Posts from the “1980s” Category

Joseph Rodriguez: Mi Gente

Posted on November 10, 2015

Photo: Friday night at the Dominoe Social Club, 1987 © Joseph Rodriguez

Spanish Harlem. It’s an attitude, a mood, a way of living that is open, emotional, and warm. It is dominoes on the street as the sun sets as the music of Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri wafts through the air from passing car stereos. It’s a place where open bottles and open fire hydrants are welcome in equal measure. Spanish Harlem is the city’s oldest barrio, dating back to the 1940s, when Puerto Ricans first established themselves in this little corner of upper eastside New York. Home to 120,000 people, half of which are Latino, the neighborhood has been forced to confront some of the city’s endemic problems of crime, drugs, AIDS, and chronic unemployment, many times as a result of systemic racism. Yet, like most true Yorkers, the people have a spirit and a will to survive.

For photographer Joseph Rodriguez, Spanish Harlem is sacred ground, a place he has returned to throughout his life to engage with the community. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Rodriguez first went uptown to visit his uncle who had a candy store in el barrio. Then, in 1984, as a student at the International Center of Photography, he was given the assignment of documenting the gentrification of East Harlem.

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Photo: Vietnam Veteran, 1988 © Joseph Rodriguez

Photo: Night scene, 1988 © Joseph Rodriguez

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

Lorraine O’Grady: Art Is…

Posted on November 2, 2015

Art Is… (Girlfriends Times Two), 1983/2009 Chromogenic color print 16 × 20 in. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York

Quiet as kept, the annual African-American Day Parade attracts millions of people each year as it arches through the heart of Harlem, beginning at Central Park North, and marching up Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd to 136 Street. Founded in 1968 as an independent organization, the parade does not accept contributions. Instead, it was developed with the sprit of volunteerism and honoring the community. Featuring fire, police, and corrections departments, veterans associations, grand lodges, fraternities and sororities, step and drill teams, the African-American Day Parade is like Harlem Homecoming to the nation.

It was with in this spirit that conceptual artist Lorraine O’Grady stages a performance piece, “Art Is…”, which she entered her own float into the September 1983 African-American Day Parade with fifteen collaborators dressed in white. At the top of the float was a gilded gold frame, enormous and ornate, like the type you’d find in a museum around a masterpiece. As the float went up the boulevard, it framed everyone it passed, providing a moving snapshot of the treasures of life. The words “Art Is…” were emblazoned on he float’s skirt, offering an open-ended point of view. “Art is anything you can get away with,” said Andy Warhol.

“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home,” said Twyla Tharp. “Art is the most intense mode of individualism the world has ever known,” said Oscar Wilde. Art is any possibility you can imagine, even the idea that those two words could inspire countless ideas from all points of view. Just try it at home. Ask yourself to fill in the blanks. What is art to you?

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Art Is… (Girl Pointing), 1983/2009 Chromogenic color print 20 × 16 in. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York

Art Is… (Line of Floats), 1983/2009 Chromogenic color print 16 × 20 in. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York

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

Mandana Towhidy: Arcadia

Posted on October 29, 2015

Mandana Towhidy by Amy Davis (amydavis.com)

I used to think of writing a novel as one of the most noble acts on earth. There was something about the ability to create a world on the page that spoke to my soul. Perhaps it came from all the reading I had done, the places I had been, the people I had met, they were so real and yet… they were a reality that only existed in the mind. And to my heart, there is a beauty in this, in living in another world that exists only in the written word. Mandana Towhidy, author of Arcadia, talks about her experiences writing a novel about teen girls living their dreams in the Hollywood Metal scene during the late ’80s-early ’90s.

Miss Rosen: Please talk about the inspiration to write a novel? Where did the idea, desire, and drive come from ?

