Deep in East Oakland they’d meet in empty parking lots and spin circles until the police came. The Sideshow, they called it. Elaborate and boisterous stunt driving. Back then it was about the cars more than the skill of the drivers but the goal was still the same. It was about making a statement. A loud and smokey announcement to the status quo. And the message was simple: ‘All eyes on me!’
I’m always sort of a sucker for photography crossed with car culture. I think it’s because both are sort of gearhead hobbies. And the way that one is “look at me” and the other is “I like to watch” results in a good mix.
Also, this is in kukkurovaca’s back yard and makes me (as a South Bay kid) sort of homesick for California.
More than any other continent, Africa’s development has been dictated and perverted by foreign greed, and likewise its image has been defined by the foreign lens. That is the cage of stereotype which the best African photographers have fought to escape for the past 60 years: often rejecting the Western obsession with traditional ceremony and costume, rejecting similarly the associations with violence, poverty and mayhem, sometimes rejecting even the notion of Africa itself—insisting instead on the vast array of identities that have germinated in the continent’s soil.
Photography invites and facilitates the process of appropriation and re-appropriation of identity, in a continent where post-colonial or post-apartheid identity are major themes for artists. It naturally engages with social and political issues that compel many artists; telling stories that need to be told.
Mario Macilau. Taking a Shower.Patrick Willocq. Asongwaka Takes Off.Jumoke Sanwo. The Silence.Adolphus Opara. Okobaba I.Cyrus Kabiro. Mugabe.Gideon Mendel. Joseph and Endurance Edem, With Their Children Godfreedom and Josephine.Namsa Leuba. Statuette Sorsone Oumou, Guinee.Karl Ohiri. Patchwork.
I’m such a sucker for self-representation. Definitely, definitely click through and read about everything on the auction site.
As much as the “Africa is a country” thing is an annoying Western ignorant viewpoint, I found that it worked in this case. The commonality of having to deal with resolving cultures after Europe messed with things in the continent makes sense to me. The presentation wasn’t about how all Africa was the same but rather how different African artists dealt with the cultural whiplash of being unleashed from colonialism and set loose in the global economy.
This auction/collection totally fits in with this idea of reappropriating culture in the midst of a post-colonial world. It’s why I fall into the creation side of the “what democratized photography” debate.
Franck Bohbot, The Paramount Theatre III, Oakland, California, 2014
These have been making the rounds on tumblr. I like them—quite a bit actually. At the same time I can’t help comparing them to Sugimoto and trying to figure out why I like Sugimoto’s better.
Hiroshi Sugimoto, Movie Theatre,Canton Palace, Ohio, 1980
It’s not because my first reaction was “Sugimoto in color.” This isn’t color vs. black and white nor is it a who-did-it-better thing. Whereas Sugimoto’s photos use the screen itself as the only light source, most of Bohbot’s photos are taken with the house lights on—resulting in photos which are about the theatre itself, not the movie’s impact on the theatre. And I think that’s the difference. Bohbot reminds me of the joy of anticipation and settling in to watch a movie in a classic theatre. Sugimoto reminds me of losing myself in the movie.
In a new series called Off the Radar, LightBox asks celebrated photographers to write about image makers whose work they admire yet may be unknown to a wider audience. Here, Mark Steinmetz celebrates a group of women who documented life in the Northeastern United States in the 1980s.
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I would like to call attention to some remarkable photography made in the late 1970s and early 1980s by nine women in Massachusetts.
Joan Albert, Martin at 20, May 1985Mary Frey, Girl with Hairdryer.Sage Sohier, Americans Seen, Cambridge, Mass., 1981Judith Black, Erik, 1988Monika Anderson, JakobMary Tortorici, Kristi and Michael, 1980Cathy Griffin, Sheep, Amherst, Mass., 1980Lynn Whitney, Sisters, Still River, Mass., 1984Sheron Rupp, Hanging Tub, Northhampton, Mass., 1985
So this is cool and important. It’s always nice to find out about new photographers and I really like the “off the radar” idea. It’s also great that the off-the-radar choices are a different demographic than the person doing the choosing. All too often we pick someone like ourselves in this situation so props to Steinmetz for not doing so.
All that said, I’d still like to see women photographers get featured who aren’t primarily taking photos of people.
Am very intrigued by this project. Also, yeah, that we have a traditional pre-execution meal in this country. As well as the whole ritual of execution which forces the prisoner to take part (choosing a special meal, etc.) in his execution.
But as a project? There’s something powerful about this in that it assumes that we all know the execution ritual and forces us to see humanity in the condemned by distinguishing how different they all are.
There’s also something primal about food that we can all relate to. Especially since the other implicit question here is, “What would you choose as your last meal ever?”
