Jerome Jenner Fine Art will be showing the industry's finest photographers for this years Contact Photography Festival, Jamel Shabazz, Steve Carty and Che Kothari will be headlining this exhibition for our venue. Each artist has something unique for this event. This will be a tribute to the visual diary that Jamel has captured over the past 30 years and know as a legend of retro photography. Steve will be using this show to launch his new book Positives which will also launch May 1st, Steve will be signing copies of his 140 page book the night of. Che Kothari has been chosen for the Contact preview and fundraiser along with two other artists from the Contact Festival. Che is an entrepreneur and trend setter he is one of the main organizers for Toronto’s Manifesto Festival and is a main affiliate to Toronto's best Hip Hop outlet, Earwaks http://earwaks.com/.
This will be a the best exhibition in Toronto, Friday May 1st 7:00pm - 12:00am
keep checking JeromeJenner.blogspot.com for more updates on this event.
JAMEL SHABAZZ
has gained international recognition through his various books,
exhibitions, and editorial magazine works. At the age of fifteen, Jamel picked up his first camera, a 110 Kodak instamatic and started to document his friends and family.
Inspired by photographers Leonard Freed, James Van Der Zee, and Gordon Parks, Jamel was marveled with how they documented the African American community.
Determined to continue the legacy, Jamel purchased Canon AE 1 camera and embarked on a 30 year journey documenting urban culture, primarily in New York City.
This journey has created a platform that allowed him to produce four monographs based on his experience, “ Back in the days” [ Powerhouse books, 2001] “ The Last Sunday In June” [ Powerhouse books, 2003] “ A Time Before Crack” [ Powerhouse Books 2005] and “ Seconds of my life” [ Powerhouse Books]
His work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, The Bronx Museum of the Arts,
The Museum of the City of New York, The African American Museum in Philadelphia,
The Nathan Cummings Foundation, Memphis College of Art, The Victoria and Albert Museum and Art Basel, Miami.
Jamel, is a teaching artist with the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, and is the founder of Project Positivity, a community based project developed in Toronto, geared to expose adolescents to careers in photography. In addition, he has worked with the Bronx Museum based Teen Council, another community derived organization that teaches high school students various forms of art, communication, and social responsibility.
Aside from his book and community endeavors, Jamel has done projects with Pro Keds,
Nissan, Red Bull, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The United Way, Luminato, and Scion.
Jamel is presently working on his forthcoming book, “Portraits of a People.”
Since 1992, Steven Carty has captured uprising stars and photographed established talent spanning several genres and platforms. Always re- inventing himself, Carty’s photographs provide a modern and realistic undertone to the faces we know, while giving us something we long to be close to. His patience and passion forge a style of portrait photography that is deliberate, intense and original. From Romeo Dallaire to Eddie Griffin, Atom Egoyan to Sandra Oh, Thom Yorke to Pharrell Williams, Carty’s images attempt to reach deeper than the surface.
Carty began shooting music related urban images during the early beginnings of hip-hop in the early 90's. Since then he has photographed some of the biggest hip-hop stars in studio, and on location in his home city of Toronto and in most major cities across North America. This exhibition "3 Generations of Urban Portraits, at Jerome Jenner Gallery in Toronto will show his most recognized images as well as many never before seen frames from his archives. The exhibit will also coincide with the release of Carty's first book, "Positives" [published by Burke's Books] which is a limited edition 120+ page book which showcases his work from 1994-2008. Artist will be present at the opening.
Che Kothari Biography “Let’s take this back to the artistic culture where arts are respected.” Culture. Opportunity. Change. These are the words that sum up what Che Kothari stands for. At the young age of twenty-five he has become an established photographer and leader within his community, dedicated to fostering other young artists in his city. Raised in Guelph, Ontario, he moved to Toronto at the age of 17 to pursue an education at Ryerson University for image Arts while immersing himself in the cultural arts the city had to offer. Not long after studying the art, beauty and technicalities of photography in the Image Arts Program, did he find himself shooting professionally for events around the city. His name was becoming known as his passion for the art grew and he decided to take the next step in his career; his own studio. With business partner, Ryan Paterson, he started up Hightop Studio – a company dedicated to photography, web design, event production and management. Through his work with Hightop, opportunities came flushing in from many different companies including Red Bull Canada, Sony/BMG, FIDO and many more. To date, he has also shot intimate portrait sessions with the likes of Ziggy Marley, k-os, Ice Cube, Zaki Ibrahim, Faith Evans, T.I., Common, Talib Kweli and many others for renowned magazines and publications. During all of this work, Che continually spread the opportunities he was getting to up and coming and interested artists surrounding him. He would also continually do work for the ‘big guys’ to sustain himself but offer his services for individuals and groups that could not afford the type of work he and Hightop were able to offer. The next major step for Che was founding a non-profit organization, Manifesto Community Projects, of which he is currently the Executive Director. Manifesto is a grassroots organization working to unite, energize, support and celebrate Toronto’s vibrant and diverse music and arts community, and find innovative ways of working together towards common goals. Manifesto aims to provide a platform and the resources needed to advance the growth of the arts as a tool for positive change, on the individual, community and city level. Manifesto’s main initiative is a 4 day annual festival. Growing to be the largest and most unique festival of its kind in the city in two short years, the annual Manifesto Festival of Music, Art & Culture brings together countless community members, artists, performers, and audience members to showcase our city’s vibrant arts community and strengthen its foundations by building a collective sense of pride and possibility. Featuring an array of events, from art exhibitions, dance showcases, workshops, free outdoor concerts, film screenings, and more, the festival combines a grassroots, community-focused essence with a production quality often associated only with commercial-scale productions. The festival is the culmination of all of the work Manifesto does and provides an annual burst of energy and inspiration in the city, and is a vehicle for furthering all of our objectives simultaneously. On top of his freelance photography work and projects with Hightop and Manifesto, Che is a founding member and the managing director of one of Canada’s leading online music websites, Earwaks.com, founding member and active participant of the Canadian Youth Arts Network and leads various photography and leadership workshops for youth. In 2008 Che also became the 2008 Execute Director for Ignite the Americas Youth Arts Policy Forum. Ignite The Americas was an initiative that brought together young artists, industry professionals, policy experts and government authorities from 30 countries across the Americas to explore and develop effective ways to amplify the power that arts and culture has in building social inclusion and generating economic opportunities. Since the forum Che has presented the findings in Barbados at the Fourth Inter American Meeting on Culture of the Organization of American States for Cultural Ministers and Highest Appropriate Authorities as well as in Washington to The Inter-American Committee on Culture of the OAS and most recently Che attended the Summit of The Americas in Trinidad and Tobago as part of the Canadian Delegation. At the beginning of 2009, Che was also invited as a Diverse City fellow by the Toronto City Summit Alliance, which is aiming to change the way leadership in Toronto looks. As far as Che is concerned, nothing can stop him from sharing his talent with the world. He is determined to make a difference in his community in hopes that emerging artists will shape and follow his lead. Whether through photography, cultural events, mentoring or workshops, Che leads with the utmost intelligence and passion for what he does; create change.
