Somaly Mam by Douglas Kirkland

Somaly Mam is radiant, a light, a fire, a flame. She blazes a path, one woman set to change the course of the world so long as she walks the earth. Orphaned at a young age then sold into a brothel in Cambodia around age 12, Somaly Mam knows the truth about the slave trade. She not only escaped, but has liberated thousands of women and children from sexual slavery and aided tens of thousands more in having a voice and a choice in their life. She risks her life for the lives of others. To listen to her story, and to hear the stories of the women and girls she has assisted, is a lesson in honor, humility, and humanity.

Few speak on the sale of human beings, the outcomes of these transactions too illicit for polite company. But Somaly speaks, and when she does, people listen. Eyes are opened. Policies begin to change. But most of all, lives are saved. The slave trade runs rampant, crossing borders everywhere from New York City to Phnom Penh. It’s an international issue, but it does not receive the attention that it deserves. Yet when people meet Somaly, they feel charged to take action.

Price Arana, CEO of Press Cabinet, a Los Angeles-based branding and advertising agency, first met Somaly Mam in the fall of 2012, at a private gathering of friends organized by Angella Nazarian. As Nazarian recounts, “For the past few years I have been doing in depth research on women who have been the trailblazers—women who have dared to have a bold vision for change and have impacted their field in the most meaningful way. Somaly Mam has single-handedly brought sex trafficking on a global platform and has saved thousands of girls from sexual slavery. I was so touched by Somaly’s own life and work that I dedicated a chapter on Somaly’s life and work in my book, Pioneers of the Possible: Celebrating Visionary Women of the World [which was previously featured in Le Journal’s Book Review No. 39.]

Read the full story at LE JOURNAL DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE

Douglas Kirkland and Somaly Mam, photographed by Price Arana

Team Somaly ~*~

Gerhard Steidl :: The Interview

Gerhard Steidl, photograph by Karl Lagerfeld

Gerhard Steidl is one of the world’s premier book publishers. He founded Steidl in 1968 in order to produce art books to the standards that he held in his mind and manifested with his hands. Unlike most publishers, who parcel out each aspect of the business to specialists in their respective fields, Steidl does everything under one roof. From acquisition, editorial, and design to production, printing, and binding to sales and marketing, every Steidl book access is given his personal touch. It is this touch we see and feel when we pick up a Steidl book. It is a sensory experience for the eyes, the hands, and yes, even the nose.

A book is more than a story. It is a complete world unto itself. It is a journey, an adventure, a trip into the mind of the author him or herself. This trip begins with the object of the book, for a book is more than words and images on paper; it is the very paper itself, the ink, the process of production that is at once hidden and revealed with each turn of the page. It is the collected experience of the tiniest details that make the book a thing to behold unto itself. It is this attention that Steidl brings to the art of book publishing that puts him on the same level as the artists he publishes. Robert Frank, Gordon Parks, William Eggleston, David Bailey, Bruce Davidson, Joel Sternfeld, Weegee, Raymond Depardon, Andreas Gursky, Arthur Elgort, Juergen Teller, Guy Bourdin, Ed Ruscha, Jim Dine, Berenice Abbott—and that’s just a few of the authors appearing on the new list for Spring 2013.

Steidl, like the artists he publishes, is driven by love, by passion, and by purpose. Book making is more than a profession; it is a way of life. It is a way of seeing and understanding life in order to share it with the expert and the amateur alike. Books are mystical objects, the mind forever captured on the paper we hold in our hands. Books are more than mere objects; they are repositories of soul. They are a wealth of knowledge, of expressions, of creativity to be revisited throughout our lives. Each time we visit, a deeper understanding occurs: of ideas, of style, of ourselves, and the word in which we live. The art of the book resides in the space where author and publisher meet, in the story they decide to tell and the way in which the story is presented to the world. The books of Steidl are stories put on paper, memories not yet our own until we behold them ourselves.

The beauty of the book is that it has not changed its form. It remains as Gutenberg designed it, leaves bound between covers, handy enough to be held in our arms. A book comes alive when it is opened, and it is here that the magic and mystery begin, as we turn the page and discover a new world held together by concept, content, and the quality of production itself. We are fortunate to have this opportunity to speak with Gerhard Steidl about his life’s work, as a single force who continues to honor the art of book making through his exquisite publishing programme.

