At the end of the 1940s, the journalist, filmmaker and photographer Gordon Parks provided some of the best coverage on racial segregation in America. An activist for civil rights, Parks stood out in his proximity to the populations of the black ghettos. He was hired by Life magazine after he published a series on a gang leader in Harlem, but he had already worked as a photographer for Vogue, where he learned the secrets of aestheticism. Parks died in 2006 and would have turned 100 this year. The Howard Greenberg gallery is celebrating this centennial with a beautiful tribute. Two exhibitions bring together his best photographs, including his most famous, “The Invisible Man” (1952), showing a man’s head emerging from a utility hole. Whether they are in color or black and white, each of these photographs bears the stamp of the finest years of photojournalism, halfway between humanism and street poetry. Without a doubt one of the finest New York exhibitions of the season.
Jonas Cuénin
Gordon Parks : Centennial et Contact : Gordon Parks, Ralph Ellison, and « Invisible Man »
September 14 – October 27, 2012
Howard Greenberg Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York
USA
(212) 334-0010
