by way of the stars, by way of the Nile evermore
(We have come..)
speaking the tongue of the Pharaohs, descending from such
(We have come..)
in love of the ancestor, the struggle continues
Loving heart, strong sun, firm fist
We are those
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~*~
Photographs by Daniel Amazu Wasser
Masks from the Chokwe
Lyrics from Tribal Jam / X Clan
As my files grew,
I realized that many of the dogs whose pictures I had in my archives,
never made it out alive.
—Traer Scott
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“Pity little girl. Why are you behaving like death will not come to you? Pity you… May God save you… Hmmmmmmmmmmm.”
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This comment was submitted to my blog for approval after I posted a story on Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, the twenty-year old communications major who gained worldwide attention when she posted a naked photograph of herself on Twitter with the hash tag #nuderevolutionaryphoto in October 2011.
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In the black and white photograph, she stands facing the camera, the intensity of her gaze heightened by her thigh-high stockings, red shoes, and red bow. Elmahdy told CNN, “I am not shy of being a woman in a society where women are nothing but sex objects harassed on a daily basis by men who know nothing about sex or the importance of a woman. The photo is an expression of my being and I see the human body as the best artistic representation of that. I took the photo myself using a timer on my personal camera. The powerful colors black and red inspire me.” Red, black, and white, the colors of the Egyptian flag….
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Aliaa, what a nice name, good physical features, I mean young, fresh and blossoming only with a strong and probably negative heart and ego, surely there are many ways of expressing your feelings and motives than by showing your precious body to the whole world, what now remains for you is to start moving around NAKED. I wonder what religion you are practising, bcos NO religion promotes this sort of act neither do our (African) traditions and morals. Please find another decent way of expressing yourself, though I dont know you but I feel I like you to the level of giving you a sensible advise. Thanks and I pray for good things in your life.
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Hassan Aliyu Shehu left this comment today on my post to Aliaa Magda Elmahdy. I’ve been thinking about what it means. To be choose to be nude before the whole world. As a New Yorker, the body is a commodity. Maybe that’s what freedom means. At least, here and now. In the twenty-first century. We as women are free to use our bodies for any purpose we wish, and no longer is it political because that moment in America has passed. From Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party to Kim Kardashian’s sex tape. And we talk about progress like it’s a good thing. But maybe it’s more complex than that.
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But Egypt is not America, and Aliaa’s act is one that is so powerful I feel overwhelmed trying to understand what it must mean. To be a woman in Egypt today, fighting for freedom, subject to virginity tests. That’s the least of what she’s up against. Mind blowing hostility, hatred, social control. Freedoms we take for granted are subject to death threats in another part of this world.
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When will the body—both male and female—be seen as a work of Nature, rather than a product of Society? Can we look with love, with admiration, with respect, or will our hearts always fill with lust, with anger, with disgust? Will we celebrate or condemn, will we wrap our fears in religion and groupthink? Will we support or fight her wish for freedom on her terms?
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To be naked before the whole world is a political act when there is nothing to be sold. But once that ground has broken, something is lost and something is found. I live in a world where women use their bodies for profit, as though objectification at the hands of oneself is an honorable act. Is this the future of Aliaa’s mission? Self determination. Self exploitation. Where is the line?
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I suppose it depends on where you stand.
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From here I see Aliaa, a vanguard of the old school using new media to speak to the world. And by old school, I mean the cult of the goddess, a time when the woman’s body was worshiped and revered. A time when the female energy was honored for its power to bring life into the world. It was not superior, nor was it inferior, to masculine energy. It was complementary. It was yin to the yang. Two Equals One. Never tear us apart.
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But we have been split, torn asunder, and the result is it takes a scream to be heard. It takes a twenty-year-old woman, a twenty-year-old girl. It takes an honest look at the nude form for us to ask What’s Going On? This is the oldest war in the world, the struggle for female self determination. Because she who controls life controls the future, and that’s a frightening prospect to many.
