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Janette Beckman

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Janette Beckman
Janette Beckman
Born
London
NationalityBritish
Notable work"Rap, Portraits & Lyrics of a Generation of Black Rockers" (1991), "Made in the UK The Music of Attitude 1977–1983" (2005), "The Breaks, Stylin' and Profilin' 1982– 1990" (2008), "El Hoyo Maravilla" (2011) and "The MashUp, Hip Hop Photos Remixed by Iconic Graffiti Artists" (2018).

Janette Beckman is a British documentary photographer who currently lives in New York City.[1] Beckman describes herself as a documentary photographer.[2] While she produces a lot of work on location (such as the cover of The Police album Zenyatta Mondatta, taken in the middle of a forest in the Netherlands), she is also a studio portrait photographer. Her work has appeared on records for the major labels, and in magazines including Esquire, Rolling Stone, Glamour, Italian Vogue, The Times, Newsweek, Jalouse,[3] Mojo and others.

Early life

Beckman was at King Alfred School, in Golders Green in north London, from 1953 to 1967.[4] She spent a year at Saint Martin's School of Art, and then three years at London College of Communication studying photography.[citation needed]

Punk and hip-hop photography

After initially working for Sounds magazine with Vivien Goldman – her first shoot was with Siouxsie and the Banshees[5] – she had a job shooting for music magazines such as Melody Maker[6] and The Face, with a studio and darkroom in central London. Her primary focus was the UK's burgeoning punk subculture.[7] Beckman moved permanently to New York City in 1982 and continued her career, shooting for her UK clients as well as new ones in the U.S.[8]

After moving to New York, Beckman presented her portfolio to American record companies looking for work shooting album covers, but the gritty feel of her work did not fit the "airbrushed" aesthetic preferred at the time.[9] She was passed on to smaller rap and hip-hop labels, where she photographed acts such as Salt-N-Pepa, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys in their early days.[8] In a 2015 interview with American Photo magazine, she recalled "It is amazing, 30 years later, people going 'oh you photographed legends.' I guess I did, but they weren’t legends when I was taking pictures of them".[9]

Exhibitions

In August 2010 Beckman produced an exhibition entitled Archive of Attitude at Arkitip's Project Space, Los Angeles,[10] which included "works from her time in London during the punk era through the hip-hop decade in New York and Los Angeles".[11] Arkitip published a supplement to the show in the form of a broadsheet newspaper full of Beckman's photographs.[12] That same month photographer Jill Furmanovsky chose Beckman's Paul Weller and Pete Townsend as one of her personal favourite music photographs for an article with NME.[13]

In March 2011 the Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York City opened an exhibition at their Bowery location titled Catch the Beat: The Roots of Punk and Hip Hop,[14] a joint exhibition of photographs by Beckman and photographer David Corio. In a recording of Beckman working on the streets of Harlem, her photograph of LL Cool J with his boom box[15] is described as hip-hop history, known around the world.[16]

In July 2011, Flavorwire named Beckman one of "10 Rock Photographers You Should Know".[17] In the same month, Beckman launched "Archive of Attitude", a blog recounting the stories behind the photographs.

In March highlights her current advertising campaign was for Kangol,[18][19] her third lookbook for the music-friendly headwear company.

In the summer of 2012 Beckman joined the faculty at the International Center of Photography in New York City to teach a course on photographing youth culture.[20][21] Beckman took on a new working relationship with the British style magazine Jocks and Nerds for which she later became the New York City editor.[22]

Beckman appeared in the Stüssy/Yo! MTV Raps two-part documentary "We Were All Watching / Part 2, Fashion in the Golden Age of Hip Hop," alongside Bill Adler, Dante Ross, Questlove, and others.[23]

A trip to Caracas in 2013 produced a body of work on Tuki dancers, who combine street styles, pop, house and techno culture.[24] Also in 2013, Ono Arte gallery in Bologna held two exhibitions: Made in the UK and My Generation.[25]

2014 brought a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, in conjunction with an exhibition at Carver Savings and Loan Association titled Rebel Culture: Legends of Hip Hop and the Go Hard Boyz (Harlem Bikers).[26][27][28] Beckman's "Hip Hop Mash Up" was launched in 2014. She teamed up with graffiti artists including Cey Adams, to reinterpret photos from her archive, including Slick Rick, Public Enemy, Run DMC, and Big Daddy Kane.[29] By early 2015 prints had been exhibited at Salon Atelier-Galerie in Paris, France, and at Gansevoort Market, New York City.[30][31] Later in 2015 comes an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York, with photographs by Beckman, including the Mash Up, along with two other New York City photographers, Joe Conzo and Martha Cooper: Hip-Hop Revolution presents more than 80 photographs taken between 1977 and 1990.[32] Also in 2015, Beckman curated an exhibition and slideshow of photographs of musicians from across four decades by dozens of photographers for Photoville, a two-week exhibition of photography in Brooklyn, NY.[33]

In conjunction with the celebrations in the UK of 40 years since the birth of punk, in 2016, the Punctum Gallery in London's Chelsea Art College hosted a punk version of the Mash Up, and shoe store Fiorentini + Baker in east London hosted an exhibition of photos of punks from Beckman's archive.[34] The Photographers' Gallery in London also included photos in their Punk Weekender.[35]

Works were included in Tastemakers & Earthshakers: Notes from Los Angeles Youth Culture, 1943 – 2016 a "multimedia exhibition that traverses eight decades of style, art, and music, and presents vignettes that consider youth culture as a social class, distinct issues associated with young people, principles of social organization, and the emergence of subcultural groups". It opened in October 2016, at the Vincent Price Art Museum in East Los Angeles.[36]

Here We Are is Burberry's exhibition of British social and documentary photography, featuring Beckman, Bill Brandt, Shirley Baker, Jane Bown, Martin Parr, and others, which opened in Clerkenwell in September 2017.[37] Worn in New York: 68 Sartorial Memoirs of the City, a book by Emily Spivack (Abrams Books, 2017),[38] had "clothing-inspired narratives" and included Beckman's Def Jam jacket.