Mandana Towhidy: I think, especially as a child who loves to read and as a teen who uses reading/writing to escape, it does most def transport you into places maybe you couldn’t get to in real life. Whatever “real life” is. I have always been writing and have always wanted to write a novel…just to write it. Check it off the list. Say I did it. And figuring out where or how to do it was maybe daunting for a while. And with the pressures and the busy-ness of life, it was a challenge. But I read something someone wrote, maybe it was Joseph Campbell. I think he said something like once he decided to write, he would renounce all fun, work, obligations, visits, everything and focus on it and it alone. This struck a chord with me. I soon followed suit…telling my editors and creative heads that I couldn’t take on any work for a while. Was very hard at times (I ate one donut a day for a little while due to lack of funds). But the result was voila! I had a novel. I also had a great agent already and I didn’t take that factor for granted. Finding an agent can be hard enough. I had one and he is a great one and that also pushes me to keep writing books. I wrote four books before Arcadia. But it really felt like Arcadia should be the first one out of the gate.

I had been talking about this book for years before I actually wrote it. I grew up loving Heavy Metal and lots of crazy girl rockers that were around before my time like The Runaways and Suzi Quatro. I loved high school films like Fast Times, etc. I knew I had a story to tell about a time in Los Angeles where very young people could get away with scandal on the Sunset Strip. And, I thought it could be fun.

While writing my novel I discovered the strangest thing. I didn’t quite have control over what was happening. I had an idea, in as much as an image came to mind, and I had a sense of direction, but in a lot of ways, I was discovering something I knew and did not know at the same time. Please talk about the milieu for Arcadia, the space and places you wanted to explore, and what you found—or did not find—there as you made your way across the landscape of this inner world.

YES! My dear friend and someone I also consider a mentor, Amy Davis (who also did the portrait of me for this interview) used to tell me, “You can’t force the muse…”. She was right. You, too, are right on. I think maybe for a lot of writers, we know the roundabout of the story but once we sink our teeth into it, other branches and people and feelings and occasions show up unexpectedly. We get awakened in the middle of the night with inspiration to write something we had never thought of or could ever know in a wakened state. Perhaps. I think for a lot of books, especially older books, there are many layers. I always say for Arcadia, there is a superficial layer of hair and clothes and beer and partying. But, depending on where you are in your headspace, that deeper layers will become very clear. At its core, Arcadia is about something that is totally unrelated to its story, if that makes any sense (probably not). Also, whatever you’re experiencing in your everyday life will seep into the words, characters, situations, chapters, voice. How can it not?

There is something very very magical that happens once you commit to going down that road in novel writing.

Talk to me about the era in which Arcadia is situated. You return us to this era that has long since disappeared. Please talk about its importance at the time and in retrospect. What was gained? What was lost?

Arcadia is set in the late 1980s/early 1990s Los Angeles/Hollywood/Sunset Strip/suburb of LA. Pre-cellphones, pre-internet, pre-DUI, pre-social media, pre-everything that we have now. A time of super partying and DIY and a time when very young people could go virtually anywhere with a fake I.D. Los Angeles was ruled by kids then, not real estate developers and tech heads turning every cool neighborhood into Silicon Hell. It’s a high school narrative, a coming-of-age story of a girl in this world who is trying to navigate through all the crap and the good and the confusion. I think when you are experiencing things or back then when we were experiencing things, we took for granted that EVERYONE was experiencing the same thing. But they weren’t. Now everyone and everything is homogenized. They are all on the same page. You know what’s going on in every nook of every city and it’s all the same, pretty much. Back then…we were isolated. Which made it even more special. I hadn’t seen or read anything from the viewpoint of a teenager on the Strip into Metal and going to high school in a suburb of LA. There is a lot of detail, maybe in some cases too much. But, at the very least, it’s all there. For everyone for all time. Wanna know what they drank. It’s in there. What they thought? Drove? Ate? Wore? What color lipgloss they used or who the most popular bands were…it’s all in there. Plus, all the deeper stuff. Which I think has to do again with the reader. What they need to know/see, they will. I also wanted something from the perspective of a young girl, as that era seems to be run by boys. But that’s not true. Yeah.

