Black Cowboys

The cowboy, one of America s most enduring cultural icons, has become identified with the white gunslinger in the popular imagination. However, in the 19th century over one-third of these cowboys were actually Black cowboys. With this photo series included in the exhibition Andrea Robbins & Max Becher. Displacements, the photographic duo shines a spotlight on Black cowboy culture, a phenomenon practically unheard-of outside the United States due to segregation in competitive rodeos and the exclusion of Black cowboys from the iconography of the Western genre. Robbins and Becher travelled across the country, conducting interviews and research and using their camera to merge the artistic tradition of documentary photography with a conceptual approach that critiques society.