Galerie Bene Taschen hosts David LaChapelle’s „Recollections in America” and Joseph Rodriguez’s „Spanish Harlem“ joint exhibition at its Cologne venue.
BLOUIN ARTINFO: ‚Spanish Harlem‘ and ‚Recollections in America‘ at Galerie Bene Taschen, Cologne
Daily Mail: „Spanish Harlem in the 80s“
Incredible portraits capture characters of the troubled neighborhood at a time when outsiders wouldn’t dare to enter:
Zeit Online: Spanish Harlem. Das Leben vor der Tür
In den Achtzigerjahren war das New Yorker Viertel „Spanish Harlem“ nur für Insider zugänglich. Joseph Rodriguez zeigt in seinen Bildern den Geist der Nachbarschaft.
Art in America: IMAGING EL BARRIO
IN THE LATE 1980s, Brooklyn-born Puerto Rican photographer Joseph Rodriguez spent five years in northeastern Manhattan making pictures of the working-class Puerto Rican and black residents of Spanish Harlem, an area known affectionately as El Barrio. His photographs are counterpoints to the once pervasive depictions of a place identified widely with a supposed culture of poverty, its people the archetypes for the irredeemable black and brown subjects of late twentieth-century America’s urban crises. The fourteen largeformat color prints that were shown at the Bronx Documentary Center’s storefront gallery this past winter, accompanied by images emanating from two slide projectors at the center of the room, confront the dehumanizing effects of structural inequality and municipal disinvestment. Yet the scenes Rodriguez captured also affirm that these conditions did little to extinguish the vibrancy of kinship and other social ties at the heart of a community.
L’oeil de la Photographie – New York in the 1980s, as seen by three brilliant photographers
This selection of photographs by American photographers Arlene Gottfried, Jamel Shabazz, and German photographer Miron Zownir, focus on the theme of New York in the 1980s. Through black and white, as well as colored photographs, the three photographers provide viewers with insights on the different milieus of the city. Each with their own perspectives of the megapolis, they document the…
Independent: Cologne City Guide
Find Galerie Bene Taschen
This small contemporary art gallery is hidden down an alleyway off Moltkestrasse. It’s currently showing a series of humorous photographs of New Yorkers taken in the Eighties and Nineties by Jeff Mermelstein (until 17 February). Free entry.
Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger: Blicke im Vorübergehen
„Ich glaube, der Alltag ist schon aufregend genug“, so Jeff Mermelstein, „ich gehöre nicht zu den Fotografen, die auf Reisen gehen müssen.“ Allerdings hat Mermelstein als New Yorker Straßenfotograf auch leicht reden, versorgt ihn seine Heimatstadt doch offenbar mit einem nie versiegenden Strom an gleichermaßen alltäglichen wie aufregenden Motiven. Wobei er eher selten klassische Blickfänger wie einen lichterloh brennenden Kleinbus fotografiert. In der Regel lässt sich Mermelstein lieber von Menschen faszinieren, die glauben, im Trubel der Großstadt unbeobachtet zu sein.
BBC News: Capturing East Harlem in the 80s
The New York neighbourhood of East Harlem, or El Barrio, has long been the home of many of the city’s Latino population. Journalist Ed Morales describes it as the place „where hip-hop and salsa trumps classical, prime real estate gives way to inner city“.
Vice: Stunning Images of Spanish Harlem in the 80s
„There was more to this place than drugs and death,“ said photographer Joseph Rodriguez of his book, ‚Spanish Harlem: El Barrio in the 80’s.‘
Spiegel Online: „Die Kamera als Waffe gegen Rassismus“
Seit den Achtzigerjahren dokumentiert Fotograf Jamel Shabazz die Lebensumstände in schwarzen Communities der USA. Er sagt: „In Amerika herrscht ein neuer Bürgerkrieg.“