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