Posts from the “Crave” Category

Best Celebrity Photography of the Last 20 Years

Posted on May 11, 2017

Photo: Alexandra Gavillet: Rae Sremmurd for The Fader

In recent years, celebrities have become so ubiquitous that it’s hard to make them look fresh. Even when they switch things up—be it their hair, outfits, or romantic partners—the threat of overexposure and boredom looms large in those who constantly stay in the public eye.

A great photographer can see past all this: past the superficialities of hype, appearance, and the latest press junket. A master will use the camera to delve beneath the surface of the soft supple flesh in a search for the eternal, ethereal soul that lies within. Crave celebrates those who do it best with this tribute to the best celebrity photography of the last 20 years.

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Categories: Crave, Photography

More Than a Picture

Posted on May 8, 2017

Photograph by: James H. Karales Printed by: Rick Rhodes Photography & Imaging, LLC Subject of: Lewis “Big June” Marshall. Lewis “Big June” Marshall Carrying the U.S. Flag, Selma to Montgomery. March, March 21, 1965 (detail). H x W: 3356pixels × 4200pixels (3356pixels × 4200pixels). Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Monica Karales and the Estate of James Karales © Estate of James Karales.

Photograph: Created by: Roderick Terry. Subject of: Unidentified Man or Men. Printed by: Penn Camera Positive. Reflections, October 16, 1995, silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper. H x W (Image): 10 5/8 x 13 11/16 in. (27 x 34.8 cm). H x W (Image and Sheet): 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm). Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Roderick Terry © Roderick Terry.

A photograph is more than a picture—far more than mere art. Photography bears witness to an event as it unfolds, creating a document of the moment that becomes part of the historical record. It is equal parts memory and evidence. In many cases it is proof, as in the new standard bearer: “Pics or it didn’t happen.” In this way, the photograph can transform our understanding of life by speaking in all languages at the same time without ever saying a word.

Photography radically democratized the act of representation. Once the provenance of the wealthy elite and the power structure, the photograph liberated the picture plane from those who used it to support highly biased histories, mythologies, and narratives. Art in the age of mechanical reproduction enabled the image to be created at a much lower cost, be duplicated en masse, and distributed widely. It put the power of picture making in more people’s hands, and once freed from the strictures of the academy, the discipline flourished.

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Photograph by: John Johnson Subject of: George W. Butcher. Subject of: Unidentified Man or Men Created by: Douglas R. Keister. Scan of George W. Butcher and friend wearing suits and leaning on canes 1919-1925; scanned 2012. H x W: 8112 pixels x 5772 pixels. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture © Douglas Keister.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal

Posted on May 4, 2017

Fountain by R. Mutt, 1917, Alfred Stieglitz, Published in The Blind Man (No. 2), Edited by Marcel Duchamp, Henri-Pierre Roché, and Beatrice Wood, May 1917, Philadelphia Museum of Art, © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

In the spring of 1917, Marcel Duchamp went where no artist had gone before, transgressing the mores of polite society an upending the art world with the display of a single piece of work—creating one of the most scandalous art shows of all time.

The work, titled Fountain was a white porcelain urinal rotated 90 degrees and placed on a pedestal, with the signature “R. Mutt” and the year scribbled along the front. Rendered inoperable, it simply was a reminder of something few were inclined to discuss in public—if at all.

Lest we forget, indoor plumbing was a revolution unto itself—on par with the transformation that the Digital Age has on our own time. It changed lives in ways that most of us hope to never know any other way. At the same time, it was something kept quiet, hidden behind closed doors.

In one fell swoop, Duchamp upended this. He purchased the urinal from a store that sold plumbing fixtures and submitted it to an unjuried exhibition held by the Society of Independent Artists in New York, describing the piece as a “readymade.” In an effort to preserve the integrity of the artist and their work, the show had no jury making selections—a fact Duchamp took advantage of with aplomb. It was all very Dada for your nerves.

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Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Sudan, the Last Male White Northern Rhino on Earth, Joins Tinder

Posted on May 4, 2017

Photo: One of the three Northern White Rhinos translocated to Ol Pejeta Conservancy now living in a semi-wild state. Keepers and armed security watch over the rhinos 24hrs a day. Courtesy of Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

Sudan, the last male northern white rhino on earth, has joined Tinder at the age of 43. The Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, where he currently lives with the remaining two female northern white rhinos, Najin and Fatu, has partnered with the dating app in a new campaign to raise money and awareness of the plight of “The Most Eligible Bachelor in the World.”

The goal of the campaign is to raise $9 million to protect the northern white rhino from extinction. The funds will be invested in Assisted Reproductive Technologies by a consortium of institutions working to craft in vitro fertilization that can help stave off the disappearance of this majestic creature.

Tinder, which has users in 190 countries and in 40 languages, has created a profile for Sudan. Users who swipe right will be directed to a campaign page that is working to raise the needed $9M.

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Categories: Africa, Crave

Most Influential Artists of the Last 20 Years

Posted on May 2, 2017

Photo: Kusama’s Peep Show or Endless Love Show, 1966. Hexagonal mirrored room and electric lights. Installed at Castellane Gallery, New York, 1966. No longer extant. Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

“This idea of art for art’s sake is a hoax,” no less than Pablo Picasso observed, recognizing the bourgeois mentality that drove narcissistic self-indulgence into the creative process was merely fraud.

Indeed, art does not exist for itself; the greatest works are those that transform understanding into wisdom while revealing the truth of the times as not only a matter of the moment but of the underlying human condition. The best art is always one step ahead of where we find ourselves, predicting the future by bringing it to our attention today In celebration of the most influential artists of the last 20 years, Crave has compiled a list of men and women from all walks of life who work in a wide array of mediums, speaking truth to power.

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Categories: Art, Books, Brooklyn, Crave, Exhibitions, Graffiti, Japan, Painting, Photography

Former Child Soldier Wins Goldman Environmental Prize for Protecting Wildlife

Posted on May 1, 2017

Photo: 2017 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Rodrigue Mugaruka Katembo (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize).

Former child soldier turned wildlife park ranger, Rodrigue Mugaruka Katembo, 41, is one of the six people who has been awarded the prestigious 2017 Goldman Environmental Prize for his work to protect the natural environment. The prize, given to one person from each of the world’s six inhabited continental regions, was given to Katembo for his work protecting the majestic endangered species who populate Virunga, Africa’s oldest’s national park, from oil prospectors who are keen to gain access the pristine and untapped lands of this UNESCO World Heritage site.

At 3,000 square-miles in size, Virunga encompasses sections of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, and Rwanda. It’s lush tropical rainforest, active volcanoes, and mountain glaciers are home to the world’s last remaining population of mountain gorillas, less than 900 total, as well as elephants, lions, and hippopotamuses—making it one of the few Edenic spaces that exist on earth.

As a park ranger, Katembo is up against the very worst: political instability, armed poachers, and rebels, who outnumber the poachers ten to one. Militias have killed more than 160 rangers over the past twenty years, as Virunga has been the site of countless skirmishes and conflicts.

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Bottom Photo: Virunga, the oldest national park in Africa and the crown jewel of Congo’s ecotourism, is an area of extraordinary biodiversity and an important habitat for mountain gorillas. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Categories: Africa, Crave

Most Scandalous Art Shows of All Time

Posted on April 27, 2017

Gran Fury for ACT UP

The best art upends expectations and social mores, challenging the status quo by transgressing the boundaries of polite society. Because, let’s face it, truth isn’t kind to those who lie to themselves. But like the sun and the moon, the truth will always out.

Great art is a vessel for truth, allowing artists to speak freely without ever uttering a word. The immediacy of sight and the way it work on the brain allows it to change the way we perceive the world by upending the power of words to articulate and explain. “Seeing is believing” as the old proverb goes, and with that in mind, artists can change your mind without giving you a chance to argue. In celebration of the power of art, Crave has compiled a list of the most scandalous art shows of all time.

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Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

Jamel Shabazz: Crossing 125th

Posted on April 26, 2017

Photo: Style and Finesse, 2010. Digital chromogenic print, 16 × 20 in. Courtesy the artist. © Jamel Shabazz

Harlem is the heart and soul of New York, the epicenter of African-American life, culture, history, and hustle. At the turn of the twentieth-century, this vast tract of land in upper Manhattan quickly became the destination for black folks leaving the South en masse during the Great Migration. Here, folks created a town within a city entirely its own, dominating the wide boulevards and stately homes with a style and approach to life that combined the very best of the North and the South.

It was during this first wave that the Harlem Renaissance was born, giving rise to a flourishing movement of a wide array of arts from literature, poetry, and drama to music, dance, and theater. Visual artists also took root, creating images that bespoke not just the times but also the rich and textured history of African-American life as seen through the eyes of the people.

Among the great artists of the era was James Van DerZee, one of the premier photographers of the twentieth century. During the 1920 and ‘30s, he crafted a compelling pictures of Harlem’s emerging middle class that employed the elements of traditional Victorian portraiture—but took them to new heights but connecting with the spirit of his subjects and bringing out their glamorous inner light. Van DerZee’s photographs came to define Harlem in a way that few other photographers ever could, and in doing so, he influenced generations to come—including the great Jamel Shabazz.

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Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Manhattan, Photography

Wall Writers: Graffiti in Its Innocence Exhibition

Posted on April 26, 2017

Photo: COCO 144, 1974. Photo by Michael Lawrence. Courtesy Roger Gastman.

Graffiti is a basic human impulse. From the oldest known cave paintings, going back 40,000 years in the Maros region of Indonesia to a toddler in 2017 who has discovered the magic of crayons and walls, the desire to leave a mark speaks to a fundamental tool of communication. The visual and the verbal commingle and merge in its purest form, continuing to speak for the person who may since be long gone.

Graffiti, in its contemporary form, found its footing in New York and Philadelphia during the Summer of Love as the idea of writing on the wall transformed from a primitive impulse to craft an anonymous message took shape as an increasingly stylized representation of a specific personage. As it did so, it became more than act of rebellion; it became a form of art, a flourish of a handstyle that was as unique as a signature and as bold as an autograph.

The earliest practitioners of the form have been left largely to the underground, to the myths of history or fallen into the cracks of the past. As pioneers and innovators, their work could be rudimentary, as it was more invested in discovery than perfection. It wouldn’t be until the second generation came along with its top-to-bottom whole train car masterpieces that many sat up and took notice. But the first generation certainly made waves, inspiring newspaper and magazine stories, books, and later collaborations and films. But quick as they came up, they disappeared, moving on with their lives as they aged out, from boys to men.

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Photo: Photograph by Jon Naar, 1973. Courtesy Roger Gastman.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, Art, Crave, Graffiti, Manhattan, Photography

Frieze A to Z of Contemporary Art

Posted on April 25, 2017

Photo: Wolfgang Tillmans, Lutz and Alex, sitting in the trees, 1992, photograph. © the artist, courtesy Maureen Paley, London.

In June 1991, frieze magazine appeared on the scene. A slim 32 pages, the pilot issue gave a taste of things to come. Inspired by the great British style magazines like Arena, The Face, and i-D, editors Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover decided to bring the same sensibility to the world of art. In doing so, the revolutionized the art world on two fronts, with publishing leading the way for art fairs on both sides of the pond.

With the sixth edition of Frieze New York coming up for May 5-7, 2017, we’re celebrating a look back at the magazine’s first 25 years in print with the publication of the handy new guide, Frieze A to Z of Contemporary Art (Phaidon). Drawing on the magazine’s incredible back catalogue of work, the book is organized in a simple to follow collection of essays that take you from Avant-garde to Zeitgeist, with stops along the way in a marvelous potpourri of topics that run the gamut, from Critics, Economics, and Jargon to Nostalgia, Taste, and Visionaries.

With essays like Glenn O’Brien on Andy Warhol for the chapter on Fame, Christian Haye on Kara Walker for History, and Jim Lewis on “Ren & Stimpy” for Television, there is something for everyone. Because that’s what frieze does best of all: it takes the obscure and the sublime and makes them accessible.

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Categories: 1990s, Art, Books, Crave, Photography

Anthony Bourdain and Balvenie Celebrate the Art of Rare Craft

Posted on April 21, 2017

Photo: Anthony Bourdain.

American chef, author, and television personality Anthony Bourdain is just as cool as he seems. Dressed in all black with a pair of well-worn Converse high tops, he sits comfortably at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, musing upon the nature of rare craftsmanship.

Bourdain has partnered with The Balvenie Single Malt Scotch Whisky, arguably the finest in the industry, to host the 2017 American Craft Council Rare Craft Fellowship Awards. The event brings together craftspeople from all walks of life who share a love and passion for the mastery of age-old traditions that take time, patience, and skill, along with a gift for handwork that belies the illusions of progress.

Amara Hark-Weber, who hand-makes shoes and boots in her one-woman shop, was selected as the winner of the 2017 award. Bourdain, the lead juror, observed, “It’s always difficult to narrow it down to one winner, but what spoke to me about Amara is how she honors the tradition of her craft, while bringing exciting innovation to her designs. With only the use of her hands, leather and a knife she can create these shoes that are works of art.”

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Categories: Crave