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There is no right or wrong answer because the subject of nudity, sexuality, and the female body is a political game. Ideas are currency, currency is power. Perhaps the answer is not to be found in the examination of her ideology, but in the way she triggers us to answer for our own.
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The wonderful Joe Conzo arranged an interview for me with Afrika Bambaataa back in the Fall of 2006, when I was working on That 70s Show. I went in with just two questions: What was the Bronx like back in the day, and what was Hip Hop like before it even had a name. From this came an incomparable story as told to me for issue 2 of powerHouse Magazine, and later featured in Joe Conzo’s book, Born in the Bronx. Dig how Bam is a Buddha and only says the sword “I” twice. Nice. Hip Hop, such as it is meant to be, is the world where You are one with We.
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Afrika Bambaataa on New York City in the 1970s:
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The Bronx went through different changes. In the 60s, the Bronx had city planning, and organizations made sure you had city planning. You had the blacks and Latinos in the South Bronx, Irish and Italians in the North Bronx, in the Castle Hill area—and they were jumping all the way over to the West Bronx, Broadway, Kingsbridge. In between you had us tokens living in certain areas that would get the racism, trying to “move on up” as they say in The Jeffersons.
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You had areas (like the Southeast and South Bronx) with housing development projects, which were like cities in their own right. In these places you had certain street gangs that ruled the areas, or so-called ruled the areas, fighting for what turf was theirs. You had youth gangs that were always mixed with blacks, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and so forth. You had people that were searching for their roots, when so-called black people were Negroes, coloreds, and niggers, and people who spoke Spanish were spics or niggers. Then you had your radicals, your pimps and players, and hookers, and you had people who were construction workers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, taxi cab drivers…
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There was politics—those trying to change life in certain parts of the Bronx—the fighters, the warriors for the community. You had people that were against the police—the radicals and revolutionaries that were part of the Black Panther Party, part of the Young Lords Party, some were even part of the crazy radical group that was blowing things up, The Weathermen. You had certain radical street gangs, some were more political and others were just to sell drugs and others just to cause destruction. Then you had a street gang within the police department called the Purple Mothers that was out to destroy the street gangs. It was ex-veterans, out to assassinate them. They would take one group and stick you in an area with a group that hated you, or in a white area and drop you off, and you had to make your way home—almost like the way it was in the movie The Warriors.
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That was a time when people were fighting for their civil rights and their human rights. We had great leaders that were waking us up. From Malcolm X, Minister Farrakhan, the most honorable Elijah Muhammad, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Richie Perez, Pablo Guzman. They showed all of the things that the community was going through, the life and times of the struggle. So when the drug epidemic hit, messing many of our people up, people unified against it. They were together to move the drug dealers out of the community, All this to the movement called hip hop. Hip hop saved a lot of lives, and brought the unification of many different people together under the banner of hip hop culture. There was my group, which became the Zulu Nation, and we went out and started organizing the people. I used to speak to the different leaders, the gang leaders, and the warriors for the community, and asked them to join this thing I was making. Once you get the leaders in, you start getting the followers and the members behind you, and that’s how we started getting larger than the Bronx, stretching into Manhattan and the rest of the city, then to other states and the rest of the world.
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You had areas that were nice and areas that were totally messed up; some would say F’ed up. It was so bad in the South Bronx, they said it was the worst place in the United States. And there was the culture of hip hop, this music. We always had the musical aspect in the Bronx. And we had the drugs, the dope, the coke—all that was plaguing the community. In going from Negro, to colored, to black, to African American, we had certain songs that used to grab the community and make everybody happy. That was the time you would see everybody do some salsa, some calypso, or do each others’ ways—people still trying to find their culture. That’s when books like Down these Mean Streets by Piri Thomas or ManChild in the Promised Land came out, with everybody still trying to find their roots. James Brown came out with “Say it Loud, I’m Black and Proud.”
