In Andre Wagner’s single image of a Black child gripping a small, wrinkled American flag in one hand while the other rests pensively on her chin, Wagner tells the complicated story of America. That Star-Spangled Banner is crumpled, as if it has been rolled up in a pocket, tucked away, its usefulness uncertain but nonetheless protected. This child, with the decorative beads in her cornrows, is dwarfed by the adults who stand on either side, by the enormous backpack, by the meat counter in the background. Her expression is sober, as if she’s considering weighty matters. A child with the brooding demeanor of an adult. A complicated child. An American child. A Black American.
When Jamel Shabazz was a teenager in Brooklyn, a gang member opened his eyes to the power of photography. Shabazz was introduced by a junior high school friend to one of the Jolly Stompers. During Shabazz’s visit to his apartment, the Stomper, who was only 18 or 19 himself, took out thick photo albums with pictures of his confederates. “They had a style I had never seen before,” Shabazz said. “They wore suits, and their pants had creases. You would never know they were in a gang.”
Since the early 1980s, Shabazz has captured the energy of street life and hip-hop culture in New York, making indelible images of joy, style, and community.
New York is a ghost town. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the metropolis to a standstill. Many are scared to even leave their apartments to buy groceries. The globe-trotting photographer Jamel Shabazz is tucked away in his Long Island home, his “sanctuary.” Shabazz’s world is rocked daily by yet another phone call announcing the death of a loved one. It is a calendar of loss with which he is intimately familiar. He survived the 1980s crack era and the AIDS crisis, when so many friends from his Brooklyn neighborhoods—Red Hook and then East Flatbush—did not.
Hardhitta Gallery is presenting its first exhibition of American photographer Jamel Shabazz through March 29th, 2015. The exhibition Reflections from the 80s will showcase eighteen photographs of New York City’s street vibes over the course of the decade.
When Jamel Shabazz began photographing New York in 1980, the city was recovering from one of its most tumultuous periods. By the late-1970s, New York was facing a faltering economy, a serious drug problem and the physical deterioration of many neighborhoods. New York was ripe for sociological analysis and hand-wringing.
Although it’s too late to see Jamel Shabazz‘s “REPRESENT” at the Brooklyn Central Library, you will be able to bring them home in his new book, “REPRESENT: Photographs from 2005-2012
