Posts from the “Huck” Category

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

THIRTYTHREE

Posted on September 10, 2018

Lavan, from the series Practitioners, 2016 © Éva Szombat

“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).

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From the series Outlaw’s Yard, 2010. © Barnabás Tóth

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

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

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

The 35 Anniversary Wild Style Reunion Concert

Posted on August 8, 2018

Kase 2, Busy Bee, Fab 5 Freddy, and friends at the cheeba spot, 1980. Photo © Charlie Ahearn.

Back in 1978, artist Charlie Ahearn saw a couple of vibrant murals in the handball courts of the Smith Projects in New York’s Lower East Side. The word “LEE” appeared across them in big bold letters. Ahearn was intrigued, and quickly realised it was the work of Lee Quinones, one of graffiti’s greatest writers.

A year later, Ahearn met Lee and Fab 5 Freddy during the historic Times Square Show. The trio immediately started collaborating. At the time, the words “wild style” were on everybody’s lips – it was the name for the colorful, hyper-stylised letterforms dominating graffiti that most people could not read.

Simultaneously, hip hop music was sizzling in the clubs and parks, as the first generation of DJs spun breakbeats while MCs tore up the mic and b-boys rocked the floor. As all of this was happening on his doorstep in New York, Ahearn decided to turn it into Wild Style – the first ever hip hop feature film.

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Animation drawing by Zephyr, 1982. Courtesy of Charlie Ahearn.

Categories: 1980s, Art, Bronx, Graffiti, Huck, Manhattan, Music

John Ahearn & Rigoberto Torres: The South Bronx Hall of Fame

Posted on July 30, 2018

Luis and Virginia, 1985. Courtesy of John Ahearn.

Life on Dawson Street KBA Studio, 1982-3. Courtesy of John Ahearn.

During the ’70s, the South Bronx became the face of urban blight, as the federal government systematically denied basic services to Black and Latinx communities under the Nixon White House policy of “benign neglect.”

As neighbourhoods fell into extreme states of poverty, crime, and disrepair, landlords realised they would make more money torching their buildings and recouping the insurance money than they ever could from rent — leaving the South Bronx with vast swaths of empty lots, burned out buildings, and mounds of rubble.

The stark struggle for survival experienced by regular people in the Bronx inspired artists to create incredible feats, like John Fekner’s epic stencils, Gordon Matta-Clark’s first architectural interventions, and the explosion of graffiti across whole cars. In the late 1970s, Stefan Eins moved his gallery, Fashion MODA to Third Avenue near 147th Street and the Hub in the heart of the South Bronx, where he began exhibiting emerging downtown artists like David Wojnarowicz, Keith Haring, and Jenny Holzer, as well as graffiti artists such as Richard Hambleton, John Crash Matos, and Chris Daze Ellis.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

South Bronx Hall of Fame Walton Street Sidewalk Studio. Courtesy of John Ahearn.

Janelle and Audrey, 1983. Courtesy of John Ahearn

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Bronx, Huck

Antwaun Sargent: The Way We Live Now

Posted on July 22, 2018

In the new millennium, photography has been democratised en masse, inviting all comers to create an image that can speak a thousand words in all languages at the same time. In the new group exhibition, The Way We Live Now, currently on view at Aperture Gallery, New York, 18 artists from around the globe explore how photography has the power to shape how we see the world and ourselves.

The exhibition draws on more than 1,000 submissions to the Aperture Summer Open, in which artists were invited to reflect on how photography informs our beliefs about society, politics, beauty, and self-expression. A jury of four curators – including critic Antwaun Sargent – chose works that reflect on life in Latinx, Native American, African American, and queer communities in the United States, as well as life in Israel, South Africa, South Korea, and China.

“When we think about representation and visibility, what has aided and sped up the process of people being seen, their truth being amplified, and their voices added to our cultural landscape is the photograph,” says Sargent. “People want to show themselves, one of the easiest ways is by taking a picture.”

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Categories: Art, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography

Godlis x Angela Boatwright on Punk, Now & Then

Posted on July 22, 2018

Blondie, CBGB, 1977. Photo by GODLIS.

GBGB, 1977. Photo by GODLIS.

On a cool night late in the summer of 1976, David Godlis stood on the Bowery: a desolate NYC strip synonymous with flophouses and winos who’d lived under the shadow of the Third Avenue El train for more than a century. Although the train had been dismantled, that thoroughfare remained barren and bleak – but for a white awning emblazoned with black letters that announced “CBGB”.

At 25, Godlis had returned to his native New York towards the end of 1975 after spending seven years in Boston, where he studied photography alongside Nan Goldin and Stanley Greene at Imageworks. Back in town, he’d pick up the latest issue of The Village Voice and flip to the classified section where he perused the help-wanted listings. It was there that an ad for a bar repeatedly caught his eye. Intrigued, Godlis set out to catch a band called Television. When he arrived, the streets were completely empty. He spotted the white awning and said to himself, “That’s got to be the joint.”

He opened the door and stepped inside what felt like a new world: a long, narrow room illuminated by neon beer signs hanging on the wall. At the front desk sat Roberta Bayley, who had shot the cover of the Ramones’ first album, though Godlis didn’t know who she was at the time.

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Punks at Indiana Street show, Boyle Heights, July 2015. Photo by Angela Boatwright.

East L.A. Liquor, N. Fickett Street, Boyle Heights. Photo by Angela Boatwright.

Categories: 1970s, Art, Huck, Music, Photography

Flint Gennari: Inside Art & Design

Posted on July 9, 2018

In 1936, four art teachers banded together to create what would become New York’s High School of Art & Design inside a former WPA Federal Theatre Project. Although the walls were ripped apart and there was no school furniture, a little ingenuity transformed orange crates and plywood into student desks and cupboards.

Over the past century, Art & Design has become one of the most pre-eminent public schools in New York, with a list of distinguished alumni that includes fashion designers Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein, photographers Peter Hujar, Steven Meisel, and Sheila Metzner, artist Lorna Simpson, supermodel Pat Cleveland, Andy Warhol Factory denizens Jackie Curtis and Gerard Malanga, downtown icon Fab 5 Freddy, and a host of graffiti legends including Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, and Roberto “FLINT” Gennari.

Gennari began writing graffiti in 1965, after his social studies teacher introduced him to the famed World War II doodle “Kilroy Was Here” in class one day. Inspired in equal parts by advertising slogans, psychedelic artist Peter Max, and the ability to be famous yet anonymous at the same time, Gennari began tagging “FLINT” on walls and trains around his native Brooklyn. He added pithy phrases like “For Those Who Dare” and “For Ladies Only” to let the public know just what was on the menu.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

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