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You had the new birth of salsa that started to get strong on the scene, then came Salsoul with brother Joe Bataan, the Joe Cuba Sextet—they were doing rap back then with that. You could see the salsa and soul at the Apollo, all of that on one stage. Joe Bataan with Dionne Warwick, the James Brown Revue and the Motown sound—all that was happening. It was a sight to see. You had the salsa, the Salsoul, a lot of the calypso, reggae or ska music from the West Indies.
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People get so caught up not knowing the true mentality of their roots. Like if you say you’re Puerto Rican, you’re still West Indian, you’re still in the Caribbean. That’s why there was interest in books like Down These Mean Streets, where you are trying to find your roots—was he black, was he Puerto Rican, was he white? Everybody was so caught up on what race or nationality you belong to, like, “If I speak Spanish, am I Hispanic?” People were trying to find themselves—and are still trying to find themselves today. But the music always played a good role in our community. With the blacks and Latinos, every three months you had a new dance. Whites were just finding that they could get that soul—and that they got that soul. You had the radio stations, the good ones, WWRL, WWLIB, WNJR, WABC.
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In the black and Latino community, you’re born into music. In your mother’s belly, you’re already feeling the vibrations of what they’re feeling. The rhythm of life comes and hits you. So when you’re born and take that breath of air, calling the Creator’s name, you already feel the vibrations of music. By 1 or 2, we have already started shaking something, by 5 we are in full swing. Getting older, in learning to dance you mimic adults, and then we start to do our own thing, make our own steps and dances that then come into our community.
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In the early 70s, we started to bring the house turntables. In the house, you would have a whole component set, and you would have to break it all up first. You would bring this big box—or this little box, trying to put the record on. You had the spindle that dropped six 45s at one time, or you could take the spindle off and just play it manually. You had the close and play. You had the big, retarded 8-tracks, sticking out your car. When they turned to cassettes, everybody was happy because they thought this was the new thing. These 8-tracks were always clogging up all your seats, all your stuff. Before that, you had the reel-to-reel, funny radios with two channels. You would think that you were in the 40s and 50s with that type of stuff. Then they started getting more progressive when they started making better radios. FM came in the 70s, because it was all about AM in the 60s. FM was a cleaner, clearer sound. AM was where you would hear more about what was going on in the community. WLIB was the first black-owned radio station. Gary Byrd on WILL used to do the GBE Experience. There was Cousin Brucie on WABC.
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We always had rap in our community. You had Joe Cuba, Gil Scott-Heron, Last Poets. Shirley Ellis with “Clap Your Hands,” “The Name Game,” Pigmeat Markham who came up with “Here Comes the Judge.” You also had your rock records that had a rap to them, like “Joy to the World.” Sly and the Family Stone had a rap on their second album. There was rapping that was done on the radio. You can see how far the rapping, call-and-response thing goes back, even before our time. Back to Cab Calloway and all those cats, all the way to Isaac Hayes and Barry White. You had the poet-rappers, Wanda Robinson, Maya Angelou.
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It was basically from seeing so many great teachers that came and taught us how to unify, knowing how to speak to our people, going into different communities, saying let’s make something happen. That and giving community parties, as well as what we added in the 80s, what we called the fifth element: knowledge.
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You had that strong black core. That was a time when we would respect each other’s momma. Certain people had that status in the community–don’t mess around, you’ll get your butt whipped. It was interesting to see how these things started to change into the disrespect, or how the brainwashing techniques have started to seep in this day and time, where the youth will just cuss or even try to make a move on their elders, when they are trying to teach them something.
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It’s 33 years for the Universal Zulu Nation, 32 years for what we’re calling hip hop culture, but it goes even further than that to years when we might of said the Go-Off, or the Beat-Bop when it didn’t have no name. Add the Zulu Nation’s years to the Black Spades’ five or six years of being organized, and it’s really been organized for quite awhile now.
