“The Black Image Corporation”, an exhibition conceived by Theaster Gates for the Osservatorio in Milan, explores the legacy of the Johnson Publishing Company archive, which holds more than four million images and helped shape the aesthetic and cultural languages of contemporary African American identity. Founded by John H. Johnson in 1942, the company published the monthly magazine Ebony and the weekly Jet, committed to both celebrating everyday life and depicting the complex realities faced by Black Americans in postwar USA, and covering events from the March on Washington to the first African American astronaut. For this project Gates focused on two photographers, Moneta Sleet Jr. and Isaac Sutton, whose images range across the Black American social elite and celebrity culture to politics, self-help, sports, beauty and sexuality: “I hope to tease out the creation of female iconic moments by Sleet and Sutton and also offer small forays into the lives of everyday people through never-before-seen images from the Johnson Collection.” The portfolio published by Fondazione Prada collects more than 300 photographs by Sleet and Sutton, some shown alongside the reverse of the prints with handwritten location, date and photographer credits, and includes a booklet with a conversation between Theaster Gates and Linda Johnson Rice, Chairman of Johnson Publishing Company.