Posts from the “Photography” Category

Remembering Peggy Cooper Cafritz

Posted on April 18, 2018

Jas Knight, “Summer” (2015). Oil on linen 18 × 22 inches. Photography Jeremy Lawson.

Never let it be said that one person can’t change the world. African-American philanthropist, activist, and collector Peggy Cooper Cafritz (1947–2018) did just this, over and over again. As a doyenne of arts and education in the nation’s capital, Cooper Cafritz was a force of nature.

Hailing from Mobile, Alabama, Ms Cooper Cafritz moved north in 1964 to attend George Washington University, with a mission to fight against segregation at the tail end of Jim Crow. As a senior in 1968, she had a vision of what would become one of her greatest accomplishments: a public high school that served artistically gifted students of colour from disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

In 1974, Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Ellington officially opened, providing professional training in music, theatre, paintings, and dance, along with an academic curriculum. Notable alumni include comedian Dave Chapelle, singer-songwriter Me’Shell Ndegéocello, and operatic mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves.

Ms Cooper Cafrtiz did not stop there. Her dedication to cultivating talent extended far beyond the school grounds as she took a hands-on approach in developing one of the largest private collections of African-American and African art that includes work by Kehinde Wiley, David Hammons, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Emory Douglas, Barkley L. Hendricks, and LaToya Ruby Frazier, to name just a few.

Tragically, more than 300 pieces of the collection were destroyed in July 2009 after a fire at her home. It was a loss that would have devastated many, but Ms Cooper Cafritz, in her inimitable grace and determination, soldiered on. Working with co-editor Charmaine Picard, Ms Cooper Cafritz created Fired Up! Ready to Go!; Finding Beauty, Demanding Equality: An African American Life in Art (Rizzoli), a stunning volume that showcases 200 of the lost works.

On February 18, just five days before the book’s official release, Ms Cooper Cafritz died at the age of 70. Her death came as a shock to the artists whose careers she helped to nurture and cultivate. Two months on, Ms Picard and a host of leading artists remember the life and legacy of Peggy Cooper Cafritz.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Lorraine O’Grady, “Art Is… (Girlfriends Times Two)” (1983/2009). C-print in 40 parts 16 × 20 inchesCourtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. © 2017 Lorraine O’Grady/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Peggy Cooper Cafritz. Copyright Marquéo

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

Patrick Willocq: Song of the Walés

Posted on April 16, 2018

BONTONGU, ONE OF THE LAST BANTU WALE. Bontongu — the young. From the village of Ikoko. Itele clan. © Patrick Willocq

EPANZA MAKITA, BAT WALE. Epanza Makita — the trouble maker. From the village of Bioko. Ilongo clan. © Patrick Willocq

The Bantu (Pygmy) tribes of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are among the oldest peoples living on earth. Believed to be the direct descendants of Late Stone Age hunter-gatherers of the central African rainforest, they have maintained traditions and rituals that date back thousands of years.

When women of the Ekonda pygmy tribe become first-time mothers, they become Walés (“nursing mothers”), living in seclusion with their children. Here they are tended to by other women who teach them about their health and that of their children, who regardless of gender are the heir of the family and sometimes the entire clan.

Here, the Walés are given the respect and care otherwise reserved for the king, devoting their energies exclusively to themselves and their children. Adopting elaborate grooming rituals including coating themselves in ngola, a red powder from a tree of the same name that is believed to chase evil spirits away, and donning heavy brass bracelets known as kongas that restrict their movements along with nkumu, the skins of carnivorous animals, the Walés are follow strict rules in seclusion until the time arrives for liberation.

Liberation requires the women to learn a song and dance that will be performed in a three-hour ceremony that commemorates their experiences. The ritual is highly competitive and requires each Walé to compete for prestige and power by outshining her rivals. At the end of each performance, the Walé is led to bamboo scaffolding built for the occasion, where she is launched into the air or dropped to the floor, symbolically being released from her period of seclusion.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

WALE ASONGWAKA TAKES OFF. Asongwaka — the beautiful. From the village of Bioko. Ilongo clan. © Patrick Willocq

Categories: Africa, Art, Feature Shoot, Photography, Women

Mark Murrmann: The Midwest Basement Band Scene

Posted on April 16, 2018

Teengenerate at the Fireside Bowl, Chicago, IL © Mark Murrmann

The Tyrades at the Ice Factory, Chicago, IL © Mark Murrmann

American photographer Mark Murrmann caught his first gig as a teen in 1987. It was a GWAR show, with a local band called the Slammies as the opening act. “I had no idea what to expect or what it was about, but I got hooked,” he remembers. “From that point on, I’d go to every show I could.”

There were only a handful of venues in his hometown of Indianapolis catering to the under-21 crowd back then. The only larger venue, the Arlington, didn’t book small touring bands, who made due by playing at high school cafeterias, hotel conference rooms, park recreational halls – anywhere someone was willing to host a show.

“This wasn’t new, but was new to me,” Murrmann explains. “Going to see a band play in a crowded basement or small hall with everyone packed together – the energy was combustible.”

“A guy named Steve Duginsky was booking a lot of the hardcore and emo shows featuring early Bay Area Lookout Records bands, Dischord bands, Chicago bands, bands via Maximum Rock’nroll’s Book Your Own Fucking Life guides. He rented a shitty storefront as a space for shows and called it the Sitcom. In the early ’90s, a lot of spots like this were popping up around the Midwest.”

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Short Eyes, Monkey Mania Warehouse, Denver, CO. © Mark Murrmann

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

John Myers: The Portraits

Posted on April 15, 2018

Mr. Jackson, 1974. © John Myers

British artist John Myers first took up photography in 1972 when he began creating portraits of local residents in the town of Stourbridge in the West Midlands. Using a 5 x 4 Gandolfi plate camera, Myers made a series of photographs that combine the classic archetypical studies of August Sander and the quirky psychological profiles of Diane Arbus.

Although a selection of the works were exhibited in London at the time and published in British Image 1 (1974) – the first landmark publication from the Arts Council – most of the photographs had never been printed until now. With the release of The Portraits (RRB Photo Books), Myers returned to his archive to unearth a selection of work made throughout the 1970s.

“In the early ’70s in England, there were very few photography books available,” Myers recalls. “My main interest and influence was August Sander and Diane Arbus. What’s striking about Arbus’ photographs is that you can’t get away from the figure. They are not composed in any composition sense; they are in a box and they intrude on your space. There’s nowhere to hide. Arbus developed this notion of the figure in space from August Sander.”

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Nicola and Donny Osmond, 1973. © John Myers

Categories: 1970s, Books, Huck, Photography

Nan Goldin: The Beautiful Smile

Posted on April 13, 2018

Nan Goldin’s photographs are filled with spirits and ghosts, becoming vestiges of lives lived, loved, and lost. They are evidence of we who once were and no longer are, here today, gone tomorrow – were it not for her art.

Over the past five decades, Goldin has created a body of work so iconoclastic and powerful that she has spawned generations of artists who follow in her footsteps, from Juergen Teller to Wolfgang Tillmans and Corinne Day. Goldin first picked up the camera in 1968 at the age of 15, using photography as a means to deal with life following her older sister Barbara’s suicide just four years earlier.

By 1973, she had her first solo exhibition in Boston, wherein she showed the world her travels through the city’s gay and transsexual communities in a series of black and white photographs that are stunningly timeless – yet prescient, as Goldin always is.

“My desire was to show them as a third gender, as another sexual option, a gender option,” Goldin told Stephen Westfall in a 2015 interview for BOMB magazine. “And to show them with a lot of respect and love, to kind of glorify them because I really admire people who can recreate themselves and manifest their fantasies publicly. I think it’s brave.”

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

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

George Rodriguez: Double Vision

Posted on April 11, 2018

L: Los Angeles, 1992. R: Eazy-E, Burbank, 1980s. “He was a cute little guy but was real solid. He looked very powerful. The times I saw him he was always with a different pretty girl. Whenever N.W.A. would come to my studio in Burbank, across from NBC, they’d come by way of Taco Bell.” © George Rodriguez

There are many sides to LA. But few people travel between the realms that were separated during the first half of the 20th century when the Great Migration and post-war Mexican immigration changed the face of the city.

Photographer George Rodriguez is the rare artist who has thrived between Hollywood and Chicano LA for more than half a century. Born in 1937 to a Mexican immigrant father and a Mexican-American mother, Rodriguez has spent his life creating a body of work that captures the many facets of life in LA—from the glittering stars of music, TV, and film to the leaders and activists of the Civil Rights, United Farm Workers, and Chicano movements.

From an archive that includes everyone from Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and the Brown Berets to Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson, and N.W.A., Rodriguez has partnered with author Josh Kun to publish his first career retrospective Double Vision: The Photography of George Rodriguez (Hat & Beard Press, April 10). An exhibition of photographs from Double Vision will open at The Lodge in Los Angeles on May 26. I spoke with Rodriguez about creating art of the fabled city during some of its most incendiary years.

Read the Full Story at Vice Online

L: Lincoln Heights, 1969. R: Cesar Chavez , Delano, 1969. © George Rodriguez

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

Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick: Slavery, the Prison Industrial Complex

Posted on April 9, 2018

Chandra McCormick. YOUNG MAN, ANGOLA STATE PENITENTIARY, 2013. © Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun

At 7,300 hectares, the Louisiana State Penitentiary – the largest maximum-security prison in the United States – is home to 6,300 prisoners. The inmates are forced to work the land under the 13th Amendment of the constitution, which legalises slavery in the case of incarceration.

The penitentiary is one of the most prominent examples of how slavery has evolved in the United States, a nation that leads the world in profiting off the prison industrial complex. With more than 2.2 million people living behind bars, America accounts for 25 per cent of the prisoners on earth, despite having just 5 per cent of the world’s population.

Commonly known as “Angola,” the penitentiary took its name after the country of origin for countless men, women, and children who were brutally enslaved and brought against their will to work on the pre-Civil War plantation where the prison now sits. The prison has another nickname, just as evocative: it is called “The Farm” to describe the labour inmates are forced to work, generating as much as 1,814 metric tons of cash crops every year.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Chandra McCormick. MEN GOING TO WORK IN THE FIELDS OF ANGOLA, 2004. © Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun

Keith Calhoun. OUR CHILDREN ENDANGERED, THE NEW PREY FOR PRISON BEDS, NEW ORLEANS, 1982. © Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun

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

Lukas Birk: Burmese Photographers

Posted on April 5, 2018

Actor Kyaw Thu. Taken by U Sann Aung, USA Photo Studio, Yangon 1989/1990

Calendar photographs taken by Har Si Yone, Bellay Photo Studio, Yangon 1970s

The Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar has long been shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Formerly known as Burma, the country sits on the Bay of Bengal where it lies nestled between India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Laos, and China, and has been subject to invasions for the better part of the past millennia.

For the past six decades, it has been ruled by a military dictatorship that has worked to keep its borders closed. “We have this idea that the country was closed off from the world and to some extent it was – but certain things always come through,” Austrian photographer and archivist Lukas Birk reveals.

In 2013, Birk launched the Myanmar Photo Archive (MPA) to create a comprehensive archive of Burmese photographers working between 1890 and 1995. Featuring some 10,000 photographs, it provides an inside look at the nation through the eyes of its citizens. A selection of the work is showcased in the new book, Burmese Photographers (Goethe Institut Yangon), which includes fascinating chapters on youth culture between 1970 and 1990.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Calendar photographs taken by Har Si Yone, Bellay Photo Studio, Yangon 1970s

Actors Kyaw Thu & Moh Moh Myint Aung. Taken by U Sann Aung, USA Photo Studio, Yangon 1989/1990

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

Marcia Resnick: Wild Women

Posted on April 3, 2018

Brooklyn-born photographer Marcia Resnick has documented New York City’s art communities for more than half a century. When she was in high school in the 1960s, she mingled with aging hippies at Greenwich Village clubs like Café Au Go Go and Café Wha? And in the 1970s, she shared a loft building in Tribeca with neighbors like Laurie Anderson.

During the 70s and the city’s wildest years, Resnick spent most nights at CBGB, Max’s Kansas City, and the Mudd Club. Around this time, she also started photographing the “bad boys” of the art scene. Resnick wanted to see how powerful men like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Iggy Pop, and William S. Burroughs reacted when the tables were turned and a woman was behind the camera, subjecting them to the female gaze.

Resnick was also enchanted by the gregarious women she lived, worked, and partied with who were simultaneously shaking up the scene. Though it’s less well-known than her Bad Boys series—which was later published as the book Punks, Poets and Provocateurs, NYC Bad Boys 1977-1982 (Insight Editions, 2015)—Resnick’s Wild Women series captures the revolutionary spirit and creative power of artists like Joan Jett, Debbie Harry, and Susan Sontag.

Wild Women is a rarely-seen body of work that embodies the DIY ethos of the era, and VICE recently sat down with Resnick to talk about what it was like documenting her peers and how Women’s Liberation shook up the 70s and 80s.

Read the Full Story at VICE

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Manhattan, Photography, Vice, Women

David Goldblatt: Structures of Dominion and Democracy

Posted on March 29, 2018

David Goldblatt was just 18 years old when the National Party was elected to power in South Africa – a group which institutionalised legal segregation that systematically exploited and oppressed the majority black nation. His new book, Structures of Dominion and Democracy (Steidl) begins in 1949 and continues through 2016, taking us across a sweeping arc of history that is sensitive to the ways in which apartheid penetrated every aspect of life for men, women, and children, both black and white.

In Goldblatt’s hands, the camera became a tool that allows him to not only record the moment, but to be an extension of the event itself. “This strange property of the photograph… creates tension,” he writes in an essay titled “Why and What” at the beginning of the book. “It pulls between a heightened awareness of reality and a growing recognition of its possible photograph. For me, this tension is part of the excitement.”

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Soweto: Margaret Mcingana at home on a Sunday afternoon, Zola. As Margaret Singana she became a famous singer. She died on 22 April 2000 at the age of 63. © David Goldblatt

Categories: Africa, Art, Books, Photography

Dazed Selects the Best Photo Stories of March 2018

Posted on March 28, 2018

Lucas Foglia, Vanessa and Lauren watering, GreenHouse Program, Rikers Island jail complex, New York, 2014. © the artist and courtesy Fredericks & Freiser Gallery, New York

“Slavery in the United States was never abolished – it simply changed shape,” wrote Miss Rosen for Dazed Digital’s feature on Prison Nation, Aperture magazine’s latest edition, which looks at the state of the US’s flawed prison system. A series of eye-opening images are shared alongside a complex interview with scholar Nicole R. Fleetwood, who, with Aperture Magazine’s editor, Michael Famighetti, edited the issue.

See the Full Story at Dazed

Zora J Murff, Megan at 16 , 2014, from the series Corrections , 2013–15. Courtesy the artist

Categories: Art, Dazed, Photography