Posts from the “Art” Category

Valérie Belin at Huxley-Parlour

Posted on February 21, 2018

The Stranger, from the series All Star, 2016. © Valérie Belin, courtesy Huxley-Parlour Gallery

We revel in the splendour of surfaces, rarely delving below them and often mistaking the appearance of things for their inner truth. With an unmistakable understanding of the pleasures of sight, French photographer Valérie Belin gives us what we want while simultaneously examining the intersections between identity and artifice with a luxurious exploration of the feminine in her large-scale artworks.

Belin’s gift lies in her ability to make us question the nature of our desires. Taking the notion of gender as a construct to the logical extreme, she photographs mannequins and models alike in a manner that simultaneously embraces and deconstructs our stereotypes.

“What I am trying to express in my work is related to my status as a woman, in a humble way. It doesn’t have a militant aesthetic nor a political discourse,” Belin says. She does just this in her eponymous exhibition, opening February 21 at Huxley-Parlour, London, which features 15 works from the series Transsexuals, Mannequins, Brides, Super Models, All Star, and Painted Ladies, made between 2001 and 2017. Here, Belin speaks about the power of images to shape our beliefs about what “female” means.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Brides_XXX, from the series Brides, 2012. © Valérie Belin, courtesy Huxley-Parlour Gallery

Categories: AnOther, Art, Photography, Women

Philip Trager: New York in the 1970s

Posted on February 16, 2018

West Broadway, 1978. © Philip Trager

In 1970, Daniel Patrick Moynihan convinced the Nixon White House to support a policy of “benign neglect,” wherein basic government services were systemically denied to cities across the United States with large African-American and Latinx populations.

New York City quickly became the nation’s most famous victim of “urban blight” at the hands of the state. The city teetered on the edge of bankruptcy as manufacturers fled en masse, while landlords hired arsonists to torch their buildings knowing they could get more money from insurance than they could from resale. The city fell into desolate and desperate straits. Yet within this horrific landscape, New York maintained its dignity and strength, becoming the site for the most explosive cultural movements of the late 20th century.

The city’s landmark buildings and dramatic vistas were a symbol of the potent energy that lay within, a vision that spoke to American photographer Philip Trager. He and his wife Ina packed a view camera and two tripods into their Jeep Commando and drove into Manhattan from Connecticut, where they lived at the time.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

West 122nd Street, 1979. © Philip Trager

Categories: 1970s, Art, Books, Huck, Manhattan, Photography

John Edmonds: Family Pictures

Posted on February 16, 2018

American Gods, 2017. Photography John Edmonds.

In 1952, Roy DeCarava became the first African American photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship and he used the grant money to create a stunning series of black and white pictures documenting intimate moments of daily life of his native Harlem. The resulting work was a warm and wondrous portrait of the familial spirit of the community when Harlem was the Mecca of black life in the United States.

After book publishers rejected the work, DeCarava packed the photos up and kept them in his closet until epiphany hit. He decided to share them with his neighbour, the poet Langston Hughes, who immediately recognised the beauty of the world in which he lived. Hughes sifted through the 500 photographs DeCarava gave him and began to pen a fictional account of their hometown, a story of family among stranger that became The Sweet Flypaper of Life, the landmark photography book released in 1955, a feat of publishing to which countless artists and authors continue to aspire.

The Sweet Flypaper of Life has been chosen as the starting point for Family Pictures, a group exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, opening February 16, 2018, that spans a period of 60 years. Bringing together an intergenerational mix of some of the greatest African American photographers of our time – with works from John Edmonds, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Lyle Ashton Harris, Deana Lawson, Lorraine O’Grady, Gordon Parks, Sondra Perry, Ming Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems – the exhibition illustrated the ways in which family is a vital force in shaping the black community from the Civil Rights era to the present moment.

Hailing from Washington, D.C., John Edmonds is one of the youngest artists included in Family Pictures. Now 28, the Yale MFA graduate is a rising star on the photography scene, best known for creating a series of portraits that reveal a poignant and potent sense of intimacy that occurs in the act of creating art.

Growing up in the Christian church, being queer became a source of inner conflict that drove Edmonds in search of an understanding of self, of queer blackness, and of a place where he could be among family – a family he built himself through the act of making portraits. His photographs featured in the exhibition, made between 2012 and 2017, illustrate how one’s passions can create an empowered space for agency, community, and self-actualisation.

Edmonds, who will be publishing his own book with Capricious later this spring, speaks with us about how to create a portrait of your family in every sense of the word.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Biker Jacket, 2017. Photography John Edmonds.