Read the Interview at
aRUDE

Gerhard Steidl, photograph by Karl Lagerfeld

Just Chaos! Curated by Roberta Bayley

Marcia Resnick, Johnny Thunders, 1972

Books and photographs. Photographs and books. The historical record reflects the times as they were lived by those who were there. And here we are, some four decades later, reflecting on punk as it first came up on the streets of New York, along the Bowery, at CBGBs, a mélange of artists, performers, and personalities making for great photography, for stories that are shared and collected, for memories rediscovered and truths being told. For those who were there, and those who missed it, Just Chaos! takes us back to a time and a place where you damn sure better do it yourself, cause if you don’t ain’t no one else.

In the windows and intimate niches of BookMarc, New York, now through May 23, Roberta Bayley has installed selections from 13 photographers of the era:, many which have not been seen before this exhibition. Featuring the work of Bayley, Janette Beckman, Stephanie Chernikowski, Lee Black Childers, Danny Fields, Godlis, Julia Gorton, Bobby Grossman, Bob Gruen, Laura Levine, Eileen Polk, Marcia Resnick, Chris Stein, and Joe Stevens, the photographs featured here are curated with an eye towards style, inspired by the energy of the era as it manifested in the world at that time. “It’s all based in poverty,” Bayley reflects. Everything was D.I.Y., do it yourself.

Fashion, music, style, photography—all of it came as an expression of the truth: after the hippie movement sparked, it became mainstream and lost its edge. Punk came out of that void, all claws and fangs and guitar strings, spikes and torn clothes. It was street, strung out and sexy. It was the artist as anti-hero, a Romantic poem at the end of the second millennium AD. It was about the absolutes of individualism, of speaking your own voice and saying F the system.

Read the Full Story at
Le Journal de la Photographie

Janette Beckman, Punks, Worlds End, London 1978

Art Pimp: Tales of FlimFlam, Fixes, and Fornication

Art Pimp: Tales of FlimFlam, Fixes, and Fornication

“In a world of con men there is nothing lower than a publicist,” The New Yorker wrote in 1944, harkening back to the days when the Fourth Estate was populated by flacks and hacks. But the more things change, the more they remain the same, particularly now, when the artist as brand has been unwittingly elevated to the international stage.

Adam Nelson, Founder of WORKHOUSE, an arts-based publicity firm operating in New York City that was instituted in 1999. Workhouse has represented photographers David LaChapelle, Albert Watson, Roxanne Lowitt, Nigel Parry, Pamela Hanson, David Drebin, Oberto Gili, Billy Name, Bob Gruen, Jean Paul Goude, Patrick McMullan, and the Horst P. Horst estate; galleries including Tony Shafrazi Gallery, Staley Wise Gallery, Photographers Limited Editions, Symbolic Gallery, and Rubin Museum of Art; and publishing houses Rizzoli, teNeues, Random House, Skira, Universe, and Assouline Editions to name a few. In each case, the agency was tasked with putting the fine art images or photographic books in the forefront of public consciousness.

How is it done? The publicist’s trick is to make it appear effortless, as though waving a wand and—POOF—a New York Times feature magically materializes above the fold. But the hard truth is, publicity is a thankless job. In a world of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately, the publicist must continuously produce news and innovative results.

Nelson reveals the tricks of the trade in his new book, Art Pimp: Tales of FlimFlam, Fixes, and Fornication, which has just launched on Kickstarter. The book is one part personal history, one part primer centered upon the art of the fix. It details the way in which publicists work to engineer iconography for the media and the public alike.

Read the Full Story at
Le Journal de la Photographie

Music in the Age of Mass Reproduction

Archie Shepp, The Magic of Ju-Ju (Impulse), Robert & Barbara Flynn (Design), William E. Levy (Photo), 1967

Twelve by twelve inches. A cardboard slipcase for a twelve-inch album. Vinyl. The way it all began. When turntables were the way music was orchestrated in the era of mass reproduction. And so it was, and it had been, that the photograph was part of that experience, the sleeve being the perfect place upon which to project, a veritable canvas, a movie screen, a silent and simple place for a single image upon which to consider the songs recorded on A and B sides. And once upon a time, not so long ago, the music pressed was a thing to behold unto itself, perhaps the height of the era being the jazz albums that had been produced.

Jazz Covers I and II by Joaquim Paulo with editor Julius Wiedemann (Taschen) Is an impressive compendium, taking us back to the way it was, when you could gaze upon the photograph, the way in which the artist designed to complement the energy of the album, each cover design being a distinct in the way it sets the tone through the visual iconography of the creative director, who integrated the image into a larger frame, using line, text, and form to produce a visual rhythm all its own.

