Posts from the “Books” Category

Orlando Suero: The Golden Age of Hollywood

Posted on August 31, 2018

Eartha Kitt, c. 1958. Copyright Orlando Suero,

93-year-old photographer Orlando Suero’s life’s work is finally receiving its due, with the August 30 publication of Orlando: Photography. The native New Yorker first took up photography in 1939 at the age of 14, when his father gave him a used Kodak Jiffy camera and he began to develop film in the bathroom of their Washington Heights apartment.

In May 1943, a few months before joining the Marines to serve in World War II, Suero published his first story in The New York Times. After being discharged at the end of the war, Suero returned to New York and picked up where he left off. He began working as a printer and by 1954, he had printed photographs for The Family of Man, Edward Steichen’s monumental exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.

That same year, Suero began working full time for Three Lions Picture Agency, and secured an assignment to photograph newlyweds Jacqueline and Senator John F. Kennedy at their Georgetown duplex over a period of five days for McCall’s magazine. From here, Suero enjoyed a stellar career as an editorial photographer, shooting a new generation of glittering stars for the glossies just as the Hollywood studio system was entering its twilight years.

Whether photographing Natalie Wood, Brigitte Bardot, Sharon Tate, Faye Dunaway, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson or Robert Redford, Suero understood the power of a great portrait. Here, Jim Suero, his son and co-author with Rod Hamilton, shares the story of Orlando.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Tony Randall, while filming Fluffy, 1965. Copyright Orlando Suero,

Categories: 1960s, AnOther, Art, Books, Photography

Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb: Violet Isle

Posted on August 31, 2018

For more than a century, Cuba has mesmerized the world, beckoning visitors to its vibrant shores and the rich fertile soil that has earned the island the little-known name of the “Violet Isle.” It is a land of captivating beauty, majestic wonder, and alluring mystique, one whose magic and mysteries are slowly revealed through the work of artists, filmmakers, and musicians.

Over a period of 15 years, American photographers Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb made 11 trips to Cuba, each drawn to difference elements of this multi-faceted gem. Alex Webb explored the country’s street life, capturing scenes of everyday life set in a prism of vivid colors that glow under the Caribbean sun, while Rebecca Norris Webb was drawn to the resounding presence of animal life, photographing tiny zoos, pigeon societies, and personal menageries.

The result is Violet Isle (Radius Books), their first collaboration. First published in 2009, the book is a photographic duet that pairs two distinct but complementary visions of Cuba at the turn of the millennium. The book, long unavailable, has just been re-released. We speak with the authors here about their fresh take on a much-photographed land, giving us new perspectives of life on the Violet Isle.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: 1990s, Art, Books, Feature Shoot, Latin America, Photography

Pieter Henket: Congo Tales

Posted on August 31, 2018

The Impossible Task, from “The Mole and the Sun” © Pieter Henket.

The Twins, from “The Two Nkééngé Sisters” © Pieter Henket.

Malian writer Amadou Hampâté Bâ once observed, “When an old person dies, it is as if a library of knowledge burns.” In this one statement, he perfectly captured the inherent vulnerability of oral history and literature.

Recognizing this, Eva Vonk – an executive producer at Tales of Us – approached Dutch photographer Pieter Henket to collaborate in the creation of a photography book that would share the childhood stories collected and told by the people living in Mbomo, a small town situated in the Republic of Congo.

With Congo Tales: Told by the People of Mbomo, Henket has created a library of iconic tales, with the photos starring the storytellers themselves. “Gathering them was a challenge, to say the least,” he explains. “Eva visited the forest seven times over the course of three years and met with many people that were able to help.”

“She arranged with a local couple to start a radio station where people could come and tell their families stories. She arranged for people to sit around fires and share their stories there. And she asked a man to go around the villages on his motorcycle to collect stories. It became a huge passion project to collect this piece of undocumented oral history.”

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Tough Love, from “The Woman Who Traded Her Baby for Honey” © Pieter Henket.

Categories: Africa, Art, Books, Huck, Photography

Jamel Shabazz: Icons of Style

Posted on August 28, 2018

Jamel Shabazz (American, born 1960); Digital chromogenic print; 25.4 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8 in.); EX.2018.7.163

Hailing from Brooklyn, Jamel Shabazz began taking photographs of his friends during the late 1970s. After returning from the Army in 1980, he began to dedicate himself to documenting life on the streets of New York, taking portraits of street legends and regular folks alike, taking an entirely new approach to the art of the fashion photograph.

With an eye for style, Shabazz used the camera as a vehicle for conversations with his subjects, who are predominantly African American and Latinx teens. Focused on helping them to develop a knowledge of self and how to survive in America, Shabazz easily spent hours with his subject before photographing them. The result is a series of portraits that convey a sense of power, pride, and dignity. As an independent artist working outside the fashion and publishing industry for decades, Shabazz has established himself as the rare artist who has been able to crossover long after this body of work was made.

Now a selection of Shabazz’s work can be seen alongside the likes of Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Guy Bourdin, William Klein, Antonio Lopez, and Herb Ritts in the new exhibition Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography, 1911-2011 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, now on view through October 21, and accompanying catalogue of the same name. Shabazz shares his thoughts on the power of fashion photography, the importance of visibility and representation, and the power of staying true to one’s vision.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Jamel Shabazz (American, born 1960); Digital chromogenic print; 25.4 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8 in.); EX.2018.7.164

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Fashion, Feature Shoot, Photography

Marcia Resnick: Bad Boys

Posted on August 28, 2018

Fab 5 Freddy, copyright Marcia Resnick

While living in a loft in Tribeca during the 1970s, American photographer Marcia Resnick began creating a series of portraits of the enfants terribles living in her neighbourhood, capturing an era of anti-heroes whose influence continues to be felt across the worlds of art, music, film, and literature today.

Whether photographing artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, writers such as William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, musicians like Iggy Pop, Johnny Thunders, and Mick Jagger, or the baron of bad taste himself John Waters, Resnick had an eye – as the title of her new book suggests – for bad boys; punks, poets and provocateurs.

Every night, Resnick would infiltrate New York’s downtown art scene, hitting up CBGB, Max’s Kansas City, and the Mudd Club to catch the latest happenings. Here, she discovered subjects that she could photograph there and then, and also at her studio. Here, Resnick reflects on her Bad Boys photo series, which can be found in full in Punks, Poets & Provocateurs New York City Bad Boys, 1977–1982 (Insight Editions).

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Klaus Nomi, copyright Marcia Resnick

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

Alex Prager: Silver Lake Drive

Posted on August 16, 2018

The Big Valley: Eve, 2008. © Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong. Courtesy Alex Prager Studio, Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

The Big Valley: Susie and Friends, 2008. © Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong. Courtesy Alex Prager Studio, Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

Hailing from Los Angeles, Alex Prager is a true photograph-auteur. Her cinematic sensibilities are perfectly at home in the single image, expertly making use of the imagination’s inimitable ability to construct fantastical narratives when provoked. With the eye of a director allowing a tale to unfold, Prager stages each photograph with the precision of a blockbuster Hollywood film.

Silver Lake Drive, Prager’s mid-career retrospective currently on view at The Photographer’s Gallery, London, through October 14, 2018, traces the artist’s career over the past decade, exploring the ways that her work crosses the worlds of art, fashion, photography to explore and expose fascinating scenes of human melodrama concealed within some of the most mundane moments of life. The exhibition is accompanied by a book of the same name, published by Chronicle in the United States (on sale October 9) and Thames & Hudson in Europe.

Prager takes us on a masterful romp through scenes that evoke Hollywood luminaries like Alfred Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk. The exquisite grandeur of Prager’s images belies a haunting anxiety: here beneath the luscious trappings of artifice something sinister lurks. An intangible presence can be felt throughout her work, the all-seeing eye that invites the viewer in as an accomplice.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot, Photography

Sean Foley & Lukas Birk: Photo Peshawar

Posted on August 15, 2018

Hand-coloured montages based on Indian movie posters; male customers have their faces inset to pose alongside actresses. Kamran Studio, 1990s.

Sean Foley and Lukas Birk first travelled to the Pakistani frontier city of Peshawar back in 2005, when they visited the fabled town to interview tourists en route from Afghanistan. Fascinated by the culture of local photography in this historic centre of trade and commerce, they compiled Photo Peshawar (Mapin/Pix), capturing the magical mythos that lives within this corner of the world.

As Foley and Birk began their research, they delved into the photographic history of the city, dating back to the ’40s, when the convergence of British rule, the Partition of India, local tribal law, and the historic prohibition against image-making in Islam began to shape the culture.

“There are many personal as well creative connections between Peshawar and Afghanistan,” the authors explain. “Historically and culturally there has always been an exchange – and, of course, the Pashtun peoples dominate both sides of the border.”

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Hand-coloured photograph of classic Indian actress and native Pashtu speaker, Madhubala (1933–1969), by Daoud of Cinema Road. Madhubala’s father was a painter of cinema billboards from Peshawar.

Hand-coloured self-portraits by Tahir Usman from the 1980s to 1990s.

Categories: Art, Books, Huck, Photography

Q. Sakamaki: Tompkins Square Park

Posted on August 9, 2018

Keith Thompson, a homeless activist, and his supporters demonstrate for affordable housing on Avenue B, August 1989. Copyright Q. Sakamaki.

On Avenue A in front of the park, protesters hurl bottles at police. May 27, 1991. Copyright Q. Sakamaki.

New York City’s East Village has been home to artists, anarchists, and activists for generations. But by the summer of 1988, ravaged by the twin plagues of crack and AIDS, the neighborhood’s Tompkins Square Park became an ad-hoc camp for homeless people, squatters, punks, drug dealers, and users. In an effort to assert control, the Parks Department enforced a 1 AM curfew in the previously 24-hour park, sparking outrage.

Thirty years ago this week, on August 6, protesters occupied the park wielding signs that read, “Gentrification Is Class War, Fight Back” and chanting, “It’s our fucking park, you don’t live here!” Bottles were thrown. Police Captain Gerald McNamara called in backup, and 400 NYPD officers showed up in riot gear.