The symbolic importance of Arcadia, especially today, it is highly relevant. With IG and all the social media bullshit, there is so much fake and faux and just plain illusion, how do you know what’s real and what’s not? How do you decide who is really who they say they are based on their posts? Everything is so histrionic and narcissistic now, how does one get through it? Forget the forest, no one even cares about that anymore because they’re too busy posting selfies. The main character in the book, Ronnie, is looking for answers to all of these same questions…what is the meaning of existence? It’s not driving a Beamer or posting a photo of your ass online to get attention. The meaning of life may have been confusing back then, but it’s got to be even more diluted now with what’s going on. So it’s highly relevant in today’s world. And hopefully somewhere in the midst of all the shallowness, there might be some people who step back and listen and look…and question. And hopefully, one day, on a day they didn’t see coming, they finally get a glimpse into the reason why everything is the way it is.

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Books

Glenn Ligon: A People on the Cover

Posted on October 19, 2015

Lorrie Davis with Rachel Gallagher, Letting Down My Hair: Two Years with the Love Rock Tribe – From Dawning to Downing of Aquarius. Published by Arthur Fields Books, New York, 1973.

While doing a residency at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, artist Glenn Ligon began collaborating with the Givens Collection of African American Literature at the University of Minnesota. Without a clear plan for the partnership, Ligon began wandering the stacks, perusing their holdings, and looking at books he randomly pulled off the shelves. As he did so he discovered the project he would create, the telling of the history of black people in the United States as represented on the covers of books. The result is an intimate white paperback quietly titled A People on the Cover (Ridinghouse).

The book begins with an introduction by Ligon, in which he recounts a brief history of his readings from 1960-1978. He begins with the formative memory of the day a white man came to his South Bronx home, going door-to-door trying to sell the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the housing projects. Ligon’s mother, who worked as a nurse’s aide at a psychiatric hospital, purchased that set of books that was the equivalent of almost an entire month’s rent, believing that education was the best way to get her children out of the hood.

Ligon, who was subsequently transferred to a private school, remembers the way that books became status symbols of white culture, and reinforced their ideals, and found himself in a precarious position of being a young teenage boy living in two worlds. In his earlier years, he recounts an interest in the pretenses of white culture, but grew out of that pose on his first trip to the Eighth Street Bookshop in Greenwich Village. He spotted James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time in the store window, and became transfixed by the red, black, and orange cover of the book. As Ligon writes, “I felt, in that moment, that in those four words on the cover, I had found myself.”

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Bronx, Crave

Jamel Shabazz: The Book That Changed My Life

Posted on October 14, 2015

In the Brooklyn home where Jamel Shabazz grew up, his father kept a signed copy of Leonard Freed’s book, Black in White America, on the coffee table. The book, which was first published in 1968, opens with a photograph of an African American solder standing in front of the Berlin Wall in 1962. Freed was struck by the fact that the solder was willing to defend America abroad while back in the United States, they were subject to systemic racism, oppression, and exploitation under Jim Crow laws.

Freed returned to the United States and began to document the everyday black life during the battle for civil rights in New York, Washington, D.C., and throughout the South. The result of his efforts was a landmark book that changed the life of photographer Jamel Shabazz when he was nine years old.

The original edition of the book did not have a photo. It just had the words: BLACK IN WHITE AMERICA. Shabazz remembers opening the book, and stopping at the first image of the solider taken in 1962. His father and two uncles were military, on of who was still stationed in Germany. From the very beginning, Freed’s work became a profound source of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding for Shabazz.

He recalls, “The book moved me to time travel outside of my community. It allowed m to escape the projects to North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi. I was seeing the places for the first time. After I looked at the pictures, I went back to read the book. There were so many words I didn’t understand. I saw ‘nigger’ for the first time in my life, so I went to a dictionary to look it up. I looked up ‘segregation’ and ‘integration.’ The first time I saw the word ‘rape’ was in this book. I didn’t understand what that word meant. It goes beyond the photos. I was learning horrible new words and it set my mind in a way that school wouldn’t. I was rereading the book, imaging myself at nine and ten years old, trying to decipher what is going on. I fell in love with photography and used the dictionary to unlock the mystery of this book.”

Photo: Leonard Freed

Photo: Jamel Shabazz

Shabazz recalls, “Growing up, there was only one television in the house, so I only got bits and pieces of what was going on in the outside world, especially regarding the civil rights movement. I saw a beautiful photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for the very first time in Freed’s book, thus helping me better understand what was happening in both the northern and southern cities. Through the artistry of Leonard Freed, I was introduced to the power of documentary photography and the art of visual story telling. Freed’s book enlightened me to the harsh world of inequality, segregation, and struggle. In essence, Black in White America, became an essential study guide introducing me to the real world I would soon have to face, as a boy growing into manhood.“

Shabazz picked up a camera while he was in high school during the 1970s, but it wasn’t until he came home from a tour in the military in 1980 that his passion was revealed. His father, a military photographer himself, saw the that fire in his son, and gave him Freed’s book as an instrumental guide. Shabazz recalls, “He gave me the book so I could study lighting, composition, and black and white photography. Some of the most compelling photographs I made were shot almost right away. The seed had been planted in my mind at nine years old. I see things that people have a tendency to walk by. I take my time to observe what is going on around me.”

Photo: Leonard Freed

Photo: Jamel Shabazz

Freed taught Shabazz how to be a storyteller by virtue of mastering the craft. The greatest teachers lead by example and Freed was no exception to this fact. In the spirit of revolution, the circle spins round once again. Now on the cover of the book is a photograph of a young boy, flexing his bicep. Shabazz observes, “He’s the same age I was when I first picked up this up this book. I was building my mental through this book.”

In the works of Leonard Freed and Jamel Shabazz, we can see the way in which the commitment to truth, justice, and honor is more than a career, it is a spiritual quest, a calling to honor the people of this earth through the creation of the book. I am honored to present the works of Leonard Freed and Jamel Shabazz side by side here.

Photo: Jamel Sbahazz

For More Information, Please Visit
Black in White America
Leonard Freed
Jamel Shabazz

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Photography

Training Days: The Subways Artists Then & Now

Posted on October 5, 2015

Photo: Bil Rock, Min, and Kel in the City Hall lay-up at night, 1983 ©Henry Chalfant

Graffiti is like a virus of the best kind. It resides deep in the heart and it makes its presence known in ways large and small. It travels from writer to writer around the world, bringing different handstyles, letterforms, color combinations, and placements to life. It is here today, gone tomorrow, one of the most ephemeral of all the arts.

Were it not for the photograph, some of the greatest masterpieces of graffiti would be unknown, and so it is with great fortune that Henry Chalfant began taking pictures of New York City trains between the years of 1977-1984. In total he amassed of 800 photographs of full trains from some of the greatest writers working during those years. “I have always been attracted to youthful rebellion and mischief,” Chalfant observes with a gentle laugh.

In order to photograph a full car when it arrived in the station, Chalfant stood on the platform on the opposite side, so that he could have enough distance to get 15-foot sections of the train inside his viewfinder. Using a 50mm lens, Chalfant took four or five photographs of each car, and then spliced them together using a razor and adhesive tape. As a sculptor, Chalfant’s hand was flawless, as he was able to translate the scale of each train to the photographic image. But the skill needed to get these shots? That was like stalking big game.

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Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Bronx, Brooklyn, Crave, Graffiti, Manhattan, Photography

Beauté Congo – 1926-2015 – Congo Kitoko

Posted on September 1, 2015

JP Mika, Kiese na kiese, 2014, Oil and acrylic on fabric, 168.5 x 119 cm, Pas-Chaudoir Collection, Belgique
© JP Mika/Photo © Antoine de Roux

Since 1987, André Magnin, chief curator at Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, has had a passion for the Congo which stirred his soul to travel the country and experience the people and their arts firsthand. In response to his thirty-year journey, he has organized Beauté Congo – 1926-2015 – Congo Kitoko, a survey of paintings, photographs, sculpture, comics, music, and films now on view at Fondation Cartier, Paris, through November 15, 2015.