Read the Full Review at
Le Journal de la Photographie

Donald Byrd, A New Perspective (Blue Note), Reid Miles (Design & Photo)

Valentina Ilardi Martin: GREY Magazine

© Peppe Tortora

“The dress is the last thing that goes into the photograph. It must be like it was already there somehow. The photographs are of real families, realistic situations. It is not the fabulous, perfect, rich, pretty, successful—this is not contemporary. That is 90s, 80s, for the galloping economy. GREY makes sense today. It is younger, fresher, up to date,” Valentina Ilardi Martin says of her vision for Grey Magazine, a sumptuous compendium of fashion photography, fiction and poetry that has been published in a hardcover periodical every spring and every fall since 2009 and features photographers including Martin Parr, Nan Goldin, Sarah Moon, among many more.

The photograph comes first for Ilardi Martin, whose native Roman passion for the grandeur of everyday beauty belies each story produced in the book. She is nothing if not a womanist by nature, honoring the power and influence of the female mind, body, and heart.

She explains, “I wish to educate people on how to improve their dressing habits, what to choose to buy for the next season, how to style it with their own wardrobe and how to wear it for the best result. Every styling seen in GREY magazine is meant to be analyzed from the viewer and eventually reworked on an individual base. It’s meant to be an example that can be modified or adapted as a realistic suggestion for the upcoming season. I am not interested in a bizarre appearance. GREY is a magazine for a real, contemporary woman.

”When I plan a fashion shoot I start with the choice of the photographer. The idea will be constructed around his style, which at GREY is very precise and recognizable. I tend to keep the same contributors when possible to strengthen our visual direction. I choose photographers who are already GREY. Deborah Turbeville, Erwin Olaf, Todd Hido—they all have different styles while keeping a very defined identity and a very correct approach towards the woman. I like photographers who can understand emotions and portray the subject in front of them for what it really is. We show a great woman as an inspiration, we know them as human beings, not just as subjects for photographs. In accordance with the photographer we develop the story, the location, the casting. Sometimes the subject comes first, sometimes the place.It depends on many factors, mainly inspiration. When everything is in place, then, we think about the ideal clothes, the appearance, hair, makeup, mood. Only then. My aim and focus is now to bring to the reader something they can relate to, accept, love and be driven to, something they’ll try to emulate, because that is a selection of real, amazing, nowadays situations.”

Read the Full Story at
Le Journal de la Photographie

© Sheila Metzner

Trolley is the Antidote

Daniele Tamagni, ‘Gentlemen of Bacongo’ poster

A month ago I was asked to write a small piece, a tribute to the great Gigi Giannuzzi on the occasion of the forthcoming publication of TROLLEYOLOGY, a ten year retrospective of one of the greatest illustrated book publishing houses to ever exist. I won’t look back, I won’t re-read what I wrote. I shall begin again, speaking from my heart.

Gigi is dead. Long live Gigi. His spirit is eternal. I knew this, as I know so many things that are without words and yet I am charged to find a way to express the ineffable. Gigi is (not was) a force of Nature, a triumph of the will, a prince among men. He walks the earth with the express purpose of bringing light into the dark.

He does this, as only he can. He produces books, book unlike anything the world has seen before. Books that take on some of the most difficult stories to tell, the beautiful dreams and horrific nightmares that cannot be erased when we close our eyes. We cannot and will not look away. Gigi understands the photograph, the heart of the photographer, the witness who bears evidence, proof, and testimony of the ephemeral made eternal. Gigi makes us look. He makes us understand. We are all complicit in the damnation of the world, and we are all charged with its salvation.

Though Gigi has passed from the mortal plane into the spirit world, he is still here and his legacy carries forth, not only in what he has achieved but in how we carry on. And it is here the opportunity arrives to show heart. TROLLEYOLOGY is on Kickstarter. It doesn’t ask for much, just for each one of us to do our part. And what that is, you may discover when you step into a world, a world that lies right outside your door, when you open your eyes and see it anew.

Please Support

Philip Jones Griffiths, Gigi in Venice whilst making the book Agent Orange, 2003

Brandt Nudes

Nude, London, 1951, February ©The Bill Brandt Archive

The body as landscape, object, sculpture, and form, as costume, architecture, or anything else you could imagine it to become in all of its glory. It is both positive and negative, being and nothingness. It is present and absent, past and future, paradoxes intertwined and connected as one. In a state of simultaneity that is impossible to recognize fully but at the same time it is the thing in which we are forever traveling, consciously and unconsciously.