Many officers concealed or removed their badges as they clubbed protesters and bystanders. The riot lasted until 6 AM, and more than 100 police brutality complaints were logged afterwards. Fourteen officers faced charges, but none were convicted. Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward went on record to state that the NYPD was responsible for inciting a riot.

Japanese photographer Q. Sakamaki was living in an apartment near the park at the time, and he began documenting the Tompkins Square Park movement, which went on for years. It came to an end following the 1991 Memorial Day riot, when the park was forcibly closed and the homeless encampments, known as Dinkinsville, were razed.

Sakamaki’s photographs, published in Tompkins Square Park (powerHouse Books) crystallize this turning point in New York City history, as gentrification began to replace benign neglect. VICE caught up with Sakamaki to reflect on the 30th anniversary of the riots and how New York has changed in the intervening decades.

Read the Full Story at VICE Online

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Manhattan, Photography, Vice

Bruce W. Talamon: Soul. R&B. Funk. Photographs 1972–1982

Posted on August 7, 2018

As staff photographer at SOUL Newspaper during the 1970s, Los Angeles native Bruce W. Talamon knew the score: “always respect the artist and don’t fuck up the vibe. Always be on top of your game, and take any chance you can”. These lessons served him well documenting artists such as the Jackson Five, Parliament-Funkadelic, Donna Summer, James Brown, and Marvin Gaye; the legendary soul, funk, and R&B acts of the 1970s that turned pop music into an unforgettable trip on the Soul Train.

Every Saturday morning, kids and teens across the United States tuned into Don Cornelius’ dance extravaganza. In the decade before video killed the radio star, the sound of Black America hit the high bar as artists like Al Green, Bootsy Collins, and Rick James burned up the stage. After they turned off the TV they hungered for more; more photos and stories about their heroes. So, they read SOUL.

Talamon jumped on the scene, quite literally, when he walked on stage at Wattstax to photograph Isaac Hayes in 1972 – unaccredited. The young photographer had picked up a camera the year before, and decided to forgo his studies as a law student for something entirely different – something no one in the mainstream media was covering in any depth. It is fortunate that he did; as without Talamon, there would be no photograph of Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire walking with a white umbrella towards the Great Pyramids of Giza.

Now, in his new book published by Taschen and titled Bruce W. Talamon. Soul. R&B. Funk. Photographs 1972–1982, the artist takes us back to this pivotal era in history, when glamour, grandeur, and grooves reigned supreme.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Music, Photography

Brassaï, The Eye of Paris, Returns

Posted on July 30, 2018

Born Gyula Halász (1899 – 1984), Brassaï took his famed French pseudonym in honor of his hometown of in Brassó, Transylvania. The young artist moved to Paris where he intended to paint, but took up photography when he recognized the camera’s inimitable ability to capture the light in the dark, and the way it revealed itself n silver gelatin paper.

In 1933, Brassaï published Paris de nuit (Paris by Night) to immediate acclaim – one that has not diminished in the intervening years. Here in the dark maze of lamplit streets, prostitutes and lovers, workers and revelers go about their business in café and bars, in smoked filled dancehalls where anything goes.

These images, which earned him the title of “the eye of Paris” on an essay by Henry Miller, gave Brassaï instant entrée to café society and the haute monde, to the glorious glamour and decadence that was Patis between the wars. In this fleeting moment of history, Brassaï captured it all. Here, the worlds of theater, dance, and art mingle and merge, and glow alongside portraits of his colleagues and friends, people such as Picasso, Dali, Matisse, Genet, and Giacometti.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Photography

Food, Sex, Art: the Starving Artists’ Cookbook

Posted on July 26, 2018

Gilbert and George, Untitled, 1988, published in FOOD SEX ART the Starving Artists’ Cookbook by EIDIA (idea) Books in New York, 1991© Gilbert and George; Courtesy of the artists, Paul and Melissa EIDIA, and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York

Ever since “art for art’s sake” became a symbol of bohemian credibility in the late 19th century, the spectre of the starving artist has haunted the general public. Driven by an unquenchable desire to create, artists are often at the vanguard of the culture, decades ahead of their contemporaries, and largely unrecognised.

Here, the struggle to survive is vividly underscored by the very real challenge of putting three meals on the table, every single day. For those who spend the better part of their lives consuming, the decision to pursue a career in the arts is met with wonder and confusion: Why would anyone want to live like that? But for those who must, there simply is no option at all.

They let the idea marinate for a few days before it began to take shape as The Starving Artists’ Cookbook, a series of recipes, images, and cooking videos made between 1986-1991 featuring more than 160 artists including Peter Beard, Louise Bourgeois, John Cage, Gilbert and George, Taylor Mead, Jonas Mekas, Marilyn Minter, Carolee Schneemann, and Lawrence Weiner.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Luis Frangella, Untitled, published in FOOD SEX ART the Starving Artists’ Cookbook by EIDIA (idea) Books in New York, 1991© Luis Frangella; Courtesy of the estate of the artist, Paul and Melissa EIDIA, and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, AnOther, Art, Books, Exhibitions