Posts from the “1960s” Category

All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50

Posted on October 15, 2016

Emory Douglas, untitled (On the Bones of the Oppressors), 1969. Poster, 20 x 13.5 in. Collection of the Oakland Museum of California. All Of Us Or None Archive. Gift of the Rossman Family.

Fifty years ago today, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense to protect the citizens of Oakland, CA, from abuses of the state. Under the protection of the Second Amendment, the created armed citizens’ patrols to monitor police officers and challenge police brutality. “Our position was: If you don’t attack us, there won’t be any violence; if you bring violence to us, we will defend ourselves,” explained Seale, who was inspired by the Black Nationalist philosophy of Malcolm X.

Following the Great Migration, the demographics Oakland had been transformed by a new generation of African Americans living in a community ruled by de facto segregation. This was a new type of apartheid that hid its hand covertly instituting policies likes redlining that denied services like banking, insurance, healthcare, mortgages, credit cards, and retail to the black community. Combined with high unemployment, underfunded public schools, and substandard housing, a new form of poverty emerged, and the state, under then-Governor Ronald Reagan, sanctioned violence against.

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Emory Douglas, Afro-American Solidarity with the Oppressed People of the World, 1969. Poster, 22.75 x 14.875 in. Collection of the Oakland Museum of California. All Of Us Or None Archive. Gift of the Rossman Family.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Ava DuVernay: 13TH

Posted on October 10, 2016

Image: Courtesy of Netflix

“The bottom line is, if you’re white in America, you have no idea what it’s like to be black,” Newt Gingrich declares in 13TH, the new documentary by Ava DuVernay now screening on Netflix. Titled after the Thirteenth Amendment, which legalizes slavery in the case of incarceration, the film exposes the way in which African Americans have been systematically criminalized in order to create and feed the prison industrial complex.

The film’s release comes at a pivotal time in U.S. history, as we are witnessing the rebirth of a new Civil Rights Movement to counter the abuses of power by the police, courts, prisons, and corporations under the 13th Amendment. While the media besieges the nation with images of lynchings sanctioned by the state, which simultaneously activate PTSD in their intended victims and thrill the bloodlust of the predators, we are inundated with the media’s fixation on Donald Trump’s calls to return to a time in our history before Civil Rights existed at all.

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Crave

Malick Sidibé: The Eye of Modern Mali

Posted on October 7, 2016

Photo: Malick Sidibé, Dansez le Twist, 1965, Papier : 120 x 120 cm, Édition illimitée courtesy Magnin-A, Paris © Malick Sidibé Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris.

“It’s a world, someone’s face. When I capture it, I see the future of the world,” revealed the legendary Malian photographer (1936–2016). Indeed, Sidibé captured the future as it came into its own, chronicling the beauty and spirit of the people of his native land right as the country won its independence from France in 1960, after nearly a century of colonial exploitation and oppression.

Born in the village of Soloba, Sidibé was the first member of his family to attend school. Here, the boy who began life herding animals and working the land, found himself drawn to art, becoming masterful. By high school, he was doing charcoal drawings for official events and his talents were soon recognized by the Institut National des Arts de Bamako, in the nation’s capital.

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Malick Sidibé, Les Retrouvailles au bord du fleuve Niger, 1974, Tirage argentique baryté, Papier : 50 x 60 cm © Malick Sidibé Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris

Categories: 1960s

The Making of a Fugitive

Posted on October 3, 2016

Artwork: Dennis Adams, Patricia Hearst – A thru Z, 1979/90. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Howard and Donna Stone. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago.

On August 7, 1970, Jonathan Jackson, a 17-year-old African-American high school student brought three guns into the Marin County Hall of Justice during the trial of San Quentin inmate James McClain. Jackson, McClain, and Black Panther party inmates Ruchell Magee and William A. Christmas took Superior Court Harold Haley, Deputy D.A. Garry Thomas, and thee female jurors hostage. The group exited the courthouse and attempted to flee in a van. The police opened fire, starting a shootout that left Jackson, Haley, McClain, and Christmas dead.

It soon came to light that that Jackson’s guns had been purchased two days prior to the incident by Angela Davis, then an assistant professor In the philosophy department at UCLA. The state of California considers “all persons concerned in the commission of a crime, whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense…principals in any crime committed,” and charged Davis with “aggravated kidnapping and first degree murder in the death of Judge Harold Haley.” *

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Danny Lyon: Journey

Posted on September 27, 2016

Photo: Danny Lyon, Mary, Santa Marta, Colombia, 1972, Gelatin silver enlargement print © Danny Lyon. Courtesy of the artist and Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York and Zurich

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding,” Plato wrote in The Republic circa 380 B.C.