The body is both object and symbol of the object itself, and the female form most of all assumes the passive role of being that which we act upon, as we exalt its beingness into an abstract meditation on life itself. It is a thing of beauty to behold and perhaps no one does it quite like Bill Brandt whose female nudes have been collected in two volumes twice in his lifetime. The first in Perspective of Nudes (1961) and again in Bill Brandt: Nudes 1945–1980. Now, the oeuvre is brought together in a single volume, Brandt Nudes (Thames & Hudson), which includes a preface by Lawrence Durrell and commentaries by Mark Haworth-Booth. It is here, in Brandt Nudes, that we can consider Brandt’s relationship to the female form throughout the course of his esteemed career.

As Brandt recalls in quoted text from a piece first published in 1933, “It was after the war, when I was busy photographing London celebrities for English and American magazines, that I began to feel irritated by the limitations imposed by such jobs. I was taking portraits of politicians, artists writers, actors, in their own surrounding, but there was never enough time for me to do what I wanted. My sitters were always in a hurry. Their rooms were rarely inspiring backgrounds, and I felt the need for exciting backgrounds to make pictures of the portraits. I wanted more say in the pictures; I wanted rooms of my own choice. And so I came to the nudes. Nudes, at that time, were photographed in studios. I thought of photographing them in real rooms…”

Read the Full Story at
Le Journal de la Photographie

Nude, Baie des Anges, France, 1959, October ©The Bill Brandt Archive

Engines of War: The Interview

Anthony Suau
Nearly 20,000 people…, 2003, Photograph, 13 x 19 in, Edition of 12

On March 28, Jamel Shabazz invited me to the opening of Engines of War, a group show curated by Charles Dee Mitchell and Cynthia Mulcahy at Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert, Inc. in New York. The show overwhelmed, humbled, and inspired me with its well-thought mix of photojournalism, documentary work, portraiture, and video, which combined to a visceral feeling of fireworks exploding inside my chest, my heart beating faster and faster until I had to turn away to draw breath.

And in the midst of the intensity were images like Anthony Suau’s featured above, a respite, a smile, a giggle, a semblance of surreality and absurdity that makes me wonder what it’s all for. But it is not for me to answer, only for me to listen, and it is with great pleasure and reverence that I share here an interview with the curators, Mr. Mitchell and Ms. Mulcahy.

Please talk about the inspiration for Engines of War. What is it about this topic, and the way in which it is framed in this show, that is even more relevant now, in retrospect ten years after we first invaded Iraq ?

Cynthia Mulcahy: Dee Mitchell and I began talking in 2007 about curating an exhibition that examined war and out of these discussions came two exhibitions about war, both focusing on the first decade of the 21st century: XXI: Conflicts in a New Century in a City of Dallas cultural space in 2011 and this exhibition Engines of War in 2013 with a slightly narrower focus on the United States wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As curators of Engines of War we wanted to look at all aspects of a nation at war from the soldiers who fight the wars and their recruitment, the civilian populations of the United States and those of Iraq and Afghanistan, the politicians and governments and the media covering the wars, and we also wanted to look at the war industry itself and the manufacturing of weapons and military equipment and technology. In like manner, it was also very important for us to look at relevant issues related to a decade of war such as returning wounded veterans, civilian casualties, PTSD and the rise of military suicides.

As a nation now in our longest war in US history in Afghanistan, and having just passed the ten year mark on the US-led Iraq invasion, it certainly seems an appropriate and necessary time to reflect on our past history in the form of a curated visual arts exhibition examining war.

Jamel Shabazz
Cadet Major Mateo…, 2010
Digital C-Print photograph, 11 x 14 in, Edition of 25, Signed

Please talk about the photographers you selected, the stories, and truths they tell. I was very much intrigued by the group as a collective, the sum of the parts greater than the whole.

How did you conceptualize these specific photographer to tell the story of the Iraq War ? What does the group as a whole speak to about our assumptions about war as an industry, an act of aggression, and a “morality” play ? What can we learn by virtue of unconnected stories threaded together through the curatorial eye ?

Cynthia Mulcahy: : We waded through quite a bit of material, of which there is no dearth in the 21st century and the revolution in communications technology, in deciding what to include in the exhibition. We very much wanted to have a multiplicity of artistic practice approaches as well as perspectives, so we looked at the work of not just photojournalists and social documentary photographers but also street photographers and research-based practice artists as well as primary source material such as the war video game and digital comics series. The final contributors include American, Iraqi, British and Dutch artists and some original source material. Together and individually, these artists all powerfully either document or address the issues we as curators were looking at for the Engines of War exhibition and we hope the work as a whole serves to underscore the crucial societal role photojournalists and visual artists play in capturing and contextualizing history for the rest of us.

