LOUIS DRAPER – TRUE GRACE

Posted on 2020-01-06

Louis Draper worked between Harlem, New Jersey, where Draper taught at Mercer County Community College between 1982-2002, and Senegal, where he traveled to in 1977-1978. The unifying concern of his practice was to portray his subjects with respect, and what Draper referred to as “true grace”. Coming of age in the South, and living in New York City during the Civil Rights movement greatly impacted not only Draper’s politics, but also the kind of images he created, and how they served as their own form of resistance. Draper was a young man during events such as the lynching of Emmett Till and saw how those powerful and purposeful images were absorbed by the world at large. Of his own photographs, Draper wrote: “I want to show the strength, the wisdom, the dignity of the Negro people … I do not want a documentary or sociological statement, I want a creative expression, the kind of penetrating insight and understanding of Negros which I believe only a Negro photographer can interpret.”

Opposite – Untitled, c. 1970s

Exhibition runs through to February 22nd, 2020

Bruce Silverstein Gallery
529 West 20th Street
New York
10011 NY

www.brucesilverstein.com

  

ANS WESTRA – URBAN DRIFT

Posted on 2020-01-06

Ans Westra is responsible for the most comprehensive documentation of Māori culture over a 60 year period of significant political and cultural change in New Zealand. Regarded for their realism and spontaneity, Westra’s images bear witness to the post-war urban drift of historically rural Māori as they moved to urban areas and began living in a very different world, alongside Pākehā (New Zealand Europeans), often for the first time.

Between 1945 and 1986, the proportion of Māori living in New Zealand cities grew from 26% to nearly 80%. This deliberate urban migration fueled by industrialization, employment opportunities, and the allure of a ‘modern’ lifestyle, has been described as the most rapid migratory movement of any population.

Opposite – West Coast Road, West Coast, 1971

Exhibition runs through to February 22nd, 2020

Anastasia Photo
143 Ludlow Street
New York
10002 NY

anastasia-photo.com

  

SHIRIN NESHAT – I WILL GREET THE SUN AGAIN

Posted on 2020-01-06

Originated by The Broad, Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again is the largest exhibition to date of internationally acclaimed artist Shirin Neshat’s approximately 30-year career. Taking its title from a poem by Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, the exhibition (which presents over 230 photographs and eight immersive video installations works) offers a rare glimpse into the evolution of Neshat’s artistic journey as she explores topics of exile, displacement, and identity with beauty, dynamic formal invention, and poetic grace. Beginning with her early photograph series, Women of Allah, the exhibition also features iconic video works such as Rapture, Turbulent, and Passage, monumental photography installations including The Book of Kings and The Home of My Eyes, and Land of Dreams, a new, ambitious work encompassing a body of photographs and two videos that will make its global debut in the exhibition.

Opposite – Untitled (Women of Allah), 1996

Exhibition runs through to February 16th, 2020

The Broad
221 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles
90012 CA

www.thebroad.org

  

MR JONES

Posted on 2020-01-06

1933. Gareth Jones (James Norton) is an ambitious young Welsh journalist who gained fame after his report on being the first foreign journalist to fly with Hitler. Whilst working as an advisor to Lloyd George, he is now looking for his next big story. The Soviet “utopia” is all over the news, and Jones is intrigued as to how Stalin is financing the rapid modernisation of the Soviet Union.

On leaving his government role, Jones decides to travel to Moscow in an attempt to get an interview with Stalin himself. There he meets Ada Brooks (Vanessa Kirby), a British journalist working in Moscow, who reveals that the truth behind the regime is being violently repressed. Hearing murmurs of government-induced famine, a secret carefully guarded by the Soviet censors, Jones manages to elude the authorities and travels clandestinely to Ukraine, where he witnesses the atrocities of man-made starvation – millions left to starve – as all grain is sold abroad to finance the industrialising Soviet empire.

In theatres February 7th, 2020

westendfilms.com

  

REEBIK SHAQNOSIS

Posted on 2020-01-06

Reebok has brought back Shaquille O’Neal‘s memorable Shaqnosis in its original “Black/White” colorway. This was O’Neal’s fifth signature sneaker, the Shaqnosis originally released in 1995 when the young center was a dominant force in the middle for the Orlando Magic. It then received its first-ever retro in 2013, and now it’s back for a third go-around.

The shoe’s blend of concentric circles represent ripples spreading out from its Reebok-branded center, while the hypnotic blend of black nubuck and white leather provides maximum contrast, with Shaq’s signature two-hand slam logo on the bottom of the tongue.

www.reebok.co.uk