A re-discovered video interview with Janette Beckman from the ‘Rebel Cultures’ exhibition, filmed at HVW8 Los Angeles
Tag: Janette Beckman
Keith Haring
Keith Haring by Janette Beckman at HVW8 Los Angeles. Please email info@hvw8.com for inquires on this and other artists work.
Janette Beckman – New York Times
1980s, Janette Beckman, an expat punk photographer from London, amassed a portfolio of burgeoning New York rap acts like the Cold Crush Brothers, Big Daddy Kane and Public Enemy. It was a labor of love for Ms. Beckman, who had visited New York a few years earlier and was so entranced by the beginnings of hip-hop that she never left. She later collected those images in a book, but she challenges you to find a copy of it today.
“We couldn’t sell it to anyone,” Ms. Beckman said. “Back then, there was not one thought in my mind hip-hop would become this massive thing.”
Was she wrong.
Ms. Beckman’s early portraits are now on display in “Hip-Hop Revolution” at the Museum of the City of New York, alongside the work of Joe Conzo Jr. and Martha Cooper, photographers whose images from the 1970s through the 1990s document parties and dances that began in empty lots and playgrounds and went on to become part of global youth culture.
Full article Here
Janette Beckman at HVW8 – Video
New Video from Janette Beckman’s ‘Rebel Cultures’ at HVW8 Gallery.
Recent Rebel Cultures Press
Recent Interviews with Janette Beckman on the Rebel Cultures Exhibition from London’s Huck Magazine and NY based Complex Magazine.
Janette Beckman Pieces Available.
Futura and Dondi, London 1981
by Janette Beckman
1981
Canson Platine Fibre Rag Paper
Edition of 20
20″ x 16″ (50.8 x 40.6cm)
Custom frame available (black)
Lux Interior, LA 1982
by Janette Beckman
1981
Canson Platine Fibre Rag Paper
Edition of 20
20″ x 16″ (50.8 x 40.6cm)
Custom frame available (black)
More of Janette Beckman’s work available here. Please email info@hvw8.com for further information.
HVW8 Gallery photo from Purple Magazine.
Now on display, Tuesday through Sunday, 1- 6pm.
Janette Beckman Interview and Rebel Cultures Exhibition Press
Interview with Janette Beckman on her Rebel Cultures exhibition at HVW8 from LA Weekly as well as recent press from Hayabusa (Japan), Complex (US), Purple Magazine (France), Jay Z’s Life + Times and more below.
Dr. Dre, MC Ren, Eazy-E and DJ Yella of N.W.A. in 1990, near their studio in Torrance, California. Originally appeared in the book “Rap!” by Janette Beckman and Bill Adler.
Janette Beckman’s lens somehow always seems to always capture the intersection of gritty and cool. Born in London, England, Janette is a product of the ’70s punk movement. Like the music and lifestyle her art embodied, she soon crossed the ocean to New York, and has lived there since the top of the ’80s. Almost 35 years later, Janette has amassed portraits of rockers, rappers, painters, gangsters and more than a few would-be music moguls in the form of Rick Rubin, Dr. Dre and Russell Simmons. Regardless of who her subject is, Janette seems to find the honesty as well as the style in people. If the camera won’t show it, the jovial photographer’s anecdotes surely will. Beginning April 17th, select photos of Beckman’s are featured in HVW8 Art + Design Gallery (661 N. Spalding) in an exhibition called Rebel Cultures: Punks, Rap & Gangs, sponsored in part by Diamond Supply Co.
For the opening, Janette traveled back to L.A. 31 years after her first trip (prominently featured in the curation). Gallery goers included Curt Smith of Tears for Fears, Delicious Vinyl’s Rick Ross, and even three subjects that Beckman has bonded with since meeting them by chance a lifetime ago.
West Coast Sound: Much of your portrait work is often associated with New York. I’d like to talk about some of your L.A. photography. It’s in your book, The Breaks, and it’s prominently featured in this exhibit. This photo from 1983, “Gang Girls”; it’s such a moment in time. What prompted you to take that picture?
The “Riviera Girls,” then known as LA Happy Loca, LA Smiler Loca and LA Chrissy Loca, standing beside an early 1960s Chevrolet Impala in East Los Angeles. They reportedly attended Janette’s opening at HVW8.
Janette Beckman: In 1983, I was visiting a friend who managed The Go-Go’s, a seminal L.A. punk band. I just happened to pick up what I think was the L.A. Weekly, and read about this East L.A. gang, the El Hoyo MaraVilla. I loved the story so much, and there were no pictures. I just kind of got fascinated, so I got in touch with the writer and asked if he would introduce me to the gang.
Continue reading “Janette Beckman Interview and Rebel Cultures Exhibition Press”
Rebel Cultures Opening Night Photos
photos by M. Selsky
A few photos from Janette Beckman’s opening night of Rebel Cultures.
More photos are on the HVW8 Facebook page. Exhibition runs through May 18th.
Thank-you
Thank-you to everyone that attended Janette Beckman’s Rebel Cultures opening this past Friday.
Now on display until May 18th. Opening night and installation photos will be posted shortly. Email info@hvw8.com for artwork inquiries
Recent Janette Beckman Press – The New Yorker, The Telegraph (London) and New York Magazine
Futura and Dondi, NYC, 1981 – 16 x 20 inch
Recent Press on Janette Beckman in New York Magazine, The Telegraph (London) and New Yorker Magazine.
Make sure to RSVP for this Thursday, April 17th’s opening at rsvp@hvw8.com. Janette’s Rebel Cultures runs until May 18th. Please email info@hvw8.com for inquiries.
Janette Beckman – Rebel Cultures. Opens April 17th.
The Police, London 1978
HM Gang, East LA 1983
Run DMC, Hollis Queens 1984
Janette Beckman
Rebel Cultures:
Punks, Rap and Gangs
Opening Thursday, April 17th, 2014, 7 – 10pm
Please RSVP at rsvp@hvw8.com
In the summer of 1982, Janette Beckman was introduced to members of the East LA gang El Hoyo Maravilla. She proceeded to document this culture much as she had with British punks and the emerging New York hip-hop scene. HVW8 presents her photographs of these seemingly disparate tribes bound by a common rebel spirit.
Janette Beckman vividly remembers that summer. “I was spending the summer in LA with a friend who managed a punk band…for me that meant going out to clubs at night to take photos, neon signs, palm trees, 1950′s bars and cars, Venice beach and much more.
One day I met a writer who was working on a story about the East LA gang scene. I asked him to introduce me to the El Hoyo Maravilla gang. We drove out one hot summer day to a large dusty park in East LA to meet some members of the HM gang.
I had been documenting the London punk scene since 1976 and brought with me a box of 8”X10” prints of the British skinheads, punks, ska and rockabilly kids to show them. I explained that these were the ‘gangs’ in the UK and they agreed to let me take portraits of them to show people in London. I spent that summer photographing the gang with my Hasselblad camera, driving back and forth from Hollywood to East LA in my Rent-A-Wreck V8 Ford LTD.
The East LA area was poor, hot and arid, and there was the constant sound of LAPD helicopters buzzing overhead. The gang members introduced me to their families, showed me the barrio and tried to explain how it was living ‘la vida loca’.
I was the first British person they had ever met and we were curious about each other.”
In 2011, Dashwood Books published a collection of Janette’s photos of the HM gang. One of the three girls Janette had photographed leaning against a car in the park contacted her after seeing the book.
Nearly 30 years after that original photo was taken, Janette met the girls again to see where their lives had taken them. “We met in Boyle Heights at their sister Arlene’s house and they took me to the Home Girl Café for lunch. The three women had amazing tales to tell of their lives. They had lost husbands to gang violence. But these three amazing women had survived and thrived, they were mothers, career women and still the best of friends. They told me that most of the Hoyo Maravilla guys that I had photographed back in the day were either in jail or had passed away. We sat in the cafe and told stories. They tried to date the exact year I had met them: ‘Was the car we were standing in front of gold or blue?’ they asked, because one of their friends had been shot in the car and it had to be repainted after that because of the blood stains – this was how they would date the photos.”
This exhibition features not only photographs of the HM gang back in the day and the Rivera Bad Girls today, but also various iconic photographs documenting the formative years of the punk and hip-hop scenes including Johnny Rotten, Joe Strummer, Debbie Harry, Slick Rick, Keith Haring, and Run DMC to name a few.
‘Londoner Janette Beckman began her career at the dawn of punk rock working for The Face and Melody Maker. She shot bands from The Clash to The Specials as well as 3 Police album covers. Her powerful portraits celebrating this music and street style are collected in ‘Made in the UK: The Music of Attitude, 1977-1982‘, PowerHouse Books 2005.
Moving to New York in 1982, she was drawn to the underground Hip Hop scene. Her photographs of pioneers Afrika Bambaata, Run DMC, Salt’ n ‘Pepa and Grandmaster Flash and 1980′s style are collected in ‘The Breaks, Stylin and Profilin 1982-1990‘, PowerHouse Books 2007.
Since moving to New York she has shot everyone from entertainers to politicians – Clients include: Esquire, Rolling Stone, People, Interview, London Sunday Times Magazine, Observer Magazine, Doc Marten, Converse, Schott, Casio, Warner Brothers Music, Universal Music, etc.
Her photographs have recently been exhibited at: Paul Smith London, Morrison Hotel Gallery NYC, Collette Paris, Isetan Tokyo, Kong Gallery Shanghai, Rockarchive and Proud Gallery London.