Eugene Richards
Shurvon at 6 a.m., 2008
Silver gelatin photograph, 20 x 24 in, Edition 4 of 30

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

The photograph is both art and artifact, a witness to history and evidence of what has come before. I was particularly struck when looking at the dead and wounded. Please talk about how photography allows us to observe the horrors of war in what is a complex and compelling silent space. Where is the line when it comes to speaking these hard truths ? Or should there not be a line and should we be asked to go as deep as the “reality” goes ?

Charles Dee Mitchell: When planning the exhibition, we knew we would be addressing both the home front and the actual theater of war. (That in itself is an interesting phrase,) In its role as reportage, photography is always engaged in capturing a specific moment, and it is those moments of extreme human suffering or tragedy that are, as you said, the most problematic.

Working on the home front with veterans who have returned from the war with traumatic physical and mental injuries, Eugene Richards develops a close relationship with his subjects and becomes privy to intimate moments that when we encounter them in a gallery may seem disturbing or even invasive. But there is a shared intimacy here that infuses the work with the humanity and social urgency that has distinguished all of Richards’ projects.

On the other hand, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is working on the ground during an engagement that has horribly bloody consequences. His photographs are unflinching documents of modern, mechanized warfare. We might see similar images in the press when reading accounts of the war. Their presence in the gallery affords viewers’ a chance, if they choose, to engage them with greater intimacy. Ghaith’s work epitomizes the duality of “art and artifact” that you mention in your question. When you ask if there is a line being crossed here, I would answer that there is no line in this setting. Photographers like Ghaith are doing an important and dangerous job. Engines of War would not be what we hope is the honest inquiry it is without both his presence and Eugene Richards’ contribution.

Lisa Barnard
Floor Plan, 2013, C-Print on gloss, 50 x 2 in, Edition of 5

I was struck by the table downstairs that is a floor plan of an industrial base. Please talk about the industry of war and its connection to the media as a machine. How does the photograph/art work/exhibition both challenge and substantiate the military industrial complex as a being of supreme power (so to speak).How does the photograph interact with the subject of war itself ? How does its stillness in time call us to a kind of attention, a care and consideration for the subject itself, and does this attention cause us to question or reinforce our previous assumptions about the act of war by the US ?

Charles Dee Mitchell: The blueprint produced by Lisa Barnard depicts not an “industrial base” but rather the floor plan of a trade show devoted to drone technology. Its layout is familiar to anyone who has ever attended a trade show or for that matter an art fair. Major exhibitors have large central locations with smaller exhibitors in less expensive booths along the perimeter. There are food courts, restrooms, and lounge areas. This piece, perhaps more so than any work in the exhibition, demonstrates that war and the technology that fuels it is big business. We presented the work on a glass-topped table so viewers’ could peer down at it and explore it as one does a map or a maze. Although a wall label explained exactly what the image presented, most people seemed to find the label after spending time with the floor plan. The label sent them back to Barnard’s image with more specific information to bring to their experience of its cool abstraction. This was the type of process we hope repeats itself in many ways throughout the exhibition.

Christopher Morris
Cadets listen…, 2009
Archival Ink Jet, 20 x 24 in, Edition 1/6

Benjamin Lowy
Iraq | Perspectives I…, 2003-2008, Digital C-Print photograph, 20 x 24 in, Edition of 10, 2 AP

Engines of War
Now through May 4

 

 

Publisher Profiles :: Kehrer Verlag

The art book is an object to beheld time and again, a means to reflect on the world before us, a meditation on that which we might not otherwise know were it not for the work, transporting us from the familiar to the foreign by dissolving three dimensions into two. It is through the lens of the photographer that we enter into this world, as they guide us through an experience unlike any other we have ever known. It is through the creation of the book that we consider the single image as part of a larger understanding of story, idea, and meaning.

The art book carries us to far away lands, to years that have long gone by, into lives once lived that have become imprinted in ink on the page, the ephemeral eternal if only for now. Each publishing house has its own set of standards to which it adheres, a quality that becomes apparent when the whole is taken as the sum of its parts.

For the past two decades, Kehrer Verlag has defined itself as one of the premier book publishing houses by producing visually complex and challenging volumes that are as beautifully produced as they intellectually and emotionally provoke. Publisher and owner Klaus Kehrer made a name for himself supervising production for a German art and photography publisher with his own print shop for several years. In the early 1990s, he became an independent producer and designer for various art and photo publications, among them many exhibition catalogs for major German museums. Having made himself a name in the business he decided to found his own publishing house.

