Posts from the “Music” Category

Peter Beste: Houston Rap

Posted on November 1, 2013

Peter Beste. Klondike Kat
South Park, 2004

Peter Beste. Resident of Villa America
South Park, 2005

Peter Beste. “Tiger Wood of the Hood” passerby
Fourth Ward, 2005

Peter Beste. OG Wickett Crickett
Club Konnections, 2005

Peter Beste. K-Rino at MacGregor Park, 2006

I been fanning Peter Beste since when ? I can’t even remember how we met, but I remember the day we sat at a cafe on Prince Street, me paging through his luscious prints. Page after page after page of madness. I was home as my fingers swept across the protective plastic and my eyes bulged out my head and my heart did a little dance, as each turn of the page took me somewhere else.

And so it has come, as the inevitable does, Houston Rap is now a book from Sinecure and an exhibition at Boo Hooray Gallery, New York, opening November 7. I like it like this. Peter graciously agreed to an interview, and to let me share of his work. These are a few of my favorite things. Enjoy ~

From Norwegian Black Metal to Houston Rap, you are bringing North & South together again. I am struck by your taste in scenes. Tell me about what brought you down to Texas, to document the Hip Hop community ? When did you begin ? How did you get down ? How did the project develop into a book over the years you worked on it?

Peter Beste: Since I was a young kid in the early 90s, I have been strongly intrigued by Houston’s rap underworld. My interest began in 1991 with the vivid and visceral rhymes of the Geto Boys and Gangsta N-I-P. Many years later while studying photography in college, I realized that documenting both the history of Houston rap and the neighborhoods that spawned these characters would make a perfect documentary photography project.

A few years later in 2004, I reached out to K-Rino, Street Military and others, and told them about my idea. Some of these guys were a bit hesitant a first. Obviously a white guy in the hood with a camera raises many eyebrows. It took a little time to get past their skepticism and for me to gain their trust. I did this by publishing some photos here and there in international magazines and by getting to know many of these guys on a personal level over time, which eventually convinced most of them that my motives were pure. In 2005 I brought writer Lance Scott Walker into the project to conduct interviews so the book would have more information and context.

The Willie D quote is killing me: “People ain’t been educated on fightin’ back unless it’s some street shit, like fighting your neighbors or beating up… fighting your family members, killing your best friend. And nobody like… fightin’ the government, the city. “What you mean, fight the city? You mean like… Houston against me?” What was it like meeting Bun B, Lil’ Troy, K-Rino, Paul Wall, (he died before I started this), Pimp C, Street Military, and Big Hawk ? What kind of perspective do they bring to the rap game ?

What differentiates these guys from the average American rapper, and what makes me respect them is their underdog status and drive to succeed on their own terms. For decades, it was extremely hard to make it in the rap game if you weren’t from New York or LA. Because of this lack of support from the mainstream, Houston rappers developed their own sound, became their own CEOs, and in the process they cut out the major label middlemen, built their own business model, and made a lot of money.

You got some ill shots, everything from the New Black Panther Party, the strip clubs, the cats hanging on the street, the dudes in the car sippinn syrup, all the grimy glamour captured on film in luscious color… What did you find most exciting about Houston as a photographer ? What qualities of the people you met were you most attracted to ?

One thing that really drew me to this project that went beyond the rappers themselves was the opportunity to document many of the changing neighborhoods. Houston has very few zoning laws, so huge portions of the city are torn down and rebuilt on a regular basis, especially the “economically challenged” areas. As a photographer and someone who is extremely skeptical about the motivations behind gentrification, I was drawn into the unique personality of the neighborhoods of South Park, Third, Fourth and Fifth Wards, their colorful hand painted store signs, their lack of chain corporate stores and general independence from the “white man’s world.”

One example of this is Fourth Ward, which was a beautiful historic neighborhood in the shadow of downtown that was filled with pre-WWII row houses, mom & pop shops, and BBQ joints where families had lived for generations. In the years since we started this project, it has been renamed “Midtown” and is now filled with high-rise condos, trendy restaurants, and a whole new set of residents. One of our goals with this book was to document these historical sites, many of which have since been demolished with few objections and little fanfare by the city at large.

I love that this is a photo book. It’s got so much energy. What’s been the best part of this project ? What has surprised you the most ? What would you like to see this book do ? Where can people pick it up ?

One of the most rewarding parts of this project for me was to gain access to this talented and dynamic group of self-made individuals that I otherwise would never have connected with. This experience has given me some dear friends who I wouldn’t have met otherwise, and has made me grow as an individual in the process.

As you can see from the book, we didn’t dwell too much on the typical topics that the mainstream press endlessly promotes, like over-the-top materialism, the glorification of drug dealing and prison life, and the objectification of women. While these elements are part of the music and the book to a degree, we wanted to present a bigger picture to try to empower people and educate them through the words of people like K-Rino, Willie D, Brother Robert Muhammad, Justice Allah, Wickett Crickett, and others.

One of the most important topics covered by these community leaders was how “the powers that be” have deliberately targeted and taken advantage of most of these communities by creating an unfair playing field by filling their neighborhoods with with unhealthy food, liquor stores on every other corner, poor education, government drug dealing, dirty vaccines, and overall lousy city services. These controversial topics are discussed directly by those interviewed rather than the authors in an effort to enlighten folks and hopefully keep them out of the vicious cycles of addiction, poverty and the prison-industrial complex. That is my number one goal with this book.

Houston Rap will be available in quality books stores on November 25, and a pre-order is now available at sincecurebooks.com for the special edition which comes with a Fat Pat/DJ Screw 7″ record, a double DJ Screw 12″ (first time on vinyl) and several other goodies. This version will not be available in stores.