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Hip hop keeps it all together, but you know it’s the fifth element that gets people from different nationalities and places to speak about different subjects—mythologies, AIDS, diseases, politics, the universe, subterranean worlds. That’s the interesting part, changing different views, the ideologies, respecting all of the different religions. It’s something where we can, and whether it’s right or wrong, sit and talk to each other—and not kill each other.
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You’re dealing with a machine that is controlling the minds of the masses of the people and keeping the people in poverty, teaching them to be greedy, stealing from each other’s land. That is the cause for so much of the chaos on our planet today. People of color get sick and tired and start to rise, and the people in power see this rising and try to hold on to power, doing all types of evilness in the name of their Creator to keep their power. Everybody talks about the war in Iraq. These people love Allah the Supreme Force, where others claim to love Jesus, but do everything except what’s in The Book. Everybody says that this is my holy book, but they don’t really follow it, so who are you following?
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People got to go back and research who they are, their roots, and what happened. The biggest thing is the fear factor. They have made it now so you’re fearful to open your mouth, or to protest. When they first started the war, everybody thought if you were against the war, you would lose your job, they would lock you up. Everybody was nervous at first. But then you see the people get tired, the people hitting the streets again, all races and nationalities hitting it. People are still wondering how Bush stole the election.
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What is really going on in your government, and what’s really behind your government, and who is controlling your mind, using mind control tactics? We’ve got to reevaluate what is really going on. In Africa, there is no way that anybody should go hungry, starving there, when the Creator blessed Africa with everything in it, every animal and being in it, the farmland, the trees…. Who is paying all that money to make sure that Africa stays starving or messed up when the whole world took their civilization from Africa? And really, for everyone on the planet, their mother really is African, if they go back and check the roots of it all.
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The people in power are tricking the people; that they’ve got you under their rule, that you are my Hispanic, you are my black. If you try to go find it, where is black land, white land, yellow land—you can’t find it. It’s really about your status and your nationality and where you come from. Humans are the only ones that have this bugged out thing—that they are colors. Everybody has a place set for us, where we won’t be ourselves. They have wiped out history. When our Spanish brother says, ‘Look at that Mulatto, or the Moor,” you don’t know that you are mulatto, too. It’s going to take a big cleaning of our minds, our mentality, to go back to what it was like when people were trying to wake up, because they have done a great brainwash job on all of us, to make us hate ourselves or be fearful of ourselves. Or we have to move into their community to say that we finally made it, that we’re moving on up, like The Jeffersons.
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I like being different. I love life, art, photography and expressing my thoughts through writing more than anything. That is why I studied media and hope to take it further to the TV world too so I can expose the truth behind the lies we endure everyday in this world. I don't believe that we must have children only through marriage. It's all about love.
I am a believer of every word I say and I am willing to live in danger under the many threats I receive in order to obtain the real freedom all Egyptian are fighting and dying for daily.
I am not shy of being a woman in a society where women are nothing but sex objects harassed on a daily basis by men who know nothing about sex or the importance of a woman. The photo is an expression of my being and I see the human body as the best artistic representation of that. I took the photo myself using a timer on my personal camera. The powerful colors black and red inspire me.
Put on trial the artists' models who posed nude for art schools until the early 70s, hide the art books and destroy the nude statues of antiquity, then undress and stand before a mirror and burn your bodies that you despise to forever rid yourselves of your sexual hangups before you direct your humiliation and chauvinism and dare to try to deny me my freedom of expression.
"From Non-Existent to Life for Aalia Magda Almahdy" by Cartoonist Kaveh Adel.
Read Her Exclusive Interview with CNN Here
Watch the Video of Aliaa Magda Elmahdy
Being Removed from Tahrir Square
i’m always curious what brings people here ..
these are a few of my favorites ..