Categories: Art, Dazed, Exhibitions, Photography

Kehinde Wiley & Amy Sherald; The Official Obama Portraits

Posted on February 16, 2018

When the official portraits of former President Barack Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama were unveiled on Monday, February 12, at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, all the world had something to say. Love them or hate them, one thing is sure: nothing about the portraits was in keeping with the traditions of the White House.

As the first African American President and First Lady, the Obamas brought vibrant colour and dynamic style to the conventional representation of supreme power. The choice of Kehinde Wiley, 40, and Amy Sherald, 44, was a political as well as aesthetic act, reinforcing the Obamas’ ongoing commitment to African American artists that includes the inclusion of Alma Thomas and Glenn Ligon in the official White House art collection.

With an intrinsic understanding of legacy, the Obamas know that political progress, like art, requires us to step ahead of the status quo and recognise that it may take them time to catch up. To some, the work of Wiley and Sherald might seem avant-garde but within the realms of art, they are very much of the here and now.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama” – 2018Amy Sherald, on display at National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Categories: Art, Dazed, Painting

A Portrait of the Legendary Barkley L. Hendricks

Posted on February 15, 2018

“YOCKS”, 1975© Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

In October 1968, Bobby Seale, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, made it plain in a court of law, when he faced conspiracy charges as part of the Chicago 8, stating: “We’re hip to the fact that Superman never saved no black people. You got that?”

Seale gave voice to a fact that was widely understood. So long as black folks are denied the opportunity to share their vision with the world, their lives and stories would be marginalised, misrepresented, or eradicated from the historical record.

Seale’s words were not lost on African American artist Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017), who donned a novelty Superman t-shirt, sunglasses, and nothing else for a self-portrait titled “Icon for My Man Superman (Superman Never Saved any Black People – Bobby Seale)” in 1969. The North Philadelphia native embodied the height of cool, a sensibility that dates back to 15th-century Nigerian Empire of Benin and has found its way across the African diaspora for six centuries.

Adopting the “cool pose,” with his arms folded across his chest against a simple grey backdrop framed in red, white, and blue, Hendricks tells it like it is. He is calm, fearless, and aloof, fully in control, poised, and dignified. Such is the strength of the painting that it was chosen as one of the primary images to promote Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, the landmark traveling exhibition which originated at Tate – opening just a couple of months after Hendricks’ death on April 16 at the age of 72.

“If you’re gonna do it, you might as well be memorable,” Hendricks told Thelma Golden, the Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, in the seminal 2008 monograph, Birth of the Cool (Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University), which has just been republished to include a memoriam to the artist and a selection of new images from his oeuvre.

The book, edited by Trevor Schoonmaker, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Nasher, brilliantly presents a masterful look at the figurative painting, a selection of which can be seen in the next iteration of Soul of a Nation, which opened earlier this month at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, as well as in the exhibition catalogue, available from the Tate, which features Hendricks’ painting “What’s Going On” (1974) on the cover.

But Hendricks’ genius goes far beyond the known. In his death, a wealth of previously unseen works have been revealed. Today, at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, will present Barkley L. Hendricks, Them Changes, the first ever exhibition of newly discovered works on paper made contemporaneously with his famous portrait paintings.

These works take us inside Hendricks’ process, giving us a look at the way he crafted and mastered a visual language entirely his own. “While best known for his bold life-sized portraits, Hendricks is also an accomplished photographer, landscape painter, watercolourist, draftsman, assemblage artist, carpenter, and jazz musician,” Schoonmaker wrote in the introduction to Birth of the Cool, reminding us that the man behind the easel was just as fascinating as the subjects he painted.

Here Elisabeth Sann, Director of Jack Shainman Gallery, shares insights into Hendricks’ singular career that never fails to surprise and delight people from all walks of life.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Misc. Tyrone (Tyrone Smith)”, 1976© Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

“Noir”, 1978© Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Dazed, Painting

Mr Chow: 50 Years

Posted on February 15, 2018

“Michael Chow, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Basquiat’s mother and friends” (1984). Silver gelatine print; 77/8 x 97/8 inches.Artwork by Andy Warhol. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

“Portrait of Michael Chow” (1984). Polymer silkscreened on canvas; 80 x 80 inches.Artwork by Andy Warhol. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Restauranteur. Designer. Architect. Art Collector. World Traveler. Icon of style and substance Michael Chow – or M, as he is known – has transformed fine dining into an art at Mr Chow, providing a magical bridge between the East and the West for the past fifty years.

M was born Zhou Yinghua in 1939 in Shanghai to Zhou Xingfang (1895-9175), a leading figure in the Peking Opera who wrote and acted in more than 650 titles during his illustrious career, and Lilian Qui (1905-1968), who hailed from a wealthy family whose fortune was made in tea.