Peter Beste

Categories: Art, Books, Music, Photography

Shirt Kings: Pioneers of Hip Hop Fashion

Posted on June 5, 2013

Music, art, fashion, style. For a glorious moment these things all combined in an ethos of Do It Yourself. In New York City during the 1970s and 80s, the culture of Hip Hop first began to assert itself as DJs, MCs, b-boys and b-girls, created a way of rocking unlike anything the world had seen before. At the same time, graffiti had taken hold, a kind of public art so powerful and profound it became the most epic form of writing on the wall. But as the police began to crack down, buffing the trains and issuing more than desk appearance tickets to its practitioners, graffiti found new ways to express itself.

Airbrush was just the thing to allows for a smooth transition to a new kind of surface. Customized jackets, jeans, sweatshirts, and t-shirts, became the means to express yourself. It was the Shirt Kings who took this form to its highest heights, as Phade (Edwin Sacasa), Nike, and Kasheme (Rafael Avery) joined together to form the Shirt Kings, the first black clothing line straight from the streets. They went on to produce a style of clothing so iconic that it has become synonymous with the place and the time from which it spring, a zeitgeist in the making as no one could have ever predicted, not even the artists themselves.

Shirt Kings: Pioneers of Hip Hop Fashion by Edwin PHADE Sacasa and Alan KET (Dokument Press) is a vibrant photo album of their greatest hits. Phade began his graff career while a student at Art & Design, during the years when its student body included Daze, Doze Green, Lady Pink, Lil Seen, and Marc Jacobs. Outside of school, Phade was bombing the trains, living the life as it was meant to be lived.

As he recalls, “So what’s so special about the 80s? For me it was the graffiti cars swirling through New York City like canvases painted for the world to see. It was watching school comrades transform into the next generation of graffiti artists and joining the Rock Steady Crew. Getting calls to mentor and give out the wisdom I got from Kase 2 and Butch 2. Going to clubs like Harlem World on 116^th Street and Lenox Avenue, Broadway International, T-Connection in the Bronx, Disco Fever, P.A.L. 183^rd, Galaxy, Skate Fever, Skate-City in Brooklyn, Roseland USA and Empire Skating Rink in Brooklyn. Watching the Old Gold Crew from Brownsville, Brooklyn, fighting with their hand skills. Hearing the Supreme Team Show on the radio. Mr. Magic and Eddie Cheeba late night on the radio. Listening to hip hop with a hanger for an antenna to get some bootleg station.”

With an education like this, Phade’s evolution as an artist was natural. In 1984, he Sound 7 taught him how to airbrush, and once he acquired this skill, he began producing work, selling “Money Making New Yorker” t-shirts on the corner of 125 and Lenox Avenue. He went on to partner with Kasheme and Nike to form the Shirt Kings and launched their business in the Jamaica Coliseum in June 1986.

Jam Master Jay, a personal friend of Kasheme, came through to the opening with a crew of at least fifty. Back in the days, as hot as Hip Hop was, it was still of the people and it was grounded in the art form itself; it has not yet gone pop, had not yet hit the suburbs, or transformed into an international powerhouse. Back in the 80s, Hip Hop had an edge and it was a language spoken in the art, the dance, the music, and the lyrics.

As Alan Ket notes in his introduction, “The Shirt Kings style of airbrush design became a fashion statement made popular by the hottest rappers and deejays of the day. It seemed like overnight that their designs were everywhere from Just Ice’s record to the Audio Two’s popular album to the stage of the Latin Quarters where all the best emcees were performing weekly. As the Shirt Kings’ business took off their style was copied across the Northeast and they themselves expanded and covered Miami. Pretty soon they had deals with rappers and singers alike to provide the wardrobe designs for tours and music videos.”

Shirt Kings: Pioneers of Hip Hop Fashion takes us back to this era like nothing else ever could, the casual portraits and snapshots of the people, the art, the love of style, originality, and glamour itself. The book features portrait after portrait of some of the era’s greatest stars, along with personal quotes that remind us just how deep the Shirt Kings legacy goes. As Nas notes, “It wasn’t just rap celebrities, it was like street celebrities that had them on.” And that makes all the difference to the culture as it began to transform.

There is a joie de vivre that appears on every page, that same joy that came from Hip Hop as it made its way off the block and before the world stage. The Shirt Kings take us back to a time when Hip Hop was on the cusp, embodying the spirit of greatness itself, from one work of art to the next.

Tasja from South Side Jamaica, Queens, a proud customer wearing Dapper Dan and Shirt Kings, 1986, from ‘Shirt Kings: Pioneers of Hip Hop Fashion’ by Edwin PHADE Sacasa and Alan KET

Categories: 1980s, Art, Books, Bronx, Brooklyn, Fashion, Graffiti, Manhattan, Music, Photography

Just Chaos! Curated by Roberta Bayley

Posted on May 16, 2013

Marcia Resnick, Johnny Thunders, 1972

Books and photographs. Photographs and books. The historical record reflects the times as they were lived by those who were there. And here we are, some four decades later, reflecting on punk as it first came up on the streets of New York, along the Bowery, at CBGBs, a mélange of artists, performers, and personalities making for great photography, for stories that are shared and collected, for memories rediscovered and truths being told. For those who were there, and those who missed it, Just Chaos! takes us back to a time and a place where you damn sure better do it yourself, cause if you don’t ain’t no one else.