Empathy is both an emotional response, as well as a cognitive one. We can both feel what another experiences, as well as perceive it through rational thought. To be empathetic is a challenge some refuse to accept, but for those willing to open themselves, it is a two-fold process. First there is simply the ability to understand that which is not our own, and to refrain from manipulations that would adulterate its truth. Once we are able to do this, the next step comes: to share this truth in a responsible way, one that allows us to use our personal gifts in the service of the cause, while maintaining integrity and authenticity above all.

American photographer and filmmaker Danny Lyon (b. 1942) understand this, and has dedicated his life to the pursuit of truth. Working in the style of New Journalism, in which the photographer fully immersed himself in the milieu in which he worked, Lyon uses emotional and cognitive empathy to delve beyond the surface of the world and capture something much deeper and far more profound, something so visceral it goes beyond words and cuts straight to the soul.

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Photo: Danny Lyon, The Haitian Women, Port Au Prince, 1986, Gelatin silver enlargement print © Danny Lyon. Courtesy of the artist and Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York and Zurich

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

A People’s Journey Across American Finally Arrives on the Washington Mall

Posted on September 24, 2016

Created by: Arthur Rothstein, published by Hyperion Press Ltd. Girl at Gee’s Bend, Alabama 1937; printed 1981, silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper H x W (Image): 8 15/16 x 12 in. (22.7 x 30.5 cm) H x W (Image and Sheet): 10 7/8 x 14 in. (27.6 x 35.6 cm) Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) holds its grand opening today—just one week after Terence Crutcher, 40, was extrajudicially killed by Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby. The father of four, who was on his way home from community college when his car broke down, was unarmed and had his hands in his air when Shelby fired the fatal shot without warning. Then, just four days later, Keith Lamont Scott, 43, was shot dead by Charlotte Police Officer Brentley Vinson while waiting for his son to be dropped off after school by the bus, sparking the on-going Charlotte Uprising, which has left a second man dead.

The tragedy is that Crutcher’s story is not unique; it is the very foundation upon which the United States was built. The men who wrote, “All men are created equal” are the same ones who determined African Americans only amounted to 3/5ths of a person. It has been said that, “The more things change, the more they remain the same,” and with every police killing, we are reminded of this—just as we are reminded that the United States government was found guilty of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a 1999 trial, which the mainstream media did not cover at the time.

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Brotherhood Records, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Funeral Services, 1968 vinyl , ink on cardboard H x W (2011.17.37a disc): 12 × 12 in. (30.5 × 30.5 cm) H x W (2011.17.37b album jacket): 12 3/8 × 12 3/8 in. (31.4 × 31.4 cm). Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Elmer J. Whiting, III.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Wall Writers: Graffiti in its Innocence

Posted on September 16, 2016

Photo: CORNBREAD declares he has retired, 1971. Photo used with permission of Philadelphia Inquirer, ©2014

Picture it: New York and Philadelphia, the late 1960s. A curious phenomenon takes hold as names begin to appear on the street, written on the walls. In the beginning, it’s just a couple of names, written over and over again. It’s a mystery, these names. Who are they and what do they mean? It doesn’t quite register with the general population but it hits home with kids. It’s fame of a most unusual kind. The fame of being known for what you do long before anyone knows who you are.

It slowly begins to grip the imagination of a few who are dedicated, and from these humble beginnings, a cultural revolution begins. Graffiti is one of the most basic human impulses. As soon as children know how to write their names, they’re keen to leave their mark. This offends many who find it indecorous, such is their longing to conform to other people’s rules. But then there are those who refuse to conform and insist on living on their own terms.

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UGA canvas featuring STITCH 1-n-ROCKY 184, circa 1973. Photo courtesy of Rocky 184.

ROCKY 184 and STITCH 1, circa 1972. Courtesy of ROCKY 184.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, Brooklyn, Crave, Graffiti, Manhattan

Len Speier: Nearly Everybody

Posted on September 15, 2016

Photo: Nearly Everybody, vintage gelatin silver print. © Len Speier, courtesy Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York.