Read the Full Story at
Le Journal de la Photographie

Donna De Cesare : Unsettled/Desasosiego

Guatemala / Mexico border, Talisman, Guatemala, 2002 Deported U.S. gang members seeking to return to the United States populate border towns along the migrant route and influence children who live in them. Photos by Donna De Cesare. From the book Unsettled/Desasosiego © 2013 by The University of Texas Press.

One night in Los Angeles, a sixteen-year-old boy approached photographer Donna De Cesare, saying, “Lady, put me in your book—you can take my picture.” De Cesare recalls the memory of this encounter in Fred Ritchin’s foreword to her new book Unsettled/Desasosiego (University of Texas Press).

The boy did not let up. De Cesare continued her story: “ ‘Am I going to be in your book?’ he asked. ‘I can’t promise that,’ I replied. ‘To make a book takes a lot of pictures and a long time,’ I explained. I told him I couldn’t say for sure, but my best guess was that it would be about three years if all went well. ‘Shit! I won’t be alive by then,’ he responded dejectedly.”

The boy went on to explain that all his homies died before they reached twenty. They were gangbangers. Life on the streets was short, ugly, and violent. The boy didn’t believe he was going to be any different. He, who was never named, is like countless who have come before him, the children lost to a war that has no beginning and no ending because it is played in the shadows, between the borders, and across the Americas. Here are the victims of the War on Drugs: the children.

Unsettled/Desasosiego bears witness to the violence that has dominated Central American countries and refugee communities in the United States over the past twenty years. It is an ugly truth that the mainstream media does not tell, as it glamorizes the drug game in popular imagination. Film, television, music, videos—the hustler, the mobster, the gangster, the outlaw standing against the system and winning big, until he is taken out in a blaze of glory. Never has an anti-hero been so celebrated.

Read the Full Story at
Le Journal de la Photographie

Los Angeles, CA 1994, Ivonne reads a letter from her gang-involved boyfriend after his deportation to El Salvador. Photos by Donna De Cesare. From the book Unsettled/Desasosiego © 2013 by The University of Texas Press.

Joshua Lutz: Hesitating Beauty

Hangnot Slipnot © Joshua Lutz

To speak openly of mental illness is one of the last great taboos. Not to speak of treatment, of therapies, of medication, doctors, hospitals—not to speak of the industry that has been in existence for but a century, but to speak of the people themselves. Of their inner and outer lives, and the way in which these boundaries melt, of the way in which their illness subverts our understanding of what both reality and relationship mean. It takes an unfathomable courage to wade into the murky waters of the mind, into places that have been wounded and have become maladapted over time, into places few dare to tread for fear of losing themselves in the quagmire that goes beyond the rational mode of interpretation.

What few may understand is that mental illness is a shared state, affecting not only the person it befalls but those who walk in its wake. To stand before this illness and experience it in the flesh is to know a side to the sublime that few can truly grasp, a kind of shadow being that has cast its hand upon the earth. Many who live with it, or live in its presence have become silenced by its reach, fearing not only external judgment but the implications of sharing in its path. So much is unknown, untold, misunderstood, misdiagnosed. So much is dehumanized by fear, by shame, and by the system itself. It is for this reason that we are blessed to have artists like Joshua Lutz who bring profound and painful truths to us in the form of art so that we as a people may both meditate on and mediate the space where few dare to share with the world.

“Hesitating Beauty”, which runs April 11–May 18 at ClampArt, NY, is a study of Lutz’s experiences living with a mother suffering from schizophrenia. The nature of schizophrenia itself is not fully understood, but it is a detachment for our commonly-held perceptions of reality that drive the sufferer into a kind of psychosis few can comprehend on its own terms.

Read the Full Story at
Le Journal de la Photographie

Wallpaper © Joshua Lutz

DayPass © Joshua Lutz

This Is The Re-Launch

One Night in Beverly Hills. Photograph by Charles Peterson

It’s been a long time… I shouldn’t have left you. Not that you’d know it since I’ve been posting on the regular here for four years but—

Four years is a long time to be lost. Lost and found and back to the beginning that never ended and the end that never began as the ouroburo spins like Dead or Alive, round and round.

I ramble, I often do. I’ll make it short and sweet, cause I gotta go. Today I am pleased to announce the re-launch of my website, MissRosen.us

I created the site when I set forth on my own back in summer 2009, thinking I knew which end was up. I didn’t, but you couldn’t tell me ishh. I was no longer listening. I had long since gone deaf.