In the windows and intimate niches of BookMarc, New York, now through May 23, Roberta Bayley has installed selections from 13 photographers of the era:, many which have not been seen before this exhibition. Featuring the work of Bayley, Janette Beckman, Stephanie Chernikowski, Lee Black Childers, Danny Fields, Godlis, Julia Gorton, Bobby Grossman, Bob Gruen, Laura Levine, Eileen Polk, Marcia Resnick, Chris Stein, and Joe Stevens, the photographs featured here are curated with an eye towards style, inspired by the energy of the era as it manifested in the world at that time. “It’s all based in poverty,” Bayley reflects. Everything was D.I.Y., do it yourself.

Fashion, music, style, photography—all of it came as an expression of the truth: after the hippie movement sparked, it became mainstream and lost its edge. Punk came out of that void, all claws and fangs and guitar strings, spikes and torn clothes. It was street, strung out and sexy. It was the artist as anti-hero, a Romantic poem at the end of the second millennium AD. It was about the absolutes of individualism, of speaking your own voice and saying F the system.

But the only constant in life is change, and in one’s own lifetime there are seismic shifts. And now it is that we look to books and photographs to remind us of how it used to be so that we may reflect and consider how the only constant is change. Godlis reflects, “Everyone went down to CBGBs. Everyone would come up with new ideas and you could connect with them. We put flyers on lampposts. That was the Internet of the day. You did not wait for something to be done by someone else.”

Making something out of nothing is what New York has been about, being an original, being authentic, having something no one else could touch. The depths to which Richard Hell, Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, the Ramones, the Heartbreakers, the Dead Boys, and so many others brought to their music was matched by the eye of the photographers whose energy enhanced their own. A dialogue was born, a conversation of photographs, emblems, images, icons. It was a new way of looking at the world, a freedom that came from commitment to one’s artistry.

Marcia Resnick explains, “Punks express themselves with youthful aplomb, audacity and honesty. They realize their creative drives without reservation, whether they are making music or outfitting themselves in unique attire. They do things to the best of their abilities without consideration for polish or acceptance.” Consider her photograph of Johnny Thunders: “He covered his face with a kerchief, like the Lone Ranger. He wore a syringe, like a feather, in his hat. He is the incarnation of audacity.”

And it was this audacity that first sailed across the seas, back to the UK, influencing their culture in notorious ways. As Janette Beckman notes, “Punk brought an anti-establishment raw freshness to music, art and style and politics. It was about change, the idea that people should question authority and ‘do it for themselves’. At that time the economy in the UK was terrible, the three day work week, no jobs, no future, British class system, led people to rebel against the way things were and had always been. Punk was an attitude and a life style, that changed everything in the UK.”

Punk has power because it is rooted in the commitment of the individual. Taking on its ethos requires one to maintain a level of personal integrity uncompromised by expectation of objection. As Bobby Grossman recalls, “My photos were synonymous with PUNK.I abandoned a career in painting and Illustration (BFA Rhode Island School of Design) and after a few visits to CBGB to see the first Talking Head shows. I picked up a camera and began to document my visits every night. I had basic photography skills and I found that a Konica point and shoot camera was the simplest and easiest way to go. I often shot from the hip so some of my images included the graffiti on the ceiling while missing most of the composition or maybe just getting a portion of it. I was very in the moment. Many or most No Wave and PUNK musicians were novices to their instruments and I guess you could say the same about me and my camera.”

Punk is the great equalizer. Take it and make it yours. You don’t need money. You don’t need hype. Do It Yourself. Take photographs. Make books. Hang shows. Photography offers a path into the past that makes it come alive in every glance. The cumulative effect of Just Chaos! is breathtaking. It is the awareness that this is it, this is the tipping point in history. We are back on Bleecker Street. The time is not the same, but the time is always now to be making moves.

Janette Beckman, Punks, Worlds End, London 1978

Categories: 1970s, Art, Fashion, Manhattan, Music, Photography

Harry Allen: The Media Assassin

Posted on March 18, 2013

Run-DMC and Doctor Dre, outside of WBAU/90.3 FM, in the Adelphi University Center, Garden City NY, July 1983, Photograph © Harry Allen

Pebblee-Poo at Home, Photograph © Harry Allen

T La Rock, Benjamin Franklin H.S., South Bronx, Photograph © Harry Allen

Harry Allen is the Media Assassin. Be it print, radio or digital; written or spoken word; or in the medium of photography Allen ihas had a hand in hip-hop culture dating back to 1982, when he first met Carlton “Chuck D” Ridenhour in 1982, when the two took an animation class at Adelphi University. Ridenhour, then a member of the Hip Hop group Sepctrum City introduced Allen Flavor Flav and Terminator X (who, along with Chuck D, would form the core of Public Enemy), Spectrum City founders Hank and Keith Shocklee (who, along with Chuck D and Eric “Vietnam” Sadler , would form PE’s legendary production team, The Bomb Squad ), future Def Jam President Bill Stephney, and Andre “Doctor Dre” Brown, best known for later co-hosting Yo! MTV Raps.

It was during this time that Allen began his work in photography, capturing the local scene and visiting New York City stars, before he began writing professionally in 1987. Allen’s first published article was one of the first pieces to illuminate the political ideology behind Public Enemy. After a 1989 Washington Times interview with Professor Griff brought accusations of anti-Semitism against PE, Allen began identifying himself as a “hip hop activist and media assassin”, becoming the group’s publicist as “director of Enemy relations.”