At the age of 13, everything changed when M was sent to boarding school in London. What he didn’t know at the time was that he would never see or communicate with his father again. “Suddenly there was a void within me,” M reveals.

Into that chasm, M plunged – first in despair, then finding himself in art. He studied at St. Martins and went on to paint for a decade before the market forces made it apparent that it was not receptive to a Chinese artist. Once again, M turned to art to guide the way, launching the very first Mr Chow in Knightsbridge in February 1968.

From the very outset, Mr Chow was not just a restaurant – it was theatre: a stage for pleasure, passion, and intrigue, where Italian waiters served fine Chinese cuisine to sophisticated clientele and artworks by Allen Jones, Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, David Hockney, and Jim Dine became an integral part of the experience. He established three restaurants in London before setting a course to conquer America.

Over the past half-century, M has opened restaurants in Beverly Hills, New York, Miami, and Las Vegas, always bringing glamour and theatre to the dining experience. Now, on the occasion of Mr Chow’s golden anniversary, M has released, Mr Chow: 50 Years (Prestel/Delmonico), a beautifully illustrated volume that explores a singular life in art, architecture, design, and cuisine, combining the very best of the east and the west.

Featuring works by Helmut Newton, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Kenny Scharf, Francesco Clemente, and Ed Ruscha, just to name a few, the book reveals the significant role Mr Chow has played in the art world over five decades. Here, M speaks with us about a life in art: the past, present, and future vision of a man whose magic has touched countless hearts.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

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

Exclusive: Photographer Jamil GS Says Kendrick Lamar’s ‘LOVE.’ Video Copies His Work

Posted on February 13, 2018

Photo: Left: Kendrick Lamar’s ‘LOVE.’ video / Right: Jamil GS’s ‘Stick-ups’ series

About a minute and a half into the music video for Kendrick Lamar’s “LOVE.”, a scantily clad woman appears against a black backdrop, pulling pin-up poses, illuminated by a single source of light. It’s a stylish shot, and for any fans of hip hop photography, it might be familiar.

The image recalls “Outta Darkness”, a 2004-05 calendar of pin-up-style photos by Jamil GS, an influential photographer who has previously shot the likes of JAY-Z and Diddy and had his work exhibited alongside the likes of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. As the godfather of the ‘ghetto fabulous’ style of photography that reigned supreme during the 90s and early 00s, Jamil GS pioneered a look that took hip hop culture to the next level. He was surprised when he believed he saw his signature style replicated in Kendrick’s video.

“I’m disappointed that someone whose music I respect, and with such resources, would copy my work,” Jamil GS sighs. “When another artist or peer appropriates my work, it devalues it. I have a clear signature style that has taken years to develop and situations like this, if not called out, make it harder for me to market my work.”

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Categories: Art, Dazed, Music, Photography

Wyatt Gallery: The Windows of My Studio

Posted on February 10, 2018

1:50pm November 26, 2011 – Port of Spain, Trinidad. © Wyatt Gallery

“Wherever you go, there you are,” Confucius observed, explaining one of the inherent paradoxes of life. The nature of the human mind is one of an eternal quest, a seeking for answers – or maybe even the questions themselves.

We come to this earth without words, able to communicate through gesture, facial expression, guttural sounds and tones. It is enough to keep up going during our earliest, most vulnerable period of life but soon we are compelled to go beyond this visceral state. We are given words, words, and more words and shown how and when to use them: how to ask, how to answer – and, ultimately, how to think.

Life then becomes a process of accumulation until it reaches the tipping point and we discover that we are trapped inside losing paradigms made by lesser minds. It is then that our search takes a powerful turn, as we are forced to unwire our programming in the search for truth, undergoing the pain of stripping away lies that have shaped our identity in the most intimate and profound of ways.

This journey in inevitable although some may wish never to go, digging their heels in through denial, distraction, or delusion. But even within that, the yearning occurs, as we catch ourselves gazing out the window wondering, “What if? What is? What could be?”

It is here, in this moment of quiet repose, that our imagination is set free, able to launch itself into the world of possibility. This possibility is the essence of hope – the thing we dare not to say aloud for fear that it might escape our grasp. We hold it close to our heart, so close it lives in silence until the courage comes, to see out in the world whom we are truly meant to be.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

11:15am May 22, 2011 – Kapa’a, Kauai, Hawaii, USA. © Wyatt Gallery

Categories: Art, Feature Shoot, Photography

Q. Sakamaki: Buffalo Nation

Posted on February 9, 2018

A scene of Wakpamni Lake Annual Powwow on the 4th of July. In the late 19 century to the 1970s, the practice of native American religious ceremonies had been banned, even the use of their language in public. Now they can freely practice any faith or tradition, but the cost of losing their identity is big: most practitioners nowadays are the elder or children, not the youths. In addition, some Lakotas feel no sense about that they have the traditional ceremony on the 4th of July because of the historical relations between native Americans, surely including Lakotas, and the US government. But others would like to purposely use the day to appeal their culture and tradition, especially as many of Lakotas have served the US military. © Q. Sakamaki

