LaToya Ruby Frazier was born in Braddock (Pennsylvania, United States) in 1982 and currently lives and works in Chicago (Illinois, United States). Her work is marked by the experience of growing up in the historic home of the company US Steel, where the steelmaking industry caused one of the gravest sanitary and ecological disasters to have struck the United States.

The mainly black population was left to fend for itself after the closure of the last hospital which was declared unviable because of the low income of the patients. Since 2001, Frazier has been photographing her family and close circle, exploring the private, intimate dimension of this social reality that literally weighs on their bodies.

In her Momme Wrestle, the artist shows herself pointlessly wrestling with her mother. This primitive combat, this bittersweet game also expresses a certain powerlessness, a sense of going round in circles. The short fight takes place against the background of a floral bedspread, indicating a soft, warm cocoon that seems to evoke childhood emotions. The title, conflating Mom and Me, references the relation between mother and daughter that is at the heart of this series of works. The video was made using a sequence of photographs: hence its crude feel, its jerkiness, its mute eloquence like an early cinema sketch or a dream vision.

Marcella Lista, 2020