An early proponent of the Internet, creating an online presence for PE in 1991, Allen was recently named “social media curator” by Fast Company recently named Allen a “social media curator” and one of “11 People Who Could Make Your Twitter Experience More Interesting.” Currently hosting NONFICTION, a Friday afternoon radio show on WBAI-NY/99.5 FM (the flagship of the non-commercial Pacifica radio network), Allen has always had a great affinity for photography. It’s no small feat to host a radio show with photographers as your guests, and successfully convey the nature of their work through ideas, rather than images. But time and again Allen does this, and it is a testament to his innate ability to understand the various forms in which reportage takes place. I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak with Harry Allen about his career in the media, and spotlight his work as a photographer.

Your title “Media Assassin” is incredibly powerful. I have lots of questions about this… How did you come to this idea early in your career? How has it developed over the course of time? Has that changed as you have become a part of the media? And, ultimately, what is your responsibility to your listeners and readers?

Harry Allen: I created the title, Media Assassin, as a way of denoting a certain kind of aggression and intensity in my work. I see it as emblematic of the language employed by great thinkers I admire: Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, David Walker, and others. Over time, the title has become better known, but I can’t say that my objectives for my work have changed in this regard. Ultimately, I consider my responsibility to not “pull punches,” and to communicate in a way that conforms with my operative motto: Educate and excite, inform and infuriate.

You’ve always taken a very intellectual and political approach to Hip Hop, something that existed back in the days, but seems to have vanished as money become an object of desire. What is the impetus to maintain your integrity as the culture evolves in another direction?

I can answer this question two related ways:

1) I think my approach to hip-hop is a reflection of who I am, and what I value. I am very much in touch with my own thoughts, and I am confident about them. As such, “maintaining” the approach you describe is merely a matter of doing what comes naturally to me. See this April 2010 interview Dr. Craig Werner and I did with Wisconsin Public Radio

2) I was brought up in, and continue to practice, Seventh-day Adventism as a spiritual system. SDAism has many values, but I think a core one is the idea that God-led people must commit to correct behavior, and not waver. Biblical characters who did this made a strong impression on me, early on, and continue to do so.

But even more, a kind of relentlessness about one’s position, if one believes it to be right and honorable, has become an aspect of my character. Growing up, I did not learn that “money” had an unlimited value. I learned that correct behavior was of higher value than money, and that this notion had a Godly basis. So, practicing correct ideas, and holding to correct standards, as I understand them—a relative kind of inflexibility about this—may be part of what you detect.

I love that you were taking photographs all along! It’s like discovering your house has another room you didn’t even know about. Where did your desire to photograph come from? Who are your inspirations and influences ? How does your visual work play into your mission? How did your subjects relate to you wielding a camera? And what has surprised you most about the public’s reception to your work when Bill Adler exhibited your collection, Part of the Permanent Record: Photos From the Previous Century?

I’ve always enjoyed taking pictures, from the days of dropping B&W 126 cartridges into the back of a cheap camera we had in the house. It got turned up in high school, though, when I was loaned a Canon Canonet GIII-17 rangefinder for a project, and learned I dug the process of making slide shows.

Around the time I left high school for college, I bought a Polaroid SX-70 Special Edition, and a Polaroid 600 SE. Later, I bought a used, match-needle Canon TX w/ a 50mm 1.8 lens and a Canon 577G “potato masher” automatic flash. It was with this basic rig that I shot the pictures you’ve noted.

My inspirations are anyone who has shot and printed a B&W image beautifully. I love the work of Arnold Newman, Henri-Cartier Bresson, Helmut Newton, Ansel Adams, and lots of others.

I think the connection between my photography and other work is that all are centered around the individual. That is, my favorite photography is portraiture. My favorite journalism is the profile, or the Q&A. The act of revealing a person, and their nuances, compels me, in all media.

The people of whom I tended to take pictures possessed big personalities, to begin. so, making images of them tended to be a straightforward task.

Part of the Permanent Record: Photos From the Previous Century was an immensely gratifying event. About 99% of the images we chose had never been printed before. I’d never seen them except on a contact sheet.

Though it was, sadly, Eyejammie Fine Art’s final photo show, getting the exhibit gave me a greater sense of my work and its value. I’d always thought that I had some photographic talent, and that there were people who’d like my work, but seeing people actually show up to look at my pictures was a big moment. Having people buy prints took it to another level.

Now, I’ve been taking some of those images around to colleges and universities, as part of a presentation titled Shooting the Enemy: My Life in Pictures with the People Who Became Public Enemy. See:

http://harryallen.info/?p=7317
http://harryallen.info/?p=7360

This has become an especially gratifying experience, as it gives me an opportunity not only to show the images, and to talk about them, but to discuss my ideas about hip-hop with interested audiences.

You’ve been in radio for nearly 30 years! I love Nonfiction on WBAI. Who have been some of your most memorable interviews? And who are your dream interview subjects?

I’ve been writing professionally since June 1987, and broadcasting since June 2003 on my Friday, 2 pm show, NONFICTION.

I’ve interviewed everyone from Harvard African and African American Studies head Dr. Henry Louis Gates to Black Panther Party activist Kathleen Cleaver; director David Cronenberg to dance music diva Ultra Naté.

I don’t have a favorite interview, or dream interviewee, but I most value those interviews where I learn something new and valuable that I didn’t know; where the subject reveals something of themselves that they’ve not said before; or where I ask them a question they say is so original that it stops them in their tracks.

My business is cultivating conversations. It’s my passion, and it’s something, thank God, I do well. The next part of my life is bringing together my God-given abilities in a way that drives a bigger, deeper, more profound conversation about human culture. That is what I’m onto now and next.

