Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Jamel Shabazz




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.”




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey whats up.
Heres a interview of JS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lajv6BnKVbI

hope this helps.

take care