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Malcolm X * Harriet Jacobs * Bronx Concourse Robbery in 1987 * Red Sexy Toes * Jim Jocoy * Maripol * Sade * Bunny Wailer * J Dilla * Leigh Bowery Trojan * Sid Vicious * Girls Fight Club * Nat Finkelstein * Huey Newton * Alpha Male * oOo Love to Love You Baby * Eazy E * REVS * Martha Cooper * Rock Steady Park * Rhapsody in Blue * Urohobo Language You Are the Love of My Life * Pee Porn * Danny Lyon * Blade Graffiti * Tuna Tartar * 70s Fashion Men Super Fly * Norma Desmond * Salome * Candy Darling * Anton Perich * Flatbush Brooklyn * Eric Johnson * Bobby Seale * Joe Conzo * New York State of Mind * Errol Flynn * Champagne Breasts * Anya Phillips * Pedro Paricio * WeeGee Crime Scene Photos * Paris is Burning * Tough Wigger Coked Out * Ellen Jong * Tiger Heart * Morticia y Gomez * Christmas Blunts * Martin Eden * Fuck SCAF * Two of Swords * Images of Love * I Dreamt I Was Jogging * Elephant Texture * Black Israelite * Brooklyn 1980 * Delayed Gratification * Women Are Beautiful * Cherish the Day * Martha Graham * T La Rock * Lady Jumps Out of Empire State Building Lands on Car * Fat Guy With Afro in Speedo * Madonna Polaroid * Slava Mogutin * Tupac Thug Life Tattoo * Call Me…Choclate Dinosaur * Grand Concourse 1971 * April Flores * Dance Is the Hidden Language of the Soul * The Cover Girls * Stiletto Heels and Loose Morals * Park Jams South Bronx * Egypt Revolution Graffiti * Roads to Nowhere *
Suzhou, China, is one of Jianai Jenny Chen’s many hometowns, and the subject of a current series of photographs she has been taking, documenting a world that is unlike any I have ever seen. Combining the East and the West in an incredibly original way, Suzhou is a city near the Yangtzhe River on the central east coast of China, a half hour (very fast) train ride away from shanghai. It’s famous for it’s amazing gardens and pagodas and elaborate stoned bridges, silk commodities (and fried silk worms), pearl farms and markets and canals, deeming it the Venice of China. Besides the ancient town is a huge are of modern developments, full of malls, high rise buildings and hotels, restaurants and bars from around the world, and international schools and universities.I thank Miss Chen for sharing these incredible images with us.
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Old-fashioned fire extinguishers, for a parking lot. These are actually buckets that are flat on the other side along the wall, and quite rusty and old. They look like they haven’t been used in years. Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen
Famous part of the canals in downtown Suzhou. Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen
This is at the Humble Administrator’s Garden, one of China’s four greatest gardens. It’s even a UNESCO World Heritage Site! Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen
Inside a pagoda at the Humble Administrator’s Garden. Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen
Elaborate electric lanterns at Suzhou’s Times Square, a large outdoor shopping mall. Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen
An IMAX theater modeled after the Beijing National Stadium built for the 2008 Summer Olympics called “The Bird’s Nest”. Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen
A giant Ferris Wheel in Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) that lights up at night and features LCD commercials at it’s center, such as this one for Estée Lauder. Photograph © Jianai Jenny Chen
Photograph © Tetsugo Hyakutake
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I first discovered Tetsugo Hyakutake’s photographs when curating the 2009 IPA Best of Show exhibition. His photographs of post-war industrial Japan were at once graphically arresting images of a landscape that was both familiar and alien, powerful and exhausting, brilliant and stressful. I am fortunate Tetsugo contacted me recently, to let me know about “Pathos”, an exhibition of the works at Alan Klotz Gallery, NY, now through October 30 as I had the chance to speak with him about his ideas about modern day Japan.
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Please talk about your ideas of “Pathos and Irony” as they pertain to power post-war Japan. What has been gained and what has been lost during this radical period of industrial and economic growth?