Grandmaster Flash On-Stage at the Ritz, NYC, Photograph © Harry Allen

Categories: 1980s, Art, Fashion, Music, Photography

Estevan Oriol: Portraiture of Los Angeles

Posted on February 27, 2013

Portraiture of Los Angeles © Estevan Oriol

Back in ‘93, Estevan Oriol was tour manager for House of Pain. His father, a photographer, Eriberto Oriol gave his son a camera, told him to take pictures. Oriol remembers feeling weird about it. “Most people with cameras were paparazzi or tourists. They take out the camera for everything and nothing. I don’t want to look like that. Even now I sorta feel weird taking it out,” he reveals.

Oriol always loved cars and the lowrider culture of Los Angeles. In 1989 he purchased a 1964 Chevy Impala from a friend for $1500. Over the years he put in work, rebuilding it to its original glory. Over the years the car has had four different looks; he is currently working on a fifth edition.

This kind of dedication comes to someone with a love for the tactile, the machinery of our age, the car, the camera. Both are integral to his work. He describes Los Angeles as his canvas, as he sets forth around the city taking pictures along the way. He explains, “My Los Angeles is the beaches, mountains, everything. Beverly Hills, Hollywood, South Central, East LA, Downtown. There re so many different parts of it. I go everywhere. That’s a 300-page book right there.”

Indeed, Oriol’s filing cabinets are spilling with images, photographs going back two decades of Los Angeles, it’s residents, it’s landscape, it’s culture. And from this diverse backdrop, he is currently culling a selection of images for publication in his second monograph, Portraiture of Los Angeles (Drago). This book focuses on gang culture, a way of life that he has seen from the inside. Oriol observes, “You got cool guys, crazy guys, assholes. Most people are cool that’s why I hang out with them. It’s more a brotherhood, the family. Got the barbecue, lowriding, hanging out, school days, guns, drugs, a little bit of everything.”

And then there is style, culture, pride, a way of life that Oriol embodies as a self taught artist navigating any number of industries using the photograph. He laments on the death of magazines, as we all do, those grand days where archives were open for editors looking for classic and cutting edge work. Now Oriol is thinking about how to share his work with the world.

“I’m doing the book so that people can’t afford prints can buy the book. I ended up making products: calendars, playing cards, t-shirts. Not everyone wants t-shirts. People buy books and put them in their library. I want people to buy my books. I imagine a 60 year old man is walking through the airport and he sees the cover of my book, L.A, Woman, and he wants to get it because of that.”

That, in fact, is exactly what happened to Oriol in Italy, while promoting L.A. Women in Italy. He asked them if they knew his other work. His iconic “L.A. Fingers” or the lowrider/gang portraits that have dramatized his black and white work for years. The old man knew neither. He just knew what he liked: the ladies.

L.A. Woman is Oriol’s love poem to the girls and the gun molls, the gansta bitches and the baby dolls. It is around the way girls from the City of Angels, forever cast in film noir they are vixenish kittens prancing before the lens. Oriol’s women come hither on every page.

Oriol’s women have brought him success, and now as he prepares for his second book, he can reflect upon what it’s all about. We talk about the way it was back in the days, when gangstas all dressed in a way that represented their neighborhood, until that became a tool by which the LAPD would oppress their civil rights, with injunctions passed against public assembly of three or more people. We talk about police harassment, search and seizure, police brutality. We talk about how you reach a point in your life where you can’t be hanging out. Oriol is a grandfather. He’s building a legacy.

Portraiture of Los Angeles © Estevan Oriol

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

Jim Jocoy: The Polaroids

Posted on January 18, 2013

Michael Jackson by Jim Jocoy

When the San Francisco punk scene took off in 1976, Jim Jocoy dropped out of UC Santa Cruz, got a job at a copy store, and went to punk clubs at night where he photographed his friends. Together the members of this small independent scene made art, music, videos, and other DIY productions. Jocoy had a few of his photographs published in local fanzines including Widows and Orphans, Search and Destroy, Research, and Punk Globe, and though he photographs were only exhibited twice, one of those included a slide show at the 70th birthday party for the great William S. Burroughs.

But all of that came to an end in 1980, when Jocoy stopped taking photographs. He recalls, “For me, when Darby Crash of the Germs committed suicide, it was the end of punk as I knew it.” Jocoy bowed out of the burgeoning scene, and of it, all that remained was a shoebox of 35mm portraits and Polaroids shot from 1978–1980.

Two decades later, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth unearthed Jocoy’s collection and from that came the book, We’re Desperate (powerHouse Books, 2002). This dense collection of uncaptioned portraits became an instant hit, having been shown at the Bay Area Triennial in 2006, as well as inspiring Marc Jacobs to have Juergen Teller shoot an ad campaign in the style of Jocoy for the Spring 2003 collection.

But greater than any accolades was the book’s greatest gift, for once it was in production Jocoy did something he had not done in two decades: he picked up his camera and began photographing again. Jocoy recalls, “When I had We’re Desperate published, I knew I would be contacting many people in the book. I wanted to take a follow-up photo of them 20 years later. I also knew I would be doing a little more traveling and meeting new people. It felt like it was going to be fun. It was. I decided to make it more fun by using my Polaroid.”

He continues, “It’s so easy to use. They take good photos. At least the kind I’m looking for. Nothing fancy. Lots of close ups. I like that a Polaroid photograph is an artifact of a close encounter with your subject. The idea of getting physically close to someone is important when you want to get a good Polaroid photograph.”

Indeed, it is. When Jocoy sets his eye on a subject to shoot, he graciously approaches them and asks for permission to photograph. More often than not, permission is granted and the results are phenomenal. In Jocoy’s world, everyone is a star. Celebrities are as casual as everyday people, while everyday people look like stars. Whether photographing the likes of Michael Jackson or Joe Strummer, Robert Evans or Shepard Fairey, Amanda Lepore or Charo, Bruce LaBruce or John Waters, Jocoy’s portraits are always up close and personal.

Complementing his images of famous faces are those who are less known, stars in their own constellation as they orbit the earth. Many of these photographs were taken on location at events like the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, at exhibition openings and nightclub parties, backstage at concerts or on the city streets. Combined with a selection of cityscapes, the result is a raucous collection of the poetry of daily life.

Jocoy explains, “I like to photograph people who do things. Creative people are the best. They are special people. They have special gifts and I find them the most interesting. That is the common denominator of most of the people I’ve photographed. They have good energy and usually look great. I like to capture some of it on film. I approach people with respect and try to make them look as best as I can. My favorite group of people I enjoy photographing is any taboo community. Many have extreme looks and I enjoy that a lot. I find much beauty and inspiration with people who are outcasts.”

As time has shown, Jocoy’s taste for the edge leads him into scenes that have the power to change the world through art, music, style, and culture. His ability to create images of the world in which he lives, to show the common man inside the celebrity and the celebrity inside the common man, leads us full circle, back to where it all began, to a man and his camera, capturing the world one frame at a time.

First Published in Le Journal de la Photographie
January 18, 2013

John Waters by Jim Jocoy

Categories: Art, Music, Photography

Jamel Shabazz: Brooklyn Represent

Posted on January 8, 2013

Women of God, NYC © Jamel Shabazz

The Brooklyn Central Library stands proudly at Grand Army Plaza, firmly set in the Northwest corner of Prospect Park, shining bright with gold inlays upon its façade, recalling nothing so much as Egyptian hieroglyphics. Inside the library, the ceiling soars high above, opening its many collections to a public that loves books for pleasure, for knowledge, for enlightenment—much like Jamel Shabazz himself.

Shabazz, a native of Brooklyn, currently has a four-part exhibition on display at the Central Library now through February 28, 2013, which has been produced in conjunction with a self-published thirty-year retrospective of his photographs titled Represent: Photographs from 1980–2012. The exhibition is organized in four parts, each display in a different location on the first two floors. In the atrium of the ground floor stands an edit from Represent, a broad swath of color, spirit, and style as Shabazz see the people of the world.

He explains, “ Since picking up my first camera nearly thirty-five years ago, I was intrigued with how people within my community represented themselves. As time passed, I embarked on a self-imposed assignment to document the people of the world around me. I have been very fortunate to meet many wonderful and diverse people from around the globe, and each experience has enriched me in ways that far surpassed what I learned in history books.” His photographs bring that home, as we see people from all walks of life in their native dress, be it Dominican adolescents in their pageant best or two little Jamaican girls, with their afro puffs glorious in yellow, black, and green, or the Italian men, lined up in the window of a café in Little Italy, staring down the camera like they’re on the set of a Scorcese film. And we’re just getting started.

One of Shabazz’s many gifts is taste, his honing in on people killing it with their pride of purpose and the dignity that belies human greatness. It is seen in the dress, the posture, and the determination of spirit that he captures that make each person he pictures a king and queen. This is most evident in the installation along the balcony of the second floor, grandly overlooking the atrium and out the front doors. Here Shabazz gives us “Men of Honor and Women of Distinction,” a sweeping tribute to the heroes of modern life. In perhaps the most lovely social networking moment I’ve had in some time, Shabazz posted a brilliant portrait of eleven black women perfectly dressed in a bouquet of pastel suits and slinky heels, perfect coiffures and more than a couple of hats. To which, Spike Lee asked, “Who are they?” and Shabazz answered “Women of God.”

This is but one in a series that pays tribute to the traditions of family, community, nation, and global village, the very now that allows the earth to carry six billion people. Shabazz gives us a glimpse into but a few lives he has connected with over the years, as they organize themselves in groups or around distinguished individuals. He speaks of being influenced by dapper men of Caribbean descent, standing erect and proud. It is this bearing and carriage that Shabazz sees when he looks at law enforcement, military personnel, elders, social and political activists, and every day people organized for the greater good of our world. Whether wearing a uniform of Sunday best, in these photographs Shabazz bears witness to the men and women who uphold the principles of family, community, and civil service.

Nestled into the entrance of the Brooklyn Collection, just off the balcony, is “Reflections,” a series of over eighty photographs depicting the people of Brooklyn. There’s a lot of talk about Brooklyn, there always was. Maybe it’s something in the water, or it’s in the air. Shabazz’s photographs remind us of this, like nothing else; that despite all of the diversity of ethnicity, culture, and custom, there is something that unites these beautiful people together and that is the ground upon which they walk. I’m saying, it comes up through the ground. And in these photographs we feel it, Shabazz being a native and understanding that here we walk upon sacred ground.

Lastly, and perhaps most touchingly, is the installation up front, “Pieces of a Man” in the Foyer Cases, which you can catch when you are coming or going—both are good. Here Shabazz shows us an intimate glimpse into the art that inspires him, as a man and an artist and a native of this here Brooklyn. It begins with Leonard Freed, Black in White America, and it forces us to ask the question, what’s really changed, and what’s really good. Tough questions. We usually talk around them. But not Shabazz. He presses forth, he brings in the music of an era. 45s, 8 Tracks, we’re talking Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan. The list goes on. There are magazines, books, images, texts, stories, each one adding to the next, until the experience of these cases becomes a diary written by the voices of the world we know, but never fully see, until into it Shabazz brings his voice, like a bell tolling with perfect clarity.

