From the Japanese American National Museum, Skirball, Annenberg Space for Photography
Said it before. Worth saying again: Los Angeles is a great visual capital of the planet and there's plenty of proof around with photography of motion, grace and history on exhibit:
In Little Tokyo, there will be a Saturday afternoon reception and signing of a new book that chronicles the war-time work of a major but unsung figure in the chronicling Japanese-American life: photographer Hikaru Carl Iwasaki. He's the lone shooter still alive and was the only Nikkei photographer involved in the peculiar push by the U.S. government to persuade the country to re-accept Japanese-Americans after they were unjustly interned during World War II. He was sent nationwide to document ordinary, even plebian life but managed, as author-scholar Lane Ryo Hirabayshi (he of the Asian American Studies program at UCLA) argues, to elevate that effort and to capture a bittersweet and fleeting glimpse of an ugly part of American history. Iwasaki joined in this post-war public relations push after also documenting the internment, working alongside more acknowledged photographers like Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams. At a time when the posts made them princes of the photo world, he went on to be a bureau chief for the now defunct Life Magazine and then a colleague at Sports Illustrated of shooters like Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer (see below). The reception and book signing is free and open to the public with museum admission.
*He's also a Denverite, the dad of my best friend from childhood onward.
A visual recollection of the World War II internment's aftermath
In West Los Angeles, two, side-by-side exhibitions recapture the painful and poignant path, the "Road to Freedom," pursued by African Americans to win civil rights in the U.S. from 1956 to 1968. More than 35 photographers contributed the 170 displayed works, some of which never have been shown before and all of which are supplemented with recordings of speeches and music, as well as archival documents and artifacts that aim to put in context what amounted to arguably one of the most important movements of the 20th Century. In a companion display, photographer Eric Etheridge captures 40 key figures from the civil rights movement, documenting how they looked then and in portraits of them as seniors.
'Road to Freedom,' exhibit of top photos of civil rights movement, opens
'Breach of Peace' portrays civil rights leaders then and now
Before there was 24/7 cable TV, HDTV, slow mo, instant replay and the
array of modern technologies that dominate the displays of modern
athletics, the thrill of sports and the exulation in victory or the
grief of defeat all got caught -- or it didn't -- depending on the
immaculate skills and talents of a determined cadre of shooters. In
particular, the photographers of Sports llustrated raised the act of
chronicling popular pasttimes into art, as is shown in the Century City
display of the always arresting work of Walter Ioos and Neil Leifer.
This display not only captures the breadth, depth and quality of their
joyous labors, it also uses technology to transport sports nuts back to
the mesmerizing moments that have made fun and competition a cornerstone
of contemporary life. The exhibit is available for viewing online, but even the best monitor fails to do justice to these terrific photos.
Photo: Muhammad Ali / Neil Leifer
Sports as art: the work of Walter Iooss, Neil Leifer
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