Posts from the “Books” Category

Dawoud Bey: Seeing Deeply

Posted on October 8, 2018

Three Women at a Parade, Harlem, NY, 1978. © Dawoud Bey

Martina and Rhonda, Chicago, IL, 1993. © Dawoud Bey

Ar the age of 16, New York native Dawoud Bey traveled from his home in Queens to see Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900–1968, the controversial exhibition that opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1969.

As he gazed upon the portraits that James Van Der Zee made during the Harlem Renaissance, Bey recognised the profound power of the photograph to become both a repository for communal memory and a portal into another era – one that informs the way we live and think today.

This innate understanding of the portrait at a young, formative age, provided the foundation upon which he has built a tremendous, transformative body of work. Over the past half a century, Bey’s photographs have become both art and artifact, evidence and testimony, document of the moment and letter to the future.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

A Boy in Front of the Loew’s 125th Street Movie Theatre, Harlem, NY, 1976. © Dawoud Bey

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Huck, Photography

John Waters: Indecent Exposure

Posted on October 5, 2018

Beverly Hills John, 2012. Rubell Family Collection, Miami. © John Waters, Courtesy Marianne Boesky Gallery

John Waters is a master of paradox, bridging the divide between seeming opposition with love, wit, and nerve. At 72, the Pope of Trash continues to storm the world with Indecent Exposure, his first art retrospective opening October 7 at the Baltimore Museum of Art in America and, on this side of the pond, with This Filthy World, his one-man show headlining Homotopia at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on November 10.

Indecent Exposure features more than 160 photographs, sculptures, soundworks, and video made since the 1990s around themes including pop culture, the movie business, childhood and identity, self-portraits, sex and transgression, and contemporary art. Here, sacred cows are led to the slaughter, tenderised, and barbecued by a loving heart that embraces the absurd in every element of the work.

With 16 films and eight books under his belt, Waters brings his love for writing and editing to the visual realm and discovered that the “perfect moments” are often accidental and failed. “What works best in the art world is sometimes what works the opposite of perfect in the movie world,” Waters reveals. “In the movie world it has to be in focus, you have to hit your mark, it has to be lit well, which is what I want. In the art world, I make mistakes as I learn. The low tech, catch-as-you-can photography that I do is failed photographing in the beginning of fine art photography.”

Waters brings this same spirit to the spoken word, a practice that he began in the late 1960s when he and Divine first began showing films at colleges. Over the years, Waters has transformed what began as a vaudeville skit into a perfectly honed monologue, tailored to the time and place of his performance – while maintaining his fascination with true crime, fashion gone wild, art world extremism, and exploitation films in a joyous celebration of trashy goodness. Here, Another Man directs 50 questions to this countercultural icon; the Pope of Trash and the Baron of Bad Taste.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

John Waters, Divine in Ecstasy,1992. Collection of Amy and Zachary Lehman. © John Waters, Courtesy Marianne Boesky Gallery

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Photography

Che Guevara: Tú Y Todos

Posted on October 3, 2018

ore than 50 years after his death, Ernesto Che Guevara has become an icon for the fight against Western hegemony around the globe. His decision to continue fighting abroad following the success of the Cuban Revolution sealed his fate. His capture and execution in Bolivia in 1967 at the age of 39 has made him one of the most revolutionary figures of our time.

In celebration of a singular life, Che Guevara: Tú y Todos (Skira) delves deep into the insurgent’s personal life in order to craft a more intimate, nuanced portrait of the man whose face launched a thousand t-shirts.

The book takes its subtitle from the title of a poem Guevara penned for his wife Aleida before leaving Argentina for Bolivia, where he would ultimately die. This intimacy provides the framework in which book editors Daniele Zambelli, Flavio Andreini, Camilo Guevara March, María del Carmen Ariet have framed Guevara’s epic story.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Categories: 1960s, Art, Books, Huck, Latin America, Photography

Janet Delaney: Public Matters

Posted on October 2, 2018

Janet Delaney, ‘Dominque diPrima, on Stage, 1985’ in Public Matters (2018). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.

San Francisco in the ’80s was a study in contrasts. As the shadows of gentrification began to creep over the heart of the city, just South of Market, the people of the Mission took to the streets to protest the policies coming out of the Reagan White House.

During this time, American photographer Janet Delaney was at the centre of it all, capturing the spirit of public life in parades and protests, performances and beauty pageants. In her new book, Public Matters (MACK Books), Delaney delves deep into her archive to reflect upon the incredible impact of mass gatherings organised to serve the greater good.

At the time, the Mission was a predominantly Latinx neighborhood, made up of recent immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras who were fleeing wars and conflicts that had come about as a result of U.S. involvement. “In the 1980s, San Francisco was exploding with immigrants, not just from Central America but from Russia and Asia as well,” Delaney remembers.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Janet Delaney, ‘Two Young Teens, 1985’ in Public Matters (2018). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.

Categories: 1980s, Art, Books, Huck, Photography

Masahisa Fukase: Private Scenes

Posted on September 28, 2018

Sasuke, from the series Game, 1983. © Masahisa Fukase Archives.

For more than two decades, the work of Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase has been largely inaccessible. Following his death in 2012, the archives were gradually disclosed, revealing a trove of wonders never seen before. Among the most radical artists of his time, Fukase is now being celebrated with Private Scenes, a large-scale retrospective of original prints that will be on view at Foam, Amsterdam, from September 7 – December 12, 2018. Editions Xavier Barral will publish the accompanying catalogue, to be released on October 23.

Born in 1934 in Bifuka, in the northern region of the island of Hokkaido, Masahisa Fukase was destined to a life in photography. As the eldest son, Fukase was groomed to take over the family photo studio, founded by his grandfather in 1908. By the age of six, he was already helping to rinse the prints – and he stayed with the family business until moving to Tokyo in 1952 to study photography.

Fukase was notable for both his choice of subject matter, and his presentation of it. He was remarkably able to translate his personal struggles of loss and depression into playful and lighthearted looks at some of the most difficult aspects of life and death. This first became evident in the 1961 exhibition, Kill the Pig, which brought the young artist public acclaim. Here, the Fukase presented studies of his pregnant wife Yoko and still-born child in combination with photographs made in a slaughterhouse, providing a tender reflection on love, life and death.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Bukubuku, 1991. © Masahisa Fukase Archives.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot, Japan, Photography

Fred W. McDarrah: New York Scenes

Posted on September 26, 2018

Eighth Street, looking east from Sixth Avenue, January 1, 1950. © Fred W. McDarrah, courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery.

Reading copy of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” on the couch at Fred W. McDarrah’s apartment, 304 West 14th Street, New York City, February 14, 1959© Fred W. McDarrah, courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery

For half a century, Fred W. McDarrah (1926-2007) was Greenwich Village’s poet-photographer laureate, penning subversive verse in black and white silver gelatin prints. As the sole staff photographer for The Village Voice for decades, and its first photo editor McDarrah centred himself at the heart of the New York’s downtown scene when it was a bohemian paradise filled with artists, activists, musicians, writers, and performers.

McDarrah’s chronicle of life recalls when the Village was just that: a community of iconoclasts ready to take on the world. In light of the closing of The Village Voice earlier this month, the comprehensive new survey exhibition Fred McDarrah: New York Scenes at Steven Kasher and catalogue from Abrams provides a timely, well-considered compendium of McDarrah’s impressive oeuvre.

McDarrah’s New York is a comet casting through space, a fiery mass of humanity in the final decades of the second millennia. Whether documenting Carolee Scheneemann’s first performance of Interior Scroll or shooting firefighters rushing into a townhouse after the Weathermen accidentally set off a bomb, McDarrah was on the scene with camera in hand, ready to capture it all. Here, his son Tim McDarrah takes us on a magical trip back in time.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Artist Faith Ringgold poses with her work, August 30, 1978. © Fred W. McDarrah, courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, AnOther, Art, Books, Manhattan, Photography

Arlene Gottfried: Sometimes Overwhelming

Posted on September 19, 2018

Wedding Party in Connecticut, 1977. © Arlene Gottfried, courtesy of powerHouse Books.

Arlene Gottfried (1950–2017) was a paradox of the best kind: the infinitely shy artist who can blow the roof off the joint while singing gospel, or approach any person in order to take their photo. Hailing from Brooklyn, Gottfried spent her childhood in Coney Island where all kinds of characters loomed near and far.

She took up photography, casually snapping some of the greatest New York scenes ever caught on film, documenting an era of life that once defined the city, but has long since been erased. In Sometimes Overwhelming (powerHouse Books). Gottfried chronicles the charismatic figures she encountered on the streets and the beaches, the nightclubs and the parks, the boardwalks and the parades, the circus and the dog shows.

The result is a kaleidoscopic portrait of the times, of the magical and memorable personalities that peppered public life, when everyone was so distinctive, to really stand out meant you had to take it to the next level. It is those rarefied beauties that Gottfried loves most, the stars who fell to earth and glitter like fireflies of a summer night, floating past you down the street as they go about their business.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Women on Riis Beach, New York, 1980. © Arlene Gottfried, courtesy of powerHouse Books.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Feature Shoot, Photography

John Edmonds: Higher

Posted on September 18, 2018

John Edmonds photographer interview Higher book du-rag 2018
© John Edmonds, courtesy of Capricious

Hometown: Growing up in Washington DC, John Edmonds came of age visiting the many free museums in the city. It created the perfect counterpoint to his upbringing in the Baptist Church, as he was able to recognise various figures from Bible stories. Edmonds adopted elements of painting into Immaculate (2011), the earliest series that appears in his first book, Higher (out on September 20 via Capricious).