But, the Universe being what it is, made sure I got my come-uppance and undoubtedly, yes. It was a mess—chaos in it’s most glorious sense. The other day, Mr. Brown mentioned The Sublime. Then DJ Disco Wiz tweeted, “Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong..”

That’s how it went down. And down it went. Now I’m on the upswing and I begin where I am, starting fresh. I re-launch, remix, rebrand, release, refresh, renew, regenerate, do-re-mi e.t.c.

I thank each and every one who has stood by me through .. this (smile). The clouds are gone. Let the sun shine again.

Peace.

MissRosen.us

Document Journal

Artwork by Bjarne Melgaard, Photography by Cedric Buchet, Courtesy Document Journal

Document. What we have. What we do. Create and collect and trade keepsakes, images and stories set down in print, a pleasure and a joy for the senses. The thrill of the page, thick between fingers that turn one after another; the inks spilled lavishly into rich and evocative pictures; the stories told by craftsmen of the word; the best magazines are collections that embody the spirit of the era, a feeling of the times, an energy that inspires and realizes the greatness of life.

Partners in publishing, Nick Vogelson and James Vasari understand this, and have realized it in Document Journal, a twice-yearly volume that allows artists full creative expression. All the world is a stage, cast upon the page in a wild and wonderful creative collective that the publishers describe as a family, includes Jack Pierson, Vince Aletti, Maripol, Bruce Benderson, and many more. Every story told is a history of our time, a look at the way in which that print, images of who we are and how we live, stories of what is happening, what it all means—these things situate us in the here and now, while transporting us to other realms.

Document recognizes this. In the second issue, which releases March 15, there is a feature story on the destruction of the Baghdad National Library. Books, documents, historical records, wiped out, destroyed in the fires, yet despite the damage and destruction, preservationists are working to restore the remnants. The photographs look like topographical maps, landscapes of a lost history, of a shared identity of a people erased when he United States decided to invade Iraq, now ten years ago. This is the new history, the evidence that is our Document, and this stories lays in a larger landscape of the telling of our world.

Read the Full Story at
Le Journal de la Photographie

Photography by Edo Bertoglio. Anna Sui, 1981, Courtesy Document Journal

Photography by Catherine Servel, Courtesy Document Journal

In Conversation With Curtis Stephen

On April 9 at 7pm, one of my favorite journalists, Curtis Stephen, will be moderating a talk at the Schomburg Center with April R. Silver on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of her New York City-based communications agency Akila Worksongs.

Ms. Silver is a social entrepreneur, activist, and writer/editor based in New York City. She is also founder of Akila Worksongs, a communications agency that publicizes and promotes a diverse clientele, from  award-winning journalists, actors, filmmakers, dancers, and choreographers; national best-selling writers and poets; and GRAMMY® award-winning musicians to unrecognized artists and many others.   The former talk show host of My Two Cents (formerly on BETJ, now known as Centric) is also public relations and event management consultant to both local, on-the-ground organizations and international philanthropic foundations alike. Ms. Silver is currently finishing her arts and activism memoir on her life as part of a death-defying, groundbreaking student movement at Howard University to present day. It is due summer 2013.

As I have long admired Mr. Stephen’s commitment to art, to activism, and to being a voice for the people to address some of the more challenging stories in our lives, I am pleased to have had the opportunity to speak with him about his own path, which I share here with great pleasure.

Miss Rosen: I will begin by saying there is a great Ai Weiwei quote that says, “Everything is art. Everything is politics.” Please talk about the relationship between art and activism. I realize this is a very broad brush stroke and I open it to you to address what you see as the fundamental connections between the areas of thought, creation, and action as they apply in the abstract and concrete realms.

Curtis Stephen: The great thing about art is that it’s ultimately subjective, right? Two people can hear, read or experience something and walk away from it with different interpretations. All art makes a statement. It can be enjoyed, used, abused, interpreted or co-opted once the proverbial cat is out of the bag, as Ai Weiwei suggests.

At a time when pop culture (and anyone or anything remotely associated with it) is placed on a pedestal more than ever before, a lot of what people experience is designed to hit the bottom line – namely, reach the largest number of consumers and generate as much money as possible. Given that, the politics behind art seeks to conform and avoid controversy. Yet that flies in the face of the art that shook us to our collective core.