Organized chronologically, the exhibition begins in the 1920s, at the birth of modern painting in the Congo, when the nation was still a colony of Belgium. Having just survived the genocidal regime of King Leopold II, under which 10 million Congolese lost their lives, the art of this era had been in the shadows. Magnin obsessively search for work, drawing together pieces that reveal the way of life in the village, the natural world, the dreams and legends of the times.

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Djilatendo, Sans titre, c. 1930, Gouache and ink on paper, 24.5 x 18 cm, Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale, Tervuren, HO.0.1.3371
© Djilatendo/Photo © MRAC Tervuren

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

Scott Nichols Gallery: It’s Only Rock and Roll

Posted on August 26, 2015

Photo: Baron Wolman, Jimmy Hendrix with Guitar, 1968

Photo: Andy Freeberg, BB King at Montreux, 1980

The late, great B.B. King observed, “Playing the guitar is like telling the truth—you never have to worry about repeating the same [lie] if you told the truth. You don’t have to pretend, or cover up. If someone asks you again, you don’t have to think about it or worry about it because there it is. It’s you.”

King lived his life in this truth and gave this truth to the world. He who had said, “I never use that word, retire,” continued to play live performances until just months before his death, earlier this year, at 89 years old. King, one of the greatest blues musicians of our times, showing us that music is not just in your blood, it is in your soul. He understood the power of music to bring people together, to reach them in a way that nothing else could. He sagely advised, “You only live but once, and when your died your done, so let the good times roll,” and he set those words to song.

We feel his joy, long after he is gone, not just in his music but in the photographs taken of him throughout the years. “I want to connect my guitar to human emotions,” King said, and we are reminded of the power of his intention when gazing upon Andy Freeberg’s photograph of BB King at Montreux, 1980, which is currently on view in the group show It’s Only Rock and Roll, on view at Scott Nichols Gallery, San Francisco, now through September 16, 2015.

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

Danny Clinch: Still Moving

Posted on July 17, 2015

Photograph: Bruce Springsteen, 2007 (©Danny Clinch).

“Still is still moving to me,” Willie Nelson said, a beautiful sentiment befitting the photograph itself. A fraction of a second frozen in time, forevermore, is the ephemeral made eternal. This is a kind of magic, something more than art. It is an artifact, a document, witness to history as it unfolds. The photograph must stand the test of time; it must endure so that it can speak to future generations.

Music photography is a beautiful paradox: the silence is deafening, yet enveloping. That which is sound is now purely visual, distilled in a single moment that delivers all the highs and lows, all the rhythm and blues, as the crowd goes wild and we becomes one. It is this intensity that the photographer seeks, this moment when we are lost and found that we are truly present.

Danny Clinch is a master of the form, seamlessly moving on and off stage with his instrument, the camera guiding his way. More than 200 of his seminal photographs are collected in Still Moving (Abrams Books), along with an essay by Bruce Springsteen, who explains, “When Danny Clinch and I clicked as photographer/subject, it was because somewhere deep inside we had he same points of reference—the same songs and movies dancing in our heads. With each click of the shutter he was scrolling through my record collection, referencing my influences, searching for the same magic. I could feel he’d been mesmerized by the same images of our heroes that made me want to be a musician and that made me, during our shoots, tilt my head down a little (like Elvis), or move to the left into a half shadow (like Dylan) or out into light (like, like…?).”