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The post-war Japanese nation believed that industrialization and economic growth was the only way to recovery from defeat, catch up with the West, and revive national confidence. Despite the loss of human lives, destruction of more than 60 cities, and a lack of raw materials, Japan became the second largest economy in the world in less than 30 years after the war ended. However, in the early 1990s, rising stock and real estate prices following industrialization caused the economic bubble to burst and since then the Japanese economy ceased growing, which is known as “Lost Decade”. I think the collapse of the economy and the “Lost Decade” have left little room to reflect upon and contemplate what was post-war development and what it means to be uniquely Japanese. By looking back on history, I want to bring light to the present.
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Although rapid economic growth was in a sense successful and made living standards rise materially, at the same time we sacrificed lot of things, such as beautiful landscapes, agriculture, human lives, and we also suffered from things such as air pollution and water contamination.
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I focus on the ironic duality of beauty and dehumanization inherent in industrialization. “Pathos and Irony” lies between them, and while there is no visual evidence of human life, the industrial structures cannot be stripped of the sense of humanity that surrounds them. These opposing values epitomize the paradox of society after industrialization. Also I give a tribute to those who toiled to make it possible for Japan to become an economic superpower after World War II. I strive to depict this “pathos” as well as other emotional complexities that go hand in hand with the advancement of modern society.
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Embedded in my images is also the investigation of “pathos” in relation to historical, social, and economic issues involving industrialization and urban development. By expressing feelings of isolation, loneliness, and emptiness that underlie this “development,” I seek to provoke the question of whether society is truly advancing through industrialization.
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Photograph © Tetsugo Hyakutake
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Why did you decide to focus on documenting the industrialization of Japan?
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From the 1970’s to 1990’s, my father had been involved in the Japanese car industry as a car designer. When I was twenty years old, he died from cancer caused mainly by overworking. When I see industrial buildings in Japan or even in other countries, it always reminds me of my father. I still remember how hard he was working during my childhood. Japan obtained strong economic power by the development of industrials, however personally I sacrificed my father’s life. I wanted to express my complicated emotions through my photography to monumentalize his life. That was the beginning of this project. Afterwards I began to focus on post-war development led by industrialization.
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Photograph © Tetsugo Hyakutake
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How do these images represent the aesthetic of contemporary Japanese culture, politics, and thought?
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I think contemporary Japanese culture is based on cultural traditions, embracing western culture, individual interpretations, and industrialization. I am not sure how these images represent the aesthetic of “contemporary” Japanese culture. I attempt to connect historical, economic, and social issues of post-war Japan with personal experiences and the voices of my generation by showing the photographs of industrial and urban structures as a symbol of contemporary Japanese culture. By doing so I am trying to forge my Japanese identity, which is what means to be Japanese in post-war Japanese society.
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My photographs visually depict how chaotically Japan was re-constructed after the war; in contrast they also show exquisiteness in the complex structures, and I think this duality of issues is one aspect of the aesthetic of contemporary Japanese culture.
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Photograph © Tetsugo Hyakutake
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What do you see as the relationship between the beauty and dehumanization of industrialized Japan?
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There are dual issues of beauty and dehumanization in industrialization. In these photographs of industrial and urban structures, I emphasize its beauty by altering visual elements to accentuate the grief of industrialization. The more beautiful the photograph looks, the deeper the grief becomes. This concept of beauty originates one of the concepts of traditional Japanese culture such as “Wabi”. I have been looking for Japanese identity, so I embed the essence of Japanese aesthetics into my work.
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Photograph © Tetsugo Hyakutake
Photograph © Tetsugo Hyakutake
Photograph © Tetsugo Hyakutake
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How have your photographs been received in Japan?
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I have not shown any of my work in Japan yet. But I will look forward to doing so. I did not choose the audience, but I would like to show my work to Japanese people and look forward to hearing their response.
