Tyler Mitchell: Wish This Was Real
Tyler Mitchell’s work is steeped in visions of joy, possibility, and alternate worlds. Rising swiftly through both the art and fashion spheres, Mitchell has developed a visual language that reimagines Black life beyond constraint, fusing softness, utopia, and everyday radiance into an aesthetic that feels both deeply rooted and forward-looking.
Wish This Was Real brings together — for the first time in a major publication — the full scope of Mitchell’s early output: from his experimental portraiture across the U.S., Europe, and West Africa to fabric-based installations and sculptural works that pay tribute to Black cultural and intellectual histories. Essays by leading voices offer new insight into recurring themes in his practice, including autonomy, tenderness, and collective memory.
The result is a book that demonstrates how photography can honor the past while boldly proposing new futures.
This publication was realized with principal support from Coach. Aperture extends sincere thanks to The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, as well as to Dr. Kathryn Beal, David Dechman and Michael Mercure, Béryl and Rex Hamilton, Pamela Thomas-Graham, Michael Hoeh, Cathy M. Kaplan, and Yesim and Dusty Philip for their generous contributions.
About the Author
Tyler Mitchell (b. 1995, Atlanta) is a photographer, filmmaker, and artist based in Brooklyn. A graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts (BFA, Film & Television, 2017), Mitchell has been widely published in titles including Aperture, Vogue, Vanity Fair, i-D, Interview, W, M Le Monde, ZEITmagazin, and WSJ Magazine.
His work is represented in major museum collections such as the Museum of Modern Art; the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and the National Portrait Gallery, London.
In 2018, at age twenty-three, he photographed Beyoncé for Vogue, becoming the magazine’s first Black cover photographer. His debut solo exhibition I Can Make You Feel Good (2019–20) was presented at Foam, Amsterdam, and later at the International Center of Photography in New York.
Mitchell also photographed the catalog for Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, the Spring 2025 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. His touring exhibition Wish This Was Real (2024–26) premiered at C/O Berlin and has since traveled to the Finnish Museum of Photography (Helsinki), Photo Elysée (Lausanne), and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris).
