Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia (MFA, 1978). After teaching photography for twenty years at Columbia College Chicago, Marc to Arizona moved in 1998 to teach at Arizona State University, Tempe.

Marc, Stephen. Urban Notions. Champaign, IL: Ataraxia, 1983.

Marc, Stephen, and Alan Cohen. The Black Trans-Atlantic Experience: Street life and Culture in Ghana, Jamaica, England, and the United States. Chicago: Dept. of Photography, Columbia College; Distributed by the University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Beck, Tom, and Cynthia Wayne. Visual Griots: Works by Four African-American Photographers: Cary Beth Cryor, Stephen Marc, William Earle Williams, Deborah Willis. Baltimore: Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1996.