Now lives: After receiving an MFA in Photography from Yale University School of Art in 2016, Edmonds moved to Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The black community immediately became a source of inspiration to the young artist. “Crown Heights is such a spirited area. It is really exciting and invigorating for me. The ‘Du-Rag’ series of photographs came out of my moving here and walking down the streets and seeing men and women in them,” Edmonds says. “I started photographing these people anonymously and printed them on a Japanese silk that replicates the materiality of it. When I started making those photographs, I felt as though I had arrived.”

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Categories: AnOther Man, Art, Books, Brooklyn, Photography

THIRTYTHREE

Posted on September 10, 2018

“It’s not enough to have talent, you also have to be Hungarian,” Robert Capa famously quipped, noting the impressive prevalence of his countrymen leaving their mark on photography throughout the 20th century. André Kertész, Brassaï, Martin Munkácsi, György Kepes, and László Moholy-Nagy are just a few of the artists who elevated the form and put their small landlocked country on the global art map.

Although many of these photographers left their homeland to move West, their spirit lives on at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest. It is here, in 1984, that photography was recognised as a discipline for study, following in the spirit, experimentation, and recognition of the permeability between art and life that guided Moholy-Nagy throughout his career.

Now, in THIRTYTHREE (Hatje Cantz), editor Róna Kopeczky provides a survey of 46 of the University’s most impressive alumni over the past 33 years – including Sári Ember, Anna Fabricius, Viola Fátyol, Adél Koleszár, Gábor Arion Kudász, Péter Puklus, Gergely Szatmári, and Éva Szombat. An exhibition of the same name will be on view at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center in Budapest (October 8–December 9,

.2018).

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography

Lola Alvarez Bravo: Picturing Mexico

Posted on September 4, 2018

Unos suben y otros bajan, ca. 1940. Copyright Lola Álvarez Bravo, courtesy of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

Lola Álvarez Bravo (1903-1993) was a singular figure in twentieth-century art, a woman whose independence defined the spirit of the era. “I had a strange need for something and I didn’t know what it was. I was in intense rebellion against certain things that they thought I should do because I was a ‘little woman’ and a ‘young lady,’” Álvarez Bravo told Olivier Debroise for Sin título [Biography of Lola Álvarez Bravo] in 1979.

“They thought I would respond to a predetermined social plan. But I felt a strange rebelliousness. I wanted to be something… . It was an internal rebellion.”

That something propelled her to tremendous heights, with a career that spans more than half a century as an artist, curator, activist, and educator. As one of the few leading women artists in Mexico during the post-revolutionary renaissance, Álvarez Bravo would become an integral figure in a coterie that included Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

Like her contemporaries, Álvarez Bravo blazed her own trail, capturing the spirit of the times in her photojournalism, commercial and portrait work. Now, her legacy comes alive in Picturing Mexico, a magnificent exhibition photographs at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, MO, from September 14, 2018 – February 16, 2019. The exhibition, accompanied by a catalogue of the same name from Yale University Press, to be released November 27.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

La visitacion, ca. 1934, printed 1971. Brooklyn Museum. Copyright Lola Álvarez Bravo, courtesy of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography

Richard Bernstein: Starmaker

Posted on September 3, 2018

Cher. Courtesy of The Richard Bernstein Estate Archives

When Interview announced that it would cease publication earlier this spring, a flurry of flawless faces that once graced the magazine covers suddenly began to reemerge – each portrait more entrancing than the one that came before. Grace Jones, Diana Ross, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, the list goes on. They were all created by the same artist, who rendered them as unforgettable icons of our time – the very same artist who wrote he word “Interview” that appeared over their heads: Richard Bernstein.

Born in the Bronx but raised on Long Island, Bernstein returned to the city to study art at the Pratt Institute in 1958. He adopted a cultured New England accent with a splash of effete-ery, and headed downtown to cavort with the new generation of gay artists like Billy Name, Gerard Malanga, and Danny Williams making their name in Andy Warhol’s Factory scene.

Bernstein travelled to London when the Swinging 60s was at its height, then returned to New York in 1968 and joined the scene as it was taking shape at Max’s Kansas City and the Chelsea Hotel. Bernstein got his start in magazines when he began working with Peter Hujar on Newspaper and Picture Newspaper, a short-lived document of the city’s queer scene. The first issue gave us a taste of things to come: Bernstein’s iconic cover and centerfold of Candy Darling that left nothing to the imagination.

By 1972, Bernstein began what would become a two-decade odyssey as the cover artist for Andy Warhol’s Interview. He joined the magazine just as it was taking shape, transforming from an underground movie magazine to a luscious glossy that brought Hollywood glamour back to life in an effervescent celebration of downtown art, culture, and style. Bernstein’s covers perfectly defined the times, becoming eye-catching emblems of the era.

In celebration of his work, Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha have put together Richard Bernstein Starmaker: Andy Warhol’s Cover Artist (Rizzoli), a sumptuous history of the artist’s life and legacy. In conjunction with the launch of the book, Jeffrey Deitch, New York, will host Richard Bernstein: Fame (September 7-October 27, 2018). Here, the authors take us on a whirlwind tour through a singular career.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Joan Rivers. Courtesy of The Richard Bernstein Estate Archives

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Painting