Old School, ND, Harlem NY © Jamel Shabazz

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Brooklyn, Exhibitions, Music, Photography

Jianai Jenny Chen: Party People in the Place to Be

Posted on August 18, 2010

Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

Portia aka Madame Blade, Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

T-kid 170, Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

Eric Haze, Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

Mare 139, Leo, and Eric Haze, Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

Leo, Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

Indie 184 + Cope 2, Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

Marty Cooper + Mark Seliger, Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

Daze + Co., Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

Henry Chalfant + Portia Ogburn, Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

Sharp, Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

More Party Photos at simplychen.com

Categories: Art, Exhibitions, Graffiti, Music, Painting, Photography

Jianai Jenny Chen: Down by Law ~Party Photos~

Posted on August 17, 2010

Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen

More Party Photos at simplychen.com

Categories: Art, Exhibitions, Graffiti, Music, Painting, Photography

Martha Cooper: Down by Law

Posted on August 2, 2010

Martha Cooper

MARTHA COOPER: DOWN BY LAW

Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton
August 14–September 26, 2010

Martha Cooper is a documentary photographer born in the 1940s in Baltimore, Maryland. She began photographing in nursery school after her father gave her a camera. She graduated from high school at the age of 16, and from Grinnell College with a degree in art at age 19. From 1963-65, she taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand and then journeyed by motorcycle from Bangkok to England where she received an ethnology diploma from Oxford. She was a photography intern at National Geographic Magazine in the 1960s, and worked as a staff photographer for the Narragansett Times in Rhode Island and at the New York Post in the 1940s.

Martha is perhaps best known for documenting the New York graffiti scene of the late 1970s and early 80s. While working for the New York Post she began taking photos of creative play on the Lower Eastside in order to use up the remaining film in her camera each day before developing it. One day she met a young boy named Edwin who showed her his drawings and explained that he was practicing to write his nickname on walls. Edwin offered to introduce her to a graffiti king. This is how she met the great stylemaster, Dondi, who eventually allowed her to photograph him in the yards at night while he was painting. In 1984, with Henry Chalfant, she published Subway Art, a landmark photo book that subsequently spread graffiti art around the world.

In addition to publishing more than a dozen books, Martha’s photographs have appeared in innumerable magazines including National Geographic, Smithsonian and Vibe. She is the Director of Photography at City Lore, the New York Center for Urban Folk Culture. She still lives in Manhattan but is currently working on a photo project in Sowebo, a Southwest Baltimore neighborhood.

Cooper will be exhibiting four silver gelatin prints from her early b-boy documentary work in “Down by Law” at the Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, opening on August 14, 2010. She has graciously agreed to speak about her work here.

New York in the 1970s and 1980s was a city bursting with originality, innovation, and experimentation. Please talk about how you see the relationship between your early work as a photographer and the environment in which it took hold.

I’ve long been drawn to anything made by hand perhaps because my parents always encouraged creative play. In 1977 I began working as a staff photographer for the New York Post and the job required that we cruise around the city all day in our cars with two-way radio contact to the news desk in case there was a breaking assignment. When not on assignment we were supposed to look for feature “weather” photos. My favorite neighborhood for photos was Alphabet City on the Lower Eastside where I could almost always find kids making something from nothing.

It has recently been suggested to me that the term “graffiti” is marginalizing, and loaded with negative connotations. How do you feel about the use of the word in general, as well as application to your work?

Writers probably enjoy being associated with “negative connotations”. Being bad can be cool. Of course the term graffiti has been around much longer than markers and spray paint. In NYC, it’s most fitting for tags but less appropriate for sophisticated spray painted walls. Words and their connotations change over time. Just let me know what you want me to call it and I’ll be happy to oblige. If you prefer the term aerosol art, I’ll go with that stilted though it may be.

As a working photographer over the past three decades, you have seen first hand how the art world—from galleries and dealers to museums and collectors—responds and reacts to contemporary American art. What are your thoughts on the differences (and similarities, if applicable) between the US, European, and Asian markets?

As a documentary photographer I’ve always been more interested in publishing my photos in books and magazines than showing them in galleries. I never paid much attention to the art market until very recently. Collectors in Europe and Japan seem more eager to collect “graffiti” (should I say aerosol?) related work. I’m just happy that people anywhere enjoy looking at my pictures.

Who are your artistic inspirations, and how have they influenced your ideas, aesthetics, and actions through the course of your career?

My dad was an amateur photographer and he used to take me on “camera runs” with the Baltimore Camera Club so my first experience with photography was just going out looking for pictures and that’s still my approach today…

I’m from a generation of street photographers who never studied photography. I grew up seeing photojournalism magazines like Look and Life and National Geographic and wanted to become a professional photographer so that I could travel the world. I was always more interested in thinking about what I wanted to photograph than how I was going to shoot it. It was never my intention to make art.

For “Down by Law” you will be exhibiting your silver gelatin prints of Rock Steady Crew members Frosty Freeze, Ken Swift, Crazy Legs, and Doze Green . Please talk about your work documenting the b-boy movement, and the way in which these photographs—in particular that of Frosty—have become historic markers of the culture.

I first encountered b-boys by chance in 1980 in Washington Heights and was so impressed that I contacted Sally Banes, a dance writer, to help me document them. It took us a year before we had enough material to publish a story. We asked Henry Chalfant to help us find dancers. He was organizing an event with graffiti, rapping and DJing and thought dance would be a great addition. Through his graffiti contacts, we met Crazy Legs.