“Lucky Man Speier,” they call him, and this is true. At the tender age of 88, native New Yorker Len Mitchell Speier is receiving his due with his first solo exhibition of photographs, Nearly Everybody, currently on view at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York, now through October 29, 2016. Drawn from an archive that spans six decades, the show features 48 vintage photographs made in New York and Europe between the 1960s and ‘80s.

As with many things in his life, Nearly Everybody came about through the fortunes of fate. Following the success of her recent exhibition Bacalaitos & Fireworks at the gallery, Speier asked photographer Arlene Gottfried if she could introduce him to Daniel Cooney; Gottfried said it was okay to use her name so Speier did just that.

Cooney remembers, “The call came out of the blue. After we spoke, I Googled and not much popped up. I went up to visit him at his apartment and that was it. It was an amazing moment.”

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Photo: Fight Racism, White Street, NYC, 1969, vintage gelatin silver print. © Len Speier, courtesy Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Manhattan, Photography

Fifty Years After

Posted on September 6, 2016

Photo: Mickalene Thomas Remember Me, 2006 c-print 49 1/2 x 59 x 1 3/4 inches (framed) Edition 4 of 5, with 2 APs.

The March on Washington took place on August 28, 1963, marking the twelfth anniversary of the murder of Emmett Till. Till was just 14 years old when he was lynched in Mississippi, an event so heinous that it became a pivotal catalyst for the next phase of the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1963, less than five years before he would be assassinated the United States government, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the top of Lincoln Memorial and delivered a speech, a speech so powerful that you can hear it in your mind’s ear as you read his words: “I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”

But where have we come in decades since this speech? We live in an era where extrajudicial executions are a daily operation at the hands of police departments around the country. Where these brutal murders are brazenly broadcast on television with complete disregard—or perhaps intention—to involve a permanent state of PTSD in our countrymen and women. Where protests are called unpatriotic in as much as some in this country pledge allegiance to a flag that represents the politics of the Confederacy.

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

Hamidou Maiga

Posted on September 5, 2016

Contemporary African art has come to the fore, giving us exquisite insights into the intricacies, nuances, and aesthetics of the oldest peoples on earth. But Africa is not a country; it is a continent as rich and diverse as the DNA of the peoples, who possess the greatest variety in the world. Its arts reflect this in whatever form they may take, providing poetic and philosophical vantage points by which we may consider a wide array of experiences.

Photography has been an integral part of the aesthetic landscape since its inception in the nineteenth century. Throughout the twentieth-century we have seen portrait photographers such as Malick Sidibé amd Seydou Keita rise in prominence, such is the power of their work to capture the soul of Mali on silver gelatin paper.

Their success and influence has become a tremendous draw to other great portrait photographers working in other countries. MATE – Museo Mario Testino, Lima, Peru, is particularly attuned to the great photographers of our time. For the third edition of Maestros se la Fotografía, MATE presents Hamidou Maiga, on view now through October 2, 2016. The exhibition features a selection of 36 black-and-white photographs made by the 84 year-old artist made between 1962–1973.

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, Africa, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Latin America, Photography

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry

Posted on August 24, 2016

Artwork: Kerry James Marshall, Untitled, 2009. Acrylic on PVC panel. 61 1/8 x 72 7/8 x 3 7/8 in. Yale University Art Gallery, Purchased with the Janet and Simeon Braguin Fund and a gift from Jacqueline L. Bradley, B.A. 1979.

Artist Kerry James Marshall’s life traces the course of American history over the second half of the twentieth century. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955, Marshall spent his earliest years deep in the heart of Dixie where Jim Crow laws were enforced with a vengeance. In 1963, his family moved to South Central Los Angeles, where the Watts riots would pop off just two years later.

While the Civil Rights and Black Power movements took hold of national consciousness, Marshall focused his talents of the depiction of African American identity, experience, and consciousness. Deftly translating the unique space that Black America holds, Marshall is driven by passion to render what has been erased visible. In doing so, he sets the record straight, restoring to not only America but the to the world what had been taken from it.

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Kerry James Marshall, Better Homes, Better Gardens, 1994. Denver Art Museum Collection: Funds from Polly and Mark Addison, the Alliance for Contemporary Art, Caroline Morgan, and Colorado Contemporary Collectors: Suzanne Farver, Linda and Ken Heller, Jan and Frederick Mayer, Beverly and Bernard Rosen, Annalee and Wagner Schorr, and anonymous donors. © Kerry James Marshall. Photo courtesy of the Denver Art Museum.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions