Held in conjunction with the opening of Andre D. Wagner: New City, Old Blues at The Gordon Parks Foundation Gallery.
Jamel Shabazz is the recipient of the 2022 Gordon Parks Foundation / Steidl Book Prize for Jamel Shabazz: Albums, published by The Gordon Parks Foundation and Steidl.
Andre D. Wagner is a 2022 Gordon Parks Foundation Art Fellow.
Moderated by Michal Raz-Russo, programs director at The Gordon Parks Foundation.
Jamel Shabazz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. With his first camera at age fifteen, he took pictures in his community, inspired by the work of photographers including Leonard Freed, James Van Der Zee, and Gordon Parks. In 1980 he began documenting aspects of life in New York City, with the streets and subway system as backdrops for many of his photographs. Shabazz has had more than two dozen solo exhibitions over the past decade, including Men of Honor, A Time Before Crack, Pieces of a Man, Represent, When Two Worlds Meet, Back in the Days, and Seconds of My Life, which have traveled in the United States and to Argentina, the Netherlands, England, Italy, Germany, France, and Japan. These exhibitions have been accompanied by several celebrated publications, among them Back in the Days and A Time Before Crack. Shabazz’s work has appeared in group exhibitions nationally and internationally, at the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Duke University, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Adidas Foto Fest in Ethiopia, among other venues. Over the years Shabazz has volunteered with organizations and programs that seek to guide young people in photography and social responsibility. He has been a teaching artist with the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation; the Bronx Museum of the Arts’ Teen Council; the International Center of Photography and Friends of Island Academy; and the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Expanding the Walls. He has lectured at the Fashion Institute of Technology, the International Center of Photography, the Brooklyn Historical Society, Haverford College, and Parsons School of Design. Shabazz was awarded the 2022 Gordon Parks Foundation / Steidl Book Prize and was honored at the 2018 Gordon Parks Foundation Awards.
Andre D. Wagner is a photographer living and working in Brooklyn, New York. He explores and chronicles the poetic and lyrical nuances of daily life, using the city—particularly his own neighborhood and community—as his subjects. His work and practice fits into the lineage of street photography that investigates the American social landscape, often focusing his lens on themes of race, class, and cultural identity. Wagner has remained committed to photographic processes, developing his own black and white negatives and making silver gelatin prints in his personal darkroom. Wagner’s photographs have been commissioned by The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, W Magazine,The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Time, and Vogue, among other publications. For the movie Queen & Slim Wagner photographed the iconic key art and the campaigns leading images. His photographs have appeared in a number of solo exhibitions and group shows in Los Angeles, New York and North Carolina. His first monograph, Here for the Ride, was published by Creative Future in 2017. Wagner is a 2022 Gordon Parks Foundation Fellow.
