A major new exhibition of over 200 photographs, from 1972-2022, traces the rise and proliferation of hip-hop through five decades of work from the trailblazing image-makers who helped codify hip-hop as the most influential pop culture movement of its generation.
Ranging from iconic staples of visual culture to rare and intimate portraits of hip-hop’s biggest stars, the works on view traverse intersecting themes such as the role of women in hip-hop; hip-hop's regional and stylistic diversification and rivalries; a humanistic lens into the1970s Bronx street gangs whose members contributed to the birth of hip-hop; and the mainstream breakthrough that saw a grassroots movement become a global phenomenon.
Fotografiska New York presents a new exhibition that traces hip-hop's origins — starting in the Bronx in 1973, as a social movement by-and-for the local community of African, Latino, and Caribbean Americans — to the worldwide phenomenon it has become 50 years later. Hip Hop: Conscious, Unconscious Amplifies the individual creative involved in the movement while surveying interwoven focus areas such as the set of women who trailblazer amid hip-hop’s male-dominated environment; hip-hop’s regional and stylistic diversification; and the turning point when hip-hop became a billion-dollar industry that continues to mint global household names.
The exhibition brings audiences through five decades of history,culminating in recent imagery of the biggest names working in hip-hop today.The show, which features archival ephemera to augment the contextualisation of its photography, is principally laid out by chronology and geography. Focus areas include but are not limited to the early years, East Coast, West Coast, theSouth, and the newer wave of artists who have emerged since the mid-aughts.
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