The Fahey/Klein Gallery held a solo exhibition in October 2018, that included photographs of hip hop, British punk, and the Mash Up.[39]

Beckman's photographs were included in the "Represent" Exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, May 2018 – 2019[40]

Publications

Publications by Beckman

Publications with contributions by Beckman

Selection of record sleeves

The Police

EPMD

Salt-n-Pepa

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five

Other

References

  1. ^ OA News & Correspondence. Alfredians
  2. ^ "Acapulco Gold interview". Acapulcogold.com. 8 December 2009. Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
  3. ^ "Jalouse". Patrimoine.jalougallery.com. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
  4. ^ Palliser, Peter (Autumn 2009). "Alfredians: A newsletter for King Alfred School Alumni" (PDF). www.kingalfred.org.uk. Retrieved 27 June 2023.
  5. ^ "ANTISOCIETY.COM » Blog Archive » From Punk Rock to Hip-Hop: Janette Beckman ANTI".
  6. ^ miles hare (26 May 1979). "Melody Maker Article". Xraymusic.co.uk. Archived from the original on 5 May 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
  7. ^ Chu, Christie (16 April 2015). "Hip-Hop's New York Revolution in 10 Photos". artnet News. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  8. ^ a b Graham, Mhairi (5 June 2014). "Janette Beckman & The Legends of Hip Hop". AnOther. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  9. ^ a b Moses, Jeanette D. (2 April 2015). "Photographing the Birth of Hip-Hop". American Photo. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  10. ^ "Project Space". Arkitipintel.com. Archived from the original on 6 April 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
  11. ^ "Hype Beast". Hype Beast. 14 August 2010. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
  12. ^ "Janette Beckman Newspaper". Arkitip.com. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
  13. ^ "Jill Furmanovsky picks her favourite music photos". NME. UK. 12 August 2010. Archived from the original on 21 October 2012. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
  14. ^ "Catch The Beat". Morrisonhotelgallery.com. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
  15. ^ "LL Cool J « Archive of Attitude".
  16. ^ "Movies on Artists". Movies on Artists.
  17. ^ "Flavorwire". Flavorwire. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
  18. ^ "Janette Beckman Q&A". The Daily Telegraph. London. 6 March 2012.
  19. ^ "Kangol". Archived from the original on 26 February 2012. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  20. ^ "ICP". Archived from the original on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  21. ^ "International Center of Photography – my summer course « Archive of Attitude".
  22. ^ "...loading". manchesterfashion.com.
  23. ^ "Stussy x Yo! MTV Raps – Stussy – Official Website USA & Canada". stussy.com.
  24. ^ Yeomans, Jane (28 March 2013). "The Tuki Crew". The New Yorker.
  25. ^ "ONE ARTE". Archived from the original on 15 March 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  26. ^ "Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts : Exhibitions : Exhibitions : Janette Beckman: Rebel Culture: Legends of Hip Hop and the Go Hard Boyz (Harlem Bikers)". bemiscenter.org.
  27. ^ ""'Queen of Hip Hop Photography' showcases art in North Omaha." KMTV. September 2014". Archived from the original on 25 September 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  28. ^ ""Janette Beckman keeps it real." The Reader". Archived from the original on 10 October 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  29. ^ "Legendary Photographer Janette Beckman Teams Up With Graffiti Writers for a 'Hip Hop Mash Up'". Complex.
  30. ^ "Janette Beckman. Stars du rap à graffer". Libération. 27 January 2015.
  31. ^ "The Meatpacking District Becomes Cool Again With this Pop-Up Art Fair". PAPER. 8 December 2014.
  32. ^ "Hip-Hop Revolution". Museum of the City of New York.
  33. ^ "Down and Dirty". Photoville Archive. 5 August 2015.
  34. ^ Gush, Charlotte (24 June 2016). "punk exhibition by iconic music photographer janette beckman opens tonight".
  35. ^ Crisell, Hattie (23 June 2016). "In London, a Celebration of All Things Punk". The New York Times.
  36. ^ "Vincent Price Art Museum – Exhibitions – Tastemakers & Earthshakers". vincentpriceartmuseum.org.
  37. ^ "Here We Are: British photographers document ways of life – in pictures". The Guardian. 21 September 2017.
  38. ^ "Abrams and Chronicle". Archived from the original on 16 November 2017. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  39. ^ Fahey/Klein Gallery
  40. ^ "Hip-Hop Photo Collection on Display in "Represent" Exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture". National Museum of African American History and Culture. 3 May 2018.
  41. ^ "The Mash Up: Hip-Hop Photos Remixed by Iconic Graffiti Artists". Hat & Beard Press.
  42. ^ FOX. "'The Mash Up' remixes hip-hop photos with graffiti". WNYW.
  43. ^ Sayej, Nadja. "How Hip Hop Became High Fashion: Inside Janette Beckman's New Book". Forbes. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
  44. ^ "Contact High by Vikki Tobak – PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com.
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