Jamel Shabazz: Eyes on the Street
Jamel Shabazz: Eyes on the Street
Starting at the age of 15, Brooklyn born photographer Jamel Shabazz identified early on the core subject of his lifelong investigation: the men and women, young and old, who invest the streets of New York with a high degree of theater and style.
FREE
Bronx Museum of the Arts
April 06, 2022 to September 04, 2022
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Artist details

Jamel Shabazz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of fifteen, he picked up his first camera and started to document his peers. In 1980 as a concerned photographer with a clear vision he embarked on a mission to extensively document various aspects of life in New York City, from youth culture to a wide range of social conditions. Shabazz is the author of 5 monographs and has contributed to numerous others. He is presently working on a new book, titled The Book of Life.

Exhibition details

Through Shabazz's lens, everyone gets the same share of exposure; whether black, white, Native American, or Latino his subjects are presented as the natural proprietors of the street. His images cast an impartial gaze on everyone he meets, including inmates, or fellow correction officers he met during his twenty-year tenure at Rikers Island; dapper b-boys, or young Muslim men and women dressed in their finest. The photographs in this exhibition were all made between 1980 and 2020. All of the people shown in these photographs reside within the five boroughs of New York City.

Location

The Bronx Museum of the Arts
1040 Grand Concourse
Bronx, NY 10456

Image: Jamel Shabazz, PR Seeds, n.d. / photo courtesy of Bronx Museum of the Arts