The exhibition
The retrospective Art Kane. Visionary, produced by Made in Cloister Foundation and Wall of Sound Gallery, collects a hundred of photos some of them very well-known, while others unreleased.
Preview Art Kane. Visionary (2019) by Diego Bernabei De NicolaFondazione Made in Cloister
“Performance shots are a waste of time, they look like everyone else’s. If you want to shoot a performer, then grab them, own them, you have to own people, then twist them into what you want to say about them”
Art Kane
Preview Art Kane. Visionary (2019) by Giuseppe D'AnnaFondazione Made in Cloister
The exhibition illustrates the visual scenery of the second half of the XX century.
Preview Art Kane. Visionary (2019) by Giuseppe D'AnnaFondazione Made in Cloister
These are the iconic shoots by Art Kane, the American photographer that with his gaze has reinvented and redefined the portrait strandards, the fashion and advertising shootings.
He was surprisingly and revolutionary able to catch key figures from the worlds of art, culture and music.
The artist
Art Kane was part alchemist and part sorcerer, with his uncanny ability to harness different elements, making nature, weather, light, matter, and people serve his creative process. And when nature wasn’t enough, he created his own realities and techniques to tell his stories.
Art Kane. Visionary (2019) by Guido HarariFondazione Made in Cloister
Endlessly innovative, he pioneered numerous concepts in modern photography, and left everyone else biting his dust. Enigmatic, self-assured, and incredibly disciplined, he took pride in his accomplishments, yet he was paradoxically contemptuous about his archive and his future. It was always about the next shoot. How to evolve, to change perspective, to push the envelope, and to accept nothing less than brilliance. Always ruthless with his editing, filling trashcans with rejects that most photographers would die for. This is why not many outtakes remain. Second best was not an option for Art Kane.
A visionary
In the turbulent cultural climate of the 1960’s, Art Kane’s photo essays on social issues such as civil rights, war, apartheid, the environment, had the power to inform, educate, and even change people’s minds with the razor-sharp power of a single image. The exhibition is composed by a few sections.
Art Kane. Visionary (2019) by Guido HarariFondazione Made in Cloister
One dedicated to the music that collects photos of the biggest rock and jazz icons from 60s and 50s realized by Kane .
art Kane. Visionary (2019) by Riccardo PiccirilloFondazione Made in Cloister
Another section, as much rich, faces social and politic themes in a visionary way thanks to the combination and stratification of images, crossing not just some of the issues that had completely changed the American society, but also matters such as the Afro-American’s and Native American’s civil rights, the religious fundamentalism, Vietnam, Hiroshima’s nuclear nightmare, first steps of the environmentalist conscience and the criticism against consumerism. The last section is dedicated to changes in the story of the American Society through habits, fashion, commercials and eroticism.
Icons
In his most famous images, exhibit in permanent collections of many museums (including the Moma, and the Metropolitan of New York), the timeless icons of music stand out: from Rolling Stones to Bob Dylan, The Who, Jim Morrison and The Doors, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Frank Zappa & Mothers of Invention, Cream with Eric Clapton, Sonny & Chér, Johnny Winter, Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Lester Young.
Anyway Kane is largely known for “Harlem 58”, the shoot that he made on the 12th August 1958 in which he has immortalized 57 jazz legends in Harlem, NYC, on a sidewalk in front of the number 17 in East 126th Street, creating the most significant image in the Jazz history.
Photo credit: Guido Harari
Riccardo Piccirillo
