Robert Mapplethorpe in If Emmett Till Lived
3 September—19 December 2026
Group exhibition at MoCP at Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
What if Emmett Till lived? What if he had returned home still a child, alive and free? Emmett Till could have turned 85 years old this year, had he survived beyond boyhood. In the major new exhibition If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, and in a freestanding book published by MoCP and DelMonico Books, curator, author, and scholar Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Lewis asks the public to envision the full life Till could have experienced, and what that life could have meant for our own, as evoked by the images of more than 70 photographers.
Through pictures drawn from the Museum’s outstanding collection, viewers will be able to imagine, and meditate on, the roughly 70 years that Till missed—a number matching the photographers represented, from Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks to Dawoud Bey, Teju Cole, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Carrie Mae Weems, and Stephen Marc. Here are railroad lines that might have taken Till not only from Chicago to Mississippi but on journeys from coast to coast, daily encounters he might have had on neighborhood streets and playgrounds, and civil rights struggles witnessed and joined. Here, too, are meals shared, marriage and fatherhood celebrated, and events that might have brought Emmett Till joy and wonder, whether from Michael Jordan leading the Chicago Bulls to six championships or Barack Obama winning the White House.
Artists featured in If Emmett Till Lived include a cousin of Till, professional photographer Lance Omar Thurman, represented by his image of the remains of Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market in Money, Mississippi. The project also includes Hanif Abdur-Rahim, Jody Ake, Harold Allen, Stephen Althouse, Tom Arndt, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Uta Barth, Endia Beal, Dawoud Bey, Jay Boersma, Christian Boltanski, Clarissa Bonet, Phil Borges, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Jack Bridges, Sheila Pree Bright, Christopher Burkett, Patty Carroll, Keith Carter, William Carter, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Peter Cochrane, Teju Cole, Edward Curtiss Colver, Kenn Cook Jr., Barbara Crane, Paul D’Amato, Paul Dahlquist, Bruce Davidson, Tim Davis, Lloyd DeGrane, Adam Ekberg, Paul Elledge, Elliott Erwitt, Terry Evans, Nona Faustine, Scott Fortino, Steven Foster, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Russell K. Frederick, Leonard Freed, Lee Friedlander, Daniel Castro Garcia, Gretchen Garner, Meg Gerken, Lyle Ashton Harris, Todd Hido, Milton J. Hinton, Earlie Hudnall Jr., Hyers + Mebane (Martin Hyers + William Mebane), James Iska, Ron Jude, Michael Kenna, Lewis S. Kostiner, Dorothea Lange, Jason Lazarus, An-My Lê, Annie Leibovitz, Danny Lyon, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Stephen Marc, Diana Matar, Aspen Mays, Cecil McDonald Jr., Roger Minick, Natasha Leonie Moustache, Kenji Nakahashi, Mario Cravo Neto, Carlos Javier Ortiz, Esther Parada, Gordon Parks, Antonio Perez, Alayna N. Pernell, Jack Perno, Alexis Peskine, Cara Phillips, David Plowden, Marc PoKempner, Milton Rogovin, Walter Rosenblum, Whitten Sabbatini, Karen Savage, Victor Schrager, Sara Shamsavari, Arthur Shay, Anna Shteynshleyger, Marvin Joe Shuck, Guillaume Simoneau, Victor Skrebneski, Frank Stewart, Richard Terborg, Bob Thall, Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, Lance Omar Thurman, Charles H. Traub, Arthur Tress, Peter Turnley, Jerry N. Uelsmann, Carrie Mae Weems, and Helena Chapellín Wilson.