And it’s the art that we still look to. It can be as obvious as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” or an episode of “All In The Family.” The art that stands the test of time challenges our fundamental assumptions and forces us to look deeper at ourselves and each other. But that’s much easier to recognize (and celebrate) in hindsight.

How do you, as a journalist, apply ideas of art and activism to the practice of writing and storytelling? What do you aspire to achieve by using the Word as a vehicle to convey ideas, energies, and information to both a known and unknown audience ?

It’s long been said that journalism is the first draft of history. Art chronicles our collective experience. Now – or more so, decades from now – we can look to it for some perspective on our times. We instantly know what it means when someone says “The ’70s” or “The ’80s.” We have an instant picture. We’ve become so fragmented that we’re experiencing art in different ways and at different times.

Growing up, television news was what I admired most and it was in that world that I aspired to work in. I drifted to magazines and print journalism. So in many ways, I’m still learning how to write. A lot of what initially inspired me comes from there. I would listen to a script to absorb the words before I read it. So I never saw myself as a writer, per se.

As a journalist, the whole point in writing a story is to give people a sense of the point – namely, what is happening in their world. It isn’t easy because you don’t always have a lot of space or time to flesh it out. I try to convey a sense of the visual while writing and let people see what I’m documenting. I tend to go into a zone while writing because I’m listening to music.

Sometimes I can spend way too much time on a sentence. I especially love anything with very long instrumentals – The Doors’ “Riders On The Storm,” for example, or progressive rock bands like Genesis helps my mind to find the right words. But then I’ll instantly need to hear something else. It’s a pretty crazy process, actually. Even if the story is 500 words, I go through that process.

When the story is finished, it’s my aim to have someone who is an expert and someone who doesn’t know anything about the subject or person I’m covering learn something new. But that’s why I shy away from the title “writer.” Ultimately, anything that I write results from strong reporting. If I can get strong quotes, learn an interesting nugget, share a new perspective from a new voice, then it adds something to the equation.

Could you talk about the different ways in which the Word impacts people when it changes form, meaning the difference between spoken and written language, particularly, as in this case, when the spoken word is used in a live forum to dialogue with another great mind and impart wisdom upon the group that has joined to bear witness ?

The written and spoken word both have merit. I have to rely on both. When we read something, we tend to retain more. We remember images, but we soak in a great deal more based on what we read. And while there are many gifted artists, not all of them can express themselves verbally.

Take Martin Bashir’s documentary on Michael Jackson in 2003 (“Living with Michael Jackson.”) It sparked a lot of controversy because of the manner in which Michael was depicted in several portions of the film. But there’s a profound moment that I’ll never forget in which he’s assessing the rationale of his own work. Michael understood his craft and knew that he was an extension of a broader historical movement. He understood – and wasn’t afraid to admit – how his work was inspired by the likes of Jackie Wilson, James Brown and Sammy Davis, Jr.. But not every artist can describe what they do and how they do it. It was a revealing moment.

The rapper Nas once said that “No idea is original.” And even that quote isn’t original, right? Technology has added a lot to our lives and has provided many conveniences. But with Twitter and cell phone texting, the nature of our conversations are changing. I fear that our ability to express ideas in the public sphere is becoming a lost art. I have yet to figure out how to express myself within 140 characters.

Please talk about April Silver’s legacy. How has she led the way and used her talents and skills as a platform by which she helps raise up other great minds of our generation to make a difference in the world ?

Hip-hop is often associated with the beat or having fun. But there’s long been a political world within hip-hop and April Silver has long been on those front lines. She’s part of a generation of students who spoke out on a range of causes – including raising their voices against apartheid in South Africa – during the late 1980s and early ’90s.April was a student at Howard University where she led student protests on campus. She organized the first national Hip-Hop conference in the early ’90s which assessed the culture’s sociopolitical impact. And 20 years ago, she founded Akila Worksongs – a communications agency whose client list speaks for itself with everyone from the rapper Yassin Bey (formerly Mos Def) and poet Sonia Sanchez to the actor Danny Glover.

A lot of the hip-hop music that is most prominent, these days, emerges from a multibillion-dollar industry. But is it healthy for us? What can be said of our artistic diet? April consistently asks those questions and she’s long earned the credentials to pose them. April works with folks – both veteran and emerging artists alike – who seek to challenge conventional wisdom while inspiring us at the same time, from television and the canvass to the Broadway stage.

The interests of women, particularly women of color, has long been important to April. And she makes it a point to fight to ensure that they factor into whatever conversation is happening at any given moment. She’s a modern-day trailblazer while also staying true to her ideals.

Akila Worksongs