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One day I contacted the executive of a certain shipbuilding firm to ask a permission to photograph their shipyard, explaining my theme and concept. He did not like the idea of pathos upon post-war development. He was in his mid 50’s, among a generation that achieved spectacular economic growth and experienced economic prosperity. I assume that he wants to believe the post-war development was absolutely right.
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Photograph © Cacy Forgenie
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I met Cacy Forgenie back when he worked at Mass Appeal, and though it’s been years since we’ve last spoke, it’s amazing how easy it is to resume the conversation mid flow. On September 11, “Jaded” a collection of Cacy’s photos, opens at Chi Chiz, 135 Christopher Street. The moment I saw these photos, I had all sorts of questions for him. Check it out…
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This collection of work is called “Jaded” which resonates strongly with me as a New Yorker. Why did you select this title to accompany these scenes of disaster, distress, and mayhem ?
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When I was approached to do the show a few months ago I was prepared to show images that I thought corresponded with the space and what being in that space, a bar frequented by intergenerational black, gay or bi-sexual men of different socio-economic backgrounds, implied: escape and desire. After some discussion with my partner, I realized that the folks who frequent Chi Chiz are probably people who have seen it or done it all in regards to sex and eroticism in NYC and New Jersey.
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I decided to show images of a type of experience that may have been internalized but not necessarily discussed: violence, harassment and police terror, things and experience that may retard compassion. I thought it would be too conventional to show things like a sex act or an implied sex act, to people who were so sophisticated. Very few people have seen my disaster photographs in New York outside of newspapers and magazines and galleries in Chelsea. I wanted a new audience, and I wanted to infuse a sense of recognition and compassion in the space. I wanted to build a type of solidarity from our shared experiences as black men becoming numb by the things we witnessed and experienced. I wanted to say this is what we’re not talking about with each other in this space.
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Photograph © Cacy Forgenie
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Were these images you consciously sought out, or were they something, that over time, you realized were a collection unto themselves ?
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I don’t seek these images, I stumble upon them. If something is in progress I run towards it, I chase it.
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One of my earliest supporters was Derrick Adams. He saw something that I didn’t really pay much attention to because photographing mayhem had become ordinary for me. It was normal for me to walk out of my apt and see someone with a gunshot wound. It was normal for me to cross Atlantic Avenue and see a body in the middle of the road. It was normal for me to see a car crash. I would just “run into things” or have something, like the police car crash pointed out Carmen Hammons, pointed to me. 9 out of 10 times, I happen on the scene intuitively or unconsciously. My only Control is the camera I have and how I chose to compose the image. Whenever I would photograph something crazy, I’d ring up Derrick and say, “Guess what I photographed today!”
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Back in 2007-2008 I was nominated for a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Award and Derrick suggested I show these images to them and also at The RUSH ARTS Gallery Project Space. I knew the images were there but I didn’t think about organizing them in this way. Originally, I imagined publishing them in a book alongside my photographs of rappers, models and actors partying in NYC and Miami.
Photograph © Cacy Forgenie
Why do you think it is we “enjoy” looking at photographs like these?
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Danger is exciting from a distance, and looking at images like these offers us a thrill and a wonder. They’re like mini-horror movies, some of these images are. Some of them make your heart race. Theres also an aspect of nostalgia, especially as a New Yorker because you remember a kinetic NY before 9/11 happened.
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I am particularly struck by the photo of the cab on fire. Please talk about what is happening in that image.
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I call it “The Fire Next Time” because it makes me think about the James Baldwin book and the Jim Crow stuff black people, black men, deal with trying to get around NYC in cabs.
