Blogs

Our next exhibit, WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath, debuts next month. The show, organized by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will include over 150 images that present both the military and civilian point of view of war. Mark your calendars - WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY opens Saturday, March 23, 2013.  Watch the video teaser for the exhibit above.

It's the final weekend for the no strangers exhibit. How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor stopped by today to take in the exhibit before it closes. He came by just in time as the show will end on Sunday at 6pm. Come see it if you haven't had a chance. Hope you enjoyed the exhibit and documentary, Josh!

Over the weekend HGTV host Vern Yi and Facts of Life star Mindy Cohn stopped by to take in no strangers. Here are the two posing with WAG-A-LOT CEO Craig Koch. Hurry up and experience the exhibit for the first, second or third time - this weekend is your last chance before it closes for good!

For no strangers, we're partnered with our friends over at SHFT who put together this great video about the exhibit. The 3-minute piece featured curatorial advisor Wade Davis as well as Angela Fisher & Carol Beckwith, Chris Rainier, Thomas Kelly and Aaron Huey. Click above to watch it now.

Looking for some way to celebrate on President's Day weekend? You might want to consider coming to the very first cooking demo at the Annenberg Space for Photography! Whole Foods Market's chef Sibyl Fenwick will cook ethnic dishes inspired by our current exhibit, no strangers, as well as the countries where the wonderful Whole Planet Foundation works.

The cooking demo, which is open to the public, will take place on Saturday, February 16 from 2pm - 5pm and it's absolutely FREE!

Hamid Sardar-Afkhami talks about his photography in the above video clip which is part of the 'No Strangers' exhibit at the Annenberg Space for Photography. Sardar-Afkhami, who is one of the show's featured photographers, says: "My journey as a photographer and as an ethnographer has been a personal pilgrimage. I am in search of the very soul of a people, a place, a culture." Watch the clip to learn more about him and his work in Mongolia.
 

Dmitri Baltermants, Russian, born Poland, 1912-1990 Attack - Eastern Front WWII, 1941 The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Michael Poulos in honor of Mary Kay Poulos at “One Great Night in November, 1997” © Russian Photo Association, Razumberg Emil Anasovich

We're excited to have WAR / PHOTOGRAPHY, an important and powerful photography exhibit that originated at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, come to the Annenberg Space for Photography on March 23, 2013.

The exhibit will encompass over 150 images going as far back as 1887 through present-day and is arranged by themes presenting both the military and civilian point of view including the advent of war, daily routines, the fight itself, the aftermath, medical care,
prisoners of war, refugees, executions, memorials, remembrance and more. The exhibit includes the work of award-winning portrait photographers and photojournalists, military photographers, amateurs and artists including iconic images such as Joe Rosenthal’s Old Glory Goes Up on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima and Alfred Eisenstaedt’s V-J Day, Times Square, New York. Recognizable from news coverage is Eddie Adams’ image of the execution of a Viet Cong prisoner on the streets of Saigon.

Specific to the Los Angeles exhibit will be the Annenberg Space for Photography’s original short documentary film and digital image presentation produced by Arclight Productions. Together, the documentary and digital gallery will feature over 500 photographs exclusive to the Photography Space from six acclaimed contemporary conflict photographers: Alexandra Avakian, Carolyn Cole, Ashley Gilbertson, Edouard H.R. Glück, David Hume Kennerly and Joao Silva.

More information about WAR / PHOTOGRAPHY to be announced soon.

Here's an exclusive video interview with No Strangers featured photographer Chris Rainier. In the clip, the lensman talks about his passion saying: "My philosophy is to use photography as an art form and also as a social tool to celebrate culture."

Watch a previsouly posted exclusive video interview with fellow featured photographer, Steve McCurry, here.

Photo by Juan Luis Garcia

By Aaron Huey

Over the past seven years I have made many stories, but one project has come to own me.  That story is about the Oglala Lakota of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.  Many of you may have heard of the Lakota, or at least the larger group of tribes called the Sioux.  Pine Ridge is located about 60 miles southeast of the Black Hills in South Dakota.  It is sometimes referred to as Prisoner of War Camp Number 344, and it is where the Lakota now live.  If you have ever heard of the Wounded Knee Massacre, the American Indian Movement, Leonard Peltier, or of the stand-off at Oglala, then you know that Pine Ridge is ground zero for Native issues in the United States.

In 1980, the longest-running court case in U.S. history, United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, was ruled upon by the Supreme Court.  The court determined that, when the Sioux were resettled onto reservations and seven million acres of their land were opened up to prospectors and homesteaders, the terms of the second Fort Laramie treaty had been violated. The court stated that the Black Hills were illegally taken and that the initial offering price plus interest should be paid to the Sioux Nation. As payment for the Black Hills, the court awarded only 106 million dollars to the Sioux Nation. The Sioux refused the money with the rallying cry, "THE BLACK HILLS ARE NOT FOR SALE!"

In 2010, I took to the stage at TED Talks determined to give voice to those who had trusted me with their stories and given me a doorway into their world by allowing me to share their lives through my lens.

From TED it began to grow, snowballing until it landed on the doorstep of National Geographic magazine, where my Pine Ridge work and the real story of the Oglala Lakota was published as a 38-page cover story.

Pine Ridge was a project that I tried to escape many times.  In the seven years that I have been returning to Pine Ridge, 30 people who were in someway part of my project have died unnatural deaths and, as for the rapes, I dare not ask as it would break my heart beyond repair. Despite my attempts to give up I am always lured back by an email from someone I know and a desire to go deeper because I knew the story had not been told.  In time I found new communities beyond the gangsters and impoverished, and began to spend time with the spiritual communities. Beyond the seductive photographic surface of poverty and despair, beyond the caricature that was so easy to find in drunks and pow-wows.  In my final act of print journalism on the reservation, National Geographic made sure I had the time and resources to find the heart in this story, everything I needed to do it right.  I emerged on the other side of that long journey and found myself being called "brother" and "uncle" and sitting down to eat with the family I had built in those seven years.  Mitakuye Oyasin, you are,  “All my relations.”

Photo by Taylor Kent

Since defining my vision two years ago, I have been working on behalf of that family to tell the world a story that does not fit into the pages of most magazines.  One of the greatest outlets for this has been my collaboration with Ernesto Yerena (an activist/artist working primarily on border and immigration issues) and with Shepard Fairey, the most prolific street artist in America (famous for his Obama "HOPE" campaign and his ongoing OBEY propaganda).  Together we have taken my photographs of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the message of the Oglala Lakota to the streets of America. Our most recent installation on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles covered a 22x60 foot wall.

In an ongoing, crowd-funded, street art campaign we have seen the walls of 20 cities, from San Francisco to New York City, covered with 7,000 2x3 foot wheat-pasted images. Please take a few minutes to watch this short film about the project:

Photojournalism CAN leave the pages of magazines!   Full resolution versions of the work Shepard, Ernesto, and I made are available for download at www.honorthetreaties.org so that YOU can choose when and where this issue is seen.  The site also includes a library of every treaty made with Native tribes in the continental U.S.
 
To see more of the photo essay visit www.aaronhuey.com. 
 
Huey will be speaking about the evolution of his story from journalism to street art and beyond as part of our IRIS Nights lecture series on Thursday, January 31st.

The always popular photo l.a. art fair returns to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium this coming weekend.  View photographs from more than 40 exhibiting galleries, private dealers and publishers.  Take in one of the accompanying lectures, panel discussions or workshops that address current issues in photography and art.  Photo l.a. kicks off on Jan. 17 with a preview reception benefitting Inner-City Arts and runs from the 18th through the 21st.