www.humbleartsfoundation.org/31.html

Humble Arts Foundation, in collaboration with Ladies Lotto, presents “31 Under 31: Young Women in Art Photography”

Curated by Lumi Tan and Jon Feinstein
Opening reception: Saturday, March 1, 2008
Public reception: 7 – 9 pm | After party: 9 – 12 am

Humble Arts Foundation is proud to partner with Ladies Lotto to present “31 Under 31: Young Women in Art Photography.” The exhibition, which opens in honor of Women’s History month on March 1, 2008 at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn, celebrates 31 innovative young women in emerging art photography under the age of 31. The exhibition presents an eclectic mix of emerging talent, culled from open submissions.

“31 Under 31,” states Natalie Blacker, founder of Ladies Lotto, “was curated to showcase a new generation of women art photographers, which epitomizes the basic premise of Ladies Lotto, supporting women’s individual efforts in collaborative form.”

Lumi Tan, Director of Zach Feuer Gallery in NYC, and Jon Feinstein, Curatorial Director of Humble Arts Foundation co-curated the exhibition. “While it is impossible to capture the full breadth of international talent by female photographers in one exhibition,” say Tan and Feinstein, “we feel that the diversity of subjects and intent are a clear representation of the wide range of skill and creativity that is flourishing today. By allowing the works to be culled from an open call, we hope to give exposure to unknown photographers while simultaneously showcasing more familiar names in contemporary photography.”

The exhibition includes photographs by Amy Elkins, Ashley Lefrak, Dru Donovan, Elaine Stocki, Helen Maurene Cooper, Ka-Man Tse, Mary Mattingly, Ahndraya Parlato, Alejandra Laviada, Alana Celli, Alex Van Clief, Allison Grant, Catherine Maloney, Dina Kantor, Hannah Whittaker, Jessica Bruah, Jessica Roberts, Jaimie Warren, Kate and Camilla, Kelly Kleinschrodt, Marta Labad, Manya Fox, Molly Landreth, Nadine Rovner, Rachael Dunville, Reka Reisinger, Sara Padgett, Sarah Small, Sarah Sudhoff, Talia Chetrit and Tealia Ellis Ritter

Humble Arts Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that seeks to advance the careers of emerging fine art photographers by providing grants and exhibition opportunities.

Ladies Lotto is an international community of bright and determined women. Formed as a means for building an international women’s network of support and resource-sharing, Ladies Lotto focuses on creating large-scale optimistic impact, benefiting local communities, and enriching its members’ personal and professional lives. Membership consists of over 600 sophisticated global influencers in various creative industries.

www.nicoleklagsbrun.com

Young artist seeks audience to enjoy poly-conscious attempts at post-medium condition production.

Must enjoy race mongering, disparate disconnected thoughts and sunsets (really). Familiarity with the work of Sun Ra, Joseph Beuys, Rosalind Krauss, Richard Pryor, Hans Haacke, Carl Andre and interest in spelunking the death of identity a plus. I’m looking for an audience with a good attention span that is willing to stay with me through the good and the bad. I enjoy creating videos, producing sculptures, and making photographs. My interest are costuming, Sam Greenlee novels, Godard films and masturbation. Ability to hold conversation using only rap lyrics, and a sense of humor a must.

— Rashid Johnson

Titled after a book of poems by LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka), the exhibition reflects Johnson’s multifaceted engagement with what David Hammons termed “cultural abstraction.” Using sculpture and tightly cropped photographs, the artist explores the semiotic systems and iconography of a mythic secret society of African-American intelligentsia within a metaphysical landscape removed from time and history.

Functioning as investigative reporter and archivist as well as artist, Johnson deploys materials including steel, shea butter, black soap, wax, mirrors, wood, together with found objects to form an installation that effortlessly shifts between media, emphasizing the poetic cadence of his work. Mysticism and nostalgia create interplay among smoke-shrouded portraits, symbolic substances, and menacing forms.

Rashid Johnson studied at Columbia College, Chicago (1996-2000) and the School at the Art Institute of Chicago (2004-2005). His exhibitions include Freestyle, curated by Thelma Golden (2001, The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY); A Perfect Union…More or Less, curated by Hamza Walker (2004, Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, IL); and recently, Color Line, curated by Odili Donald Odita (2007, Jack Shainman Gallery, NY). Upcoming exhibitions include the Magdeburger Kunstmuseum, Magdeburg, Germany (2008, solo) and the Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati (2008). He lives and works in New York.

Got soul? Then Hermann Deza (or better known as Hermosdef) is your man. The Paris-born photographer with roots in Africa’s Ivory Coast brings a uniquely fresh visual aesthetic of the urban jungle.

Imagine being hit by the smell of roasting spices and burning wood after you’ve been starved for days. Yeah…that’s the kind of soul-food he is offering for you. His fashion and music photography will feed your lust for soulful freshness.

One main challenge for photographers is the ability to keep their awareness in the absolute moment. They have to be ready to take a slice out of the streaming sense of reality — a frozen image of life that will be powerful enough to make a lasting trace on our memory. To be able to capture the most intimate moments of human expressions — like the unmasked soul when the heart flows out through a song or a poem — takes someone who is really in tuned with their own source of creativity and has a love for their subjects.

Hermosdef, a member of the photographic collective Organic Soul Crew and the French hip-hop group Jazzeffiq, clearly has what it takes. His portraits are pieces of soul – raw and beautiful at the same time. View more of his work online at www.hermosdef.com.

The Sartorialist
Opening: January 22, 6:00PM-8:00PM
January 18 – February 23, 2008

Danziger Projects
521 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001
(212) 629-6778
info@danzigerprojects.com
www.danzigerprojects.com

Scott Schuman – better known as The Sartorialist – has emerged over the last few years as the leading photographer of the blogosphere. Since September 2005, on his blog, The Sartorialist he has recorded not exactly “street fashion”, but how men and women with great style look when they venture out on the street.

Schuman shoots digitally and posts his photographs on the web, where his blog is currently visited by approximately fifty thousand people a day, many of whom take the time to comment – usually voicing support, but sometimes critiquing the most minute detail of a subject’s outfit. It is one of the most popular blogs on the web and has caused Schuman to be listed as one of TIME Magazine’s top 100 design influencers.

This exhibition provides the first opportunity of seeing The Sartorialist’s prints in real life.

For more information please contact the gallery at info@danzigerprojectss.com or at (212) 629-6778.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Akintola Hanif was no stranger to the fine arts scene. As a child, he and his father often frequented places like the National Black Theater and the legendary Studio Museum in Harlem, introducing him to some of the most prominent artists of the time.

Akintola was introduced to the graffiti and pop art movement, which dominated New York City’s gallery scene, at a young age. By his early teens, HYZE (an alias he was given at 19) had learned the art of airbrushing and spray painting and began painting murals on the walls and storefronts of New York City under the tag Dest (AOK,CWK). One of his murals is immortalized in Henry Chalfant’s 1985 book “Spraycan Art”.

Hyze started documenting the lives of the people of the Arcadian Gardens in 2000. It is an ongoing project that has also begun to take shape as a feature-length documentary film entitled The Bity.

Akintola’s first film, Freedom or Everybody Dies, a 5-minute mixed media short, has been showcased in the kick-off for the Museum of African American Music and the Black Harvest International Film Festival. His work has also been featured in shows at the Eyejammie Fine Arts Gallery, Iandor Fine Arts Gallery, the Annual Lesbian Erotic Arts Fair at New York’s The Center, the H2O [Hip-Hop Odyssey] Film Festival and as part of the 3rd Wave group show sponsored by the Brooklyn Arts Council.

Currently, Akintola works as the resident documentarian at New Jersey’s YouthBuild Newark program and has recently created several short films denouncing drug use and gang activity amongst young people for the Central Ward Boys and Girls Club and the Clinton Hill Weed and Seed Partnership.

Akintola Hanif is available for video and still photography projects.

Press

• “Urban Focas“, Village Voice, April 20, 2007.
• “Black Dice“, Head Magazine, July 2006. (*Contains explicit content.)
• “Questions. Answers.” Nat Creole, March 2006.

Abbreviated Portfolio

Website

www.akintolahanif.com

Autumn 2005: the death of two teenagers leads to France’s worse civil unrest in more than 40 years. We all remember the images of torched cars, riots and warlike scenes that were not only shot in Parisian suburbs, but throughout the country during that three week period. It seems that France will not have to wait another 40 years for its urban youth to show its anger once again, as riots started once again last Sunday night after yet again another accident that led to the death of two young men. This sadly reveals that relations between the police and young people haven’t improved since the 2005 riots. Young people feel like outcasts, and again on the edge of society. But it seems that mainstream media outlets want us to think that violence is the only vehicle they’ve found to express their rage.

Urban culture has a more creative way to show emotion. The film collective Kourtrajme (French slang word for court-metrage or short film, pronounced the other way around) is showing us that there’s more to anger than violence. The 135 member clique includes directors, actors, rappers, musicians, dancers and graffiti artists. Starting with VHS quality short movies in 1995, their films are provocative, no budget productions dealing with underground suburban culture. No authorization, no intervention needed, as Kourtrajme’s real territory is the Internet. Spreading their films through online networks, the collective is now running film festivals, shooting video clips for respected artists, and has acquired the movie industry’s respect. So when it comes to uprisings, the collective feels concerned and in touch with the real issues.

Ladj Ly, 26, an actor, director and Kourtrajme member, comes from the troubled suburb Clichy Montfermeil. For several years, he has organized and filmed many different cultural events in his neighborhood until worldwide media outlets started showing interest in his neighborhood after the 2005 riots. Ladj Ly did not stop filming during the upheaval, and he now boasts a 90 minute documentary with exclusive images that take you into the heart of the riots. ‘365 Jours a Clichy Montfermeil’ (365 days at Clichy Montfermeil) is an overwhelming testimony of the bitter reality facing the kids of the ‘hood, and it points out the government’s unwillingness to answer issues concerning immigration in France. This documentary will give you a genuine sense of what goes down in the French suburbs; a completely different picture from the sensationalistic images the media tends to provide. Learn more here.

It was a rainy day in May 2006, when photographer/filmmaker, Nsenga Knight found inspiration through the midst of tragedy. A’aliyah Abdul-Karim, author, activist and a pioneer in the Muslim community had died. Nsenga was traveling to the burial, when her car broke down along the way. Through the processions of mourners, Nsenga snagged a ride with Abdul-Karim’s friends, and listened to the women reflect on their lives, experiences and the then emerging Brooklyn Muslim community nearly 60 years ago. From the car ride to the burial site Nsenga laid witness to the testimonies of Abdul-Karim’s life, and further grasped the importance of Abdul-Karim as well as other women who have witnessed and participated at times in the transitions of the Muslim Community.

Entitled, “As the Veil Turns: Female Pioneers of the American Muslim Community,” Nsenga gives an inspirational glimpse into Brooklyn’s oldest Muslim communities. Located in the gallery at Harriet’s Alter Ego in Brooklyn, the exhibition documents the lives of black female members of the Nation of Islam and practitioners of Sunni Islam prior to 1975, and asks them about their lives before, during, and after becoming a Muslim. Included in the exhibition are 9 large scale black and white photographs of black women who converted to Islam prior to 1975. Each photograph is accompanied by audio recordings of conversations and interviews with each woman, so onlookers can gain a true sense of their story. Take in all the sights and sounds November 18th through December 31st.

Harriet’s Alter Ego

Source: Lost At E Minor

“UNEASY ANGEL / IMAGINE LOS ANGELES, Artists from Los Angeles Addressing Intersections Between Reality and Fiction” is an exhibition opening tonight at Monika Spruth Philomene Magers and Spruth Magers Projekte both in Munich, Germany. Artists such as Doug Aitken, John Baldessari and Barbara Kruger and shown along side the writers and filmmakers that are all living and working in L.A. The culture of L.A. as a city where the boundaries between reality and fiction are often blurred is explored in a variety of ways by each creator. As an artist in a city that is by hyperreal and to some degree post-historical, L.A has become a place of myth, where the entertainment and media industry can willingly shape and construct the city’s own reality. The exhibitions are curated by Los Angeles-based Johannes Fricke-Waldthausen, and will be on view into the start of November.

In 2004, Steidle spent six months as an unarmed military observer with the African Union to monitor the ceasefire of Sudan’s decades-long civil war. But as the war between north and south cooled, the Arab-run government launched an ethnic-cleansing program, backing attacks on African blacks in Darfur by nomadic Arab militiamen known as the janjaweed. The regional politics are a complex mix of racial rivalries and resource grabs, but more perplexing, Steidle says, is the world’s inaction. Today, that appears to be changing, and Darfur readies itself for a new joint peacekeeping mission by the AU and the United Nations. Meanwhile, a documentary about the Darfur conflict as seen through Steidle’s lens, The Devil Came on Horseback, is now playing in US theaters.

Read the rest of the interview on the Activate website.