The resulting story in the Village Voice in April 1981 with Frosty Freeze on the cover introduced breaking and Rock Steady to the world. Because NYC is a media town, magazines and film crews quickly covered the “new” dance. Henry filmed them for his movie Style Wars as did Charlie Ahearn for Wild Style. The words “Hip Hop” were not in general use at the time but as people became more aware of the culture, breaking was included as an integral part and the Rock Steady Crew became worldwide celebrities. As far as I know my photos are the earliest documentation of b-boying.

There has been a wide array of artists to emerge from the early graffiti and Hip-Hop movement. How have your earlier experiences documenting b-boys, young writers in the yards, and trains running along the lines influenced you ideas about art, and in what direction would you like to go?

I don’t think a lot about art. Still photography is a wonderful way to document. In a fraction of a second the camera can capture and preserve a million details. I’m interested in using photography for historic preservation. I want people to look at my photos and get a sense of what life was like at a specific time and place.

I’ve seen New York City change radically over the past 30 years and my photos are appreciated because they are a record of a different time. For the past 4 1/2 years I’ve been documenting a difficult neighborhood in Baltimore with a vibrant street life. My hope is that in thirty years these photos will similarly be enjoyed.

www.12ozprophet.com/index.php/martha_cooper

www.ericfirestonegallery.com

Categories: 1980s, Art, Bronx, Exhibitions, Graffiti, Manhattan, Music, Photography

Ruby Ray: Punk Passage

Posted on June 30, 2010

A couple of years ago, Carlo McCormick introduced me to Ruby Ray, understanding that she and I were destined to connect as her photographs of punk as it first exploded on the West Coast are unlike anything else out there. A regular contributor to Search & Destroy, Ruby Ray’s work defined a look and a vibe that has long since gone by. What remains are her photographs, which continue to evoke and inspire a do-it-yourself ethos that is more relevant than ever. I thank Ruby Ray for chatting about her work.

Please talk about the punk scene when it was coming up on the West coast in the 70s.

There was just an explosion of energy and so many great bands and shows up and down the whole coast. And a good number of NYC and UK bands came out here. We were playing a postindustrial game and had already decided that we were the winners! It was an awakening to all the lies – we weren’t caught in the matrix! SF was so cool because it was a small city with plenty of spaces and cheap rent. Anyone with guts could put on a show or start a band.

Please talk about your work for Search & Destroy magazine. What was it like to be a part of underground publishing?

We published S&D on newsprint and laid out all the pages by hand using miniscule typewritten pages and rubber cement. The text was usually Xeroxed several times in case the glue rubbed the type off! We had these giant flats that we had to carefully place and glue all the text and photos on, like a giant collage. Cartoonists came in and volunteered hand draw logos or headlines. What should it look like, what would punk visuals consist of? These were things influencing us subconsciously; we made it up as we went along. We had books all over for ideas –situationists, punk from other places, Russian constructivists, surrealists. The hippie paper the Oracle was an inspiration, too. Layout sessions happened on tables and the floor of our apartment with everyone helping out. It was a lot of work, but invigorating! We all felt very alive and part of something important. I learned so much and met so many great people! We tried to push the limits…

Do you see any connection between the DIY ethos of that era and today’s move trends digital self-publishing and promotions?

Totally, and it’s funny you ask me that because I have only just become involved with a cartoonist/games creator in developing a worldwide, online artist gallery and self-publishing website that hasn’t launched yet. I’m planning to publish my book Punk Passage there this fall in a print-on-demand edition and other formats. This method gives me so much freedom to publish the book just as I want it. It’s the future of new media and power to the people publishing. With billions of people in the digital landscape, there is always an audience for talent. Zeitgeist of the times impels us to find new forms. We have got to find different ways for artists to survive and thrive by their works.

How did it feel to be documenting a brand new scene and subculture? What was it like seeing your work in print as things were happening?

It was fabulous and exciting! I am a person who learns by doing and punk was my art school! It challenged me to become a better photographer and allowed me free use of my creativity to come up with whatever I wanted. It was a wonderful time of experimentation. And it gave me a forum which is what any artist wants. It’s fun to collaborate. We didn’t have to be worried about sales or whether the advertisers liked what we produced, we just put it out there.

How did your photographs influence and connect to a broader audience?

Well, for a while, I thought I was doomed to obscurity! But my big punk exhibit at the SF library in 2009 showed me differently. Almost 10,000 people came to the exhibit and granted, punk is a big draw. But I found a growing number of people had who claimed inspiration from my work, and that was very gratifying. My recent punk exhibit in LA took my work to yet another level. Sometimes, you have just got to hang in there… It may be awhile before those fans accept my new images.

Who were your favorite subjects to photograph?

Penelope of the Avengers was so photogenic and very easy to work with. Everyone was in love with her back then. The Mutants were so much fun, everything they did and said was instant art! I adored meeting and photographing John Cooper Clarke in London. It was always a different experience – at the clubs you had to be surreptitious because “punks” were not into posing per se. I always tried to think of everyone as my peer so I wouldn’t become intimidated. I had to make it interesting for them too.

What is the story behind the William Burroughs photograph?

When Search & Destroy stopped publishing, we started RE/Search and were putting out a magabook on Burroughs and his work. He was glad to oblige the photographer because he knew we would do a great book on him. I was a nervous wreck and only had about 10 minutes to shoot him and I had to make do with the location where he was attending a party. We brought the guns that were the props and I choose the garden to contrast the guns with. I kept praying the whole time that the film was exposed properly, and prayed again when I had to develop it. It wasn’t like with digital cameras where every photo comes out perfectly exposed; you really have to think when using film and natural light. Bill was at ease with me and I love the way the pictures came out. I am still shooting film, by the way!

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Music, Photography