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There are many frames of this event but I chose to print this frame because of the nonchalance of NYers on the sidewalk: they didn’t care too much. I photographed that image with a Kodak Disposable Camera. I think I was living in Queens or in The Bronx in 1999, and I was a year and a half back from living in the UK, trying to break into the NYC magazine market while simultaneously trying to launch a fashion magazine called IFF with a girl from Denmark that Summer. We’d finished a meeting and I was on my way to B&H to look at cameras. At this time I was using a Polaroid SX-70 Alpha and an broken Olympus Stylus Zoom. The Polaroid was a burden to carry and the Olympus was useless. Some photographer friends suggested I graduate to a larger format and try studio work so I was off to B&H to look at used Hassleblads.
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As I am walking up 8th Avenue I see smoke. Curious, I run toward the smoke and there it was. I didn’t have a camera so I looked for, and found, a newsstand and bought a disposable and started photographing the scene from the middle of 8th Avenue until I got close to the flames which were on 34th Street. Disposables have fixed lenses. If I wanted a better picture I would have to get closer and thats what I did. To get close to the cab I had to hop a barricade that was part of a street construction site blocking 34th Street. And as I am running and jumping I can feel this surge of energy course through me. My heart is thumping wildly and I could feel the heat kissing my face.This might sound corny but I am an Aries, a fire element, and I am not afraid of fire. In fact Cacy means brave in Gaelic. It sounds all kinds of wrong but fire and I are OK.
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Getting the picture was thrilling but around me, people were afraid for me, they thought the cab would explode, they thought I would be burned or choke from the smoke. I had to get the picture. It was the first time I felt pleasure photographing a disaster. As for why the cab was on fire, it was the engine. It burst into flames. The driver left the scene before the cops came. I saw him take his stuff and walk away. I stayed and photographed everything I could, until there was nothing left for the fire to burn. All that was left was a steel frame on the corner of 34th & 8th.
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Why did you decide to include photographs from 9/11 in this series ? How do you think we as New Yorkers now frame 9/11 as part of our experience in this city?
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When 9/11 happened, I was contributing to an Italian hip hop magazine based in Milan. The editor called to check up on me on the day I decided to stop photographing Ground Zero. As I was describing what I saw to her, I burst into tears. I was on auto pilot until then. Recounting what I saw helped me I realize what happened. It was weird. I must have tucked myself away during the photographic process because I wasn’t grieving while there. And I chose to be there.
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I was in bed in the Bronx, listening to Howard Stern when Howard announced that a plane had crashed into one of the Towers. I got out of bed, hopped in the shower, got dressed, caught the D before service ended at 59th Street, hopped on a bus to Times Square, ran from Times Square to Lower Manhattan via the West Side Highway, stood on what was a Tower and photographed what I saw. For hours and hours. And I did the same thing the next day until I had enough.
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I wanted to show bodies in distress, experiencing trauma or in recovery in Jaded. And even tho I spent about two and a half days photographing Ground Zero, I didn’t have those images explicitly. Those photographs have phantoms. I try to limit my inclusion of those images when doing projects because I am not comfortable looking at them. 9/11 was both a psychic and physical disturbance.
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During our studio visit I showed the curator a proof of a book I was working on; it had just two images from that time. He’d also saw a print (one of the two) from my LIVE! From New York show at RUSH and thought they would work well together. It an unconscious assemblage of time and image, really. Fate. After we nailed the date and the time for the show, I realized that images from 9/11 will be shown on 9/11, the show’s opening date. This is the first time this has happened within my control. The Associated Press had a show in 9/11/02 with one or two of my photographs and the BBC had something, too. It’s on my CV but I didn’t actively participate in their shows or even know about it until years later.
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Do they work in the show? I think they do. Theres a series of scales happening in those images. There’s the scale of what was captured, the scale of what’s missing, the scale of time, and the scale of what we are doing to cope with what has happened. People have fled my shows in tears when they encounter these image.
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9/11 is what we think of whenever something unexpected happens in the city, something loud like a manhole cover blowing up, a building collapsing, a plane flying low or a crane toppling. Its altered our consciousness to what was once a normalcy within the boundaries of a metropolis. I think NYers were hyper-terrorized by 9/11.
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