Young Lakota native Americans join Lakota War Pony Races at Kiza Park, Pine Ridge, that environmentalists say faces the high risk of pollution in the ground water due to the nearby abandoned uranium mines and wells, often creating the risks of cancer, diabetes and other illness. © Q. Sakamaki

Established in 1899, Prisoner of War Camp #334 (aka Pine Ridge Reservation) is home to the people of the Oglala Lakota tribe, and has been ever since they were forced to abandon their native lands by the U.S. government. It was also the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre, the largest slaughter of innocent men, women, and children on American soil – a fact the often gets ignored when the U.S. media reports on mass shootings.

On 29 December, 1890, troops from the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment went into the South Dakota camp on a mission to disarm Black Coyote, a deaf man, while he was performing a ritual called the Ghost Dance. The rifle in question went off, and the U.S. soldiers charged the Lakota people, who had been disarmed. By the time they were done, some 300 innocent Lakota men, women, and children had been killed.

The U.S. government awarded Medals of Honor to 20 soldiers in the massacre at the time – only to express “deep regret” for the slaughter a century later, as reported by The New York Times in 1990.

That regret did not extend beyond mere words. For the past century, the Oglala Lakota, one of the seven tribes of the Great Sioux Nation, have been forced to live at Pine Ridge, the nation’s eighth largest reservation in conditions of extreme poverty, enforced by government policy and the breaking of treaties, which has resulted in the loss of vast natural holdings for the Lakota peoples.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Lakota native American veterans and their family members tribute to the dead family members and comrades during the service, at Wakpamni Lake Annual Powwow on the U.S independent day. The Lakota in the Pine Ridge reservation, like other Native Americans, have served the US military generations to generations. It is very disproportional in terms of their population ratio, and somehow it creates an ethical dilemma to serve the U.S. military because of the historical relations between native Americans and the U.S. government. However, many of them have no choice since there are not so many job opportunities in the reservations. © Q. Sakamaki

An alcoholic native American man is arrested with the charge of domestic violence in the Pine Ridge reservation. Alcoholism affects 8 out of 10 families in the Pine Ridge reservation, as many cannot have a hope in their future. © Q. Sakamaki

Categories: Art, Huck, Photography

Lyle Ashton Harris: Today I Shall Judge Nothing That Occurs

Posted on February 8, 2018

In the early morning on 17 October 1997, Lyle Ashton Harris wrote a poem “For Lawrence,” which he printed out and pasted into his journal, asking, “is there other ways to know thyself? / I guess in a sense I am still waiting / peaking through / I cry / fear, wondering, what, if I let it go, / to discover, to unveil another, to write, / to share myself with another, to trust myself. / i am still that little boy.”

The poem goes on to reflect on dying and death, on fear and desire, on the nerve it takes to be true to one’s self. It is something we all face in one way or another in this life – though the artist may grapple with these issues openly in their work, taking vulnerability to new heights of the sublime.

For Harris, the ascent began in 1993, when his exhibition Face: Lyle Ashton Harris opened at the New Museum. Here, he used photography, video, and audio to examine race, sexuality, and gender during a period when multiculturalism, globalisation, and AIDS activism dominated the world stage, transforming the conversation around black masculinity to expand beyond the rigid boundaries proscribed for African-American men.

The following year, Harris exhibited The Good Life, his first solo show, at Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, where he subverted markers of identity to show just how vast blackness is when seen from the inside looking out. The show solidified Harris’s place in a new generation of artists transforming the art world.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Dazed, Photography

Patrick D. Pagnano: Empire Roller Disco

Posted on February 5, 2018

Deep in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, back in 1941, the Empire Roller Skating Center opened its doors to the world. Located across the street from Ebbets Field, back when the Dodgers were the hometown team, the Empire brought the joys of rollerskating to countless generations in its massive 36,000 square-foot space.

By the 1970s, a new style had arrived: roller disco, which brought the uptempo dance music of the nightclubs to the rink. Sound systems were upgraded and DJ booths were installed, while skaters brought their moves, creating a new craze that took the nation by storm.

And, by 1980, the media was entranced. That February, Forbes magazine commissioned street photographer Patrick D. Pagnano to document the scene. “It was the first time I had been to Crown Heights,” he remembers. ”Once I entered the rink I was transported to another world and was in my element.”

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Categories: 1980s, Art, Brooklyn, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography