Graffiti Proposal

Even though HHCB tries to rep the streets, anyone who knows me knows I'm a romantic at heart. With that in mind, I thought I'd pass along this video of a man proposing via graffiti.

Graffiti Proposal from PR!MO on Vimeo.

Via NY Mag Vulture

Do Not Give Way to Evil: Photographs of the South Bronx, 1979 - 1987

When you used to hear John Edwards talking about "two Americas" it always evoked Red and Blue states, poor hard-working Appalachians and fat cat oil execs. But if you really want to see evidence of two Americas there's probably no better place than New York City. Just walk your way up Central Park West, past the million dollar penthouses with views of the park, and eventually the street gives way to those who have less and less. and as it does Central Park West becomes Frederick Douglass. Continue North far enough and you'll eventually make it to the South Bronx. In the span of a few miles, a few zip codes, you've actually crossed the border between two separate countries. It's the America on the other side of this boundary that artist Lisa Kahane chronicles in her book Do Not Give Way to Evil: Photographs of the South Bronx, 1979 - 1987.

At the time Kahane took the photographs in Do Not Give Way to Evil the South Bronx could have just as easily been Vietnam. It was ravaged by gangs and riots, and abandoned to rot. In Kahane's essay she mentions that during the 70's the borough averaged 12,000 arson fires a year, more than 30 each day. The conflagration had mostly ended by the time she turned her lens to the neighborhoods of Mott Haven, Melrose, Morrisania, Hunts Point and Crotona Park East. But nobody had really bothered to pick up the pieces and rebuild.

It's tempting to simply describe the photographs as some sort of triumph - smiling faces are set against graffiti scrawled slum walls - or display of true beauty hidden beneath superficial ugliness. But it's hard to take that leap. Life will almost seem vibrant when captured in freeze frame, even more so when juxtaposed against ruins. And photography can often run the risk of telling a skewed anthropological narrative. As many words as a picture is worth, there's still a lot that gets left out.

Of course the text by Kahane and a coterie of other Bronx artists works to fill in those gaps. Their affection for the neighborhoods and the people who inhabit them, as well as their passion to tell the stories behind them is undeniable. At the same time, there seems to be a willingness to paint the destruction chronicled in Do Not Give Way to Evil as bygone, and to let it stay that way. But if you were to take that walk up from Manhattan to the South Bronx, you'd see that desolation is alive and well there. The images from Do Not Give Way to Evil are powerful, not just as reminders of a painful past, but also reminders of our tendency to ignore a painful present.

Do Not Give Way to Evil: Photographs of the South Bronx, powerHouse Books (Aug. 2008)

Kehinde Wiley, The World Stage: Africa, Lagos - Dakar

In search of some culture I checked out Kehinde Wiley's exhibit The World Stage: Africa, Lagos - Dakar at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Wiley's art is both incredibly digestible and layered. Over time he has perfected a style of portraiture that combines 18th and 19th century European formality with Black, urban males. He played with this style recently by posing his models to mirror images taken from China's Cultural Revolution. His work from Senegal and Nigeria uses images from prominent local statues.

Wiley clearly combines and juxtaposes many ideas - modern and classical, street style and high society - and in doing so undermines conventional perceptions. In a video adjacent to the exhibit, Wiley also discusses the process of posing his subjects, which sometimes involved several wardrobe changes. In doing so, Wiley and his models created images that may appear photo-realistic, but have in fact existed. Wiley discussed the tendency to view people from other countries, particularly Third World nations, through an anthropological and scientific lens. By staging his subjects and setting them against floral, semi-Victorian backgrounds Wiley sought to undermine this impulse for authenticity.

Wiley's images are striking. The attention to detail and vibrant colors are fascinating, even more so once you've listened to him explain his artistic process. The next stop on his world tour is Brazil, a country that's sure to provide another thrilling set of colorful and complex images.

The World Stage: Africa, Lagos - Dakar is on exhibit at The Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 w. 125th St., www.studiomuseum.org