MoCP - Darkroom 2023

Whitten Sabbatini (United States, b. 1990), Blue Truck, 2021 

Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Whitten Sabbatini creates intimate and engaging narratives through environmental portraits and landscapes of the mainly Black residential areas in the south. Much of this body of work was inspired by Sabbatini’s urge to combat the microaggressions he witnessed in Mississippi, where there is a deeply complex and painful history for Black Americans. Sabbatini leaves just enough of the environment in the frame to allow the viewer to build on the narrative he presents. In photographing people in their everyday lives, Sabbatini prompts the viewer to consider their own perception of identity politics but also explores another significant theme of his work: beauty of the mundane.  

Sabbatini completed his MFA from Columbia College Chicago in 2017. He has shown in a solo exhibition at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, TN (2014), and has been included in exhibitions at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, LA (2018) and Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (2014) among many others. His editorial images have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, ESPN, and The Washington Post, among many others.

https://whittensabbatini.com/