Ivan McClellan
Eight Seconds: Legacy in Motion
Eight Seconds by Ivan McClellan is the result of more than ten years immersed in Black cowboy culture. In 2015, his first encounter with Black rodeo gave rise to a body of work and a passion that continue to this day, shaped by journeys across the United States and by relationships of trust with cowboys and cowgirls.
Through his photographs, McClellan opens the door to a world rarely seen and often little understood: Black rodeo. Eight Seconds goes beyond the sport itself, telling the story of a living culture defined by style, music and pride, where children, families, cowboys and cowgirls carry forward a tradition deeply rooted in the Black American experience. Having grown up with a Western imagination shaped almost entirely by white cowboys, McClellan discovers in Black rodeo a history that had always existed, but had rarely been part of the official story of the West. His images, therefore, do more than document: they celebrate a community.
The title refers to the regulation time in bull riding: the eight seconds a cowboy must stay in the saddle for the ride to count. A brief but decisive span of time, where life and death seem to touch.
Eight Seconds: Legacy in Motion tells the story of a culture that reaches beyond the rodeo arena, foregrounding the freedom of expression and sense of belonging that define the Black community.
Following the great publishing success of Eight Seconds: Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture in 2024, this new edition presents a renewed sequence of images, including 91 previously unpublished photographs, accompanied by a new introduction by James Pickens Jr. and a new opening text by the author.
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