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Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Crave, Music, Photography

Arlene Gottfried: Mommie

Posted on July 3, 2015

Photograph by Arlene Gottfried

Photographs by Arlene Gottfried

Last summer I had the great pleasure of speaking with Arlene Gottfried at length, well, listening mostly, listening and asking questions and then listening again as Arlene spoke of her life behind the camera. A second generation New Yorker, Arlene has born witness to the people that have made this city one of the greatest places on earth. Her photographs never fail to delight and astound with their distinctive blend of compassion, style, and grace, with a knowing nod, a giggle, and a wink. This is New York, after all.

Arlene is unassuming yet powerful. The intensity of her presence can best be felt when looking at her photograph or listening to her sing gospel. I remember hearing her in church on several occasions, overwhelmed and overjoyed by the spirit she channels. It is this spirit, this very soul, that makes Arlene one of the most compelling artists I know. And so it was with great honor that last summer I interviewed Arlene about her life, her family, and her work for her forthcoming book, Mommie (powerHouse Books).

I remember seeing the mock up for Mommie at powerHouse years ago, once again overwhelmed by the depth and profundity of her work. To be honest, I was not ready for this level of truth, this intense bond between generations of women, all flowers from the same root. Mommie is Arlene’s fourth book with powerHouse, and perhaps the most personal of an incredibly intimate body of work.

As I listened to Arlene speak, I realized she was a woman who has kept a great many private matters just so, and with Mommie she was sharing more than her memories, she was baring witness as the family historian. As time passes, we come to terms with the eternal circle of life and death and birth once more. With Mommie, we quietly observe, we feel, and we think; Arlene’s photographs have the cumulative effect of softly sinking into your body and changing the very nature of your being.

In that same way, the book is an object unto itself, an object to be held, much like a family album. powerHouse would like to use real upholstery fabric to wrap the book’s boards (the front cover, spine, and back cover) and has decided to create a Indie GoGo account to support the production costs. In order to share Arlene’s story, they asked me to interview her a couple of months ago, and this time, Arlene sang “Amazing Grace,” a moment that be stilled my soul.

The video is now live, and the Indie GoGo campaign has begun. We invite you to visit the campaign at MOMMIE, and support the project. Among the rewards offered are Arlene’s first three powerHouse Books: Bacalaitos & Fireworks, Midnight, and Sometimes Overwhelming, each one a treasury of New York City history, street photography, and style, each one a love letter from the bottom of her heart.

Photograph by Arlene Gottfried

Photograph by Arlene Gottfried

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Manhattan, Photography, Women

Andy Warhol: The Complete Commissioned Record Covers 1949-1987

Posted on July 1, 2015

Melodic Magic, Vol 1, 1953. All images © 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The album cover is an icon of the past, of an age when vinyl was something to be collected. The 12 x 12 inch surface was a canvas ripe for exploration, the square format offering infinite interpretations. The album cover, such as it was, provided a space for the artist to put us in the mood, to seduce us with images, words, ideas. It offered a space for contemplation, as the record spun round, creating a delicious interplay between audio and visual experience of the work. As a result, album covers, in certain cases, have become icons themselves.

ndy Warhol designed his first record cover in 1949; clearly he sensed the value of the medium, for he launched his career phoning record companies and soliciting them. Over the years, until his death in 1987, he created more than fifty covers which are presented beautifully in Andy Warhol: The Complete Commissioned Record Covers 1949-1987, Catalogue Raisonné, 2nd Edition by Paul Maréchal (Prestel). Produced at nearly actual size, with photographs of the original works, along with entries detailing the story of each album, this catalogue is a compendium of sumptuous delight.

Warhol’s gift for blurring the lines between high and low art and be felt in each and every illustration he created. His best known works, the covers of The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967) and the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers (1971), appear alongside lesser known works such as Monk featuring Thelonious Monk with Sonny Rollins and Frank Foster (1954) Giant Size $1.57 Each, released in conjunction with the exhibition The Popular Image at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art (1963). Taken together as a group, we can follow the thread of Warhol’s transformation from illustrator to artist, his visual vocabulary becoming more exact and extreme as his ideas take hold.

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Monk, 1954. All images © 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Crave, Manhattan, Music