SCENE: Blues, Booze & BBQ tonight @ PowerHouse Arena

Blues, Booze, & BBQ, the first book by Michael Loyd Young, documents the 150 miles of Highway 61, the famed blacktop road snaking from Memphis, TN down to Greenville, MS. At the halfway point, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, sits Clarksdale, MS, the city considered the birthplace of the blues and the location of Robert Johnson’s famed “Cross Road Blues” intersection of Highway 61 and 49.

The Delta has been home to blues legends such as Charley Patton, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, Cadillac John Nolden, B.B. King, T-Model Ford, Mississippi Slim, Big Jack Johnson, and Willie King, among countless others whose music has become the glue that holds these communities together as they struggle to survive. Young’s photographs, taken at juke joints, in private homes, or just hanging out, illustrate the bond blues creates between the Delta and its people. It is through this music that the people pass on their heritage and culture to future generations. (source)

T-Model Ford performs tonight (12/10) at the book launch party at the PowerHouse Arena in Brooklyn.

BOOK: The Invisible Empire

NOTE: I debated whether or not to include this book but wow! seriously? Are these things still going on? Will the folks in this book seek forgiveness at the end of their lives like former Klansman Elwin Wilson? Anyway, here goes:

“We believe in our race—in the fellowship of our race and the preservation of our race. We are the only people today that are actually participating in the preservation of the white race around the world. If we don’t condemn the threats against our race, it will no longer exist…That’s basically why we feel the way we do. We also believe that no race will live up to it’s potential if it’s mixed with another race, it only dilutes as it does with any situation in the world”.
-Dale Fox, Imperial Wizard of the Brotherhood of the Klans

Established in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan still remains one of America’s most secretive organizations. New York photojournalist Anthony Karen first transcended that secrecy several years ago when he got the opportunity to photograph a KKK cross-lighting ceremony; since then, he has been documenting Klan organizations throughout the country. Those photographs are compiled to form an absorbing document of one of the most notorious groups in history in The Invisible Empire: Ku Klux Klan.

Taken with unrestricted access, Karen’s images bring us deep inside America’s most private white nationalist organizations. Beginning with a brief introduction into the history of the Klan, the book provides detailed visual accounts of modern-day Klan life, including candid shots of rallies, individual portraits of Klansmen and women, as well as a look at the naturalization process for new members. Presented in intimate profiles are a functioning Klan ministry, a group that has merged National Socialism with Klan ideologies, and a 58-year-old seamstress who makes custom Klan robes, among others. Accompanied by quotations from the late Dale Fox, Imperial Wizard of The Brotherhood of the Klans, The Invisible Empire offers an unprecedented glimpse into the shadowy society and its mysterious inner workings.

Anthony Karen is a photojournalist based in New York. His passion for photography began in Haiti, where he documented the various Vodou rituals and pilgrimages throughout the country before embarking on the Ku Klux Klan project. Karen served in the U.S. Marine Corps and worked for many years in the personal protection industry. He has traveled extensively worldwide and has worked with many humanitarian groups, including the Humane Society of the United States. He currently freelances for World Picture News.

The Invisible Empire is out on PowerHouse books today (4/15)

ART/BOOK: Still Here and Sanctuary capture post-Katrina New Orleans

STILL HERE - Tonight (10/2) @ PowerHouse Arena in Brooklyn: August 29, 2008 marked the third anniversary of the horror that Hurricane Katrina inflicted upon the north-central Gulf Coast. Its devastation is a wound not yet healed and its survivors are the subject of Joseph Rodriguez’s fourth powerHouse Book, Still Here: Stories After Katrina. In it, he documents the ongoing expressions of hope, perseverance, and suffering in the affected communities.On Thursday, October 2, 2008, Rodriguez will present a slide show of images from the book and will speak of his experiences while photographing and interviewing families and individuals throughout New Orleans and Texas. Like the photographers who worked with the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression, Rodríguez’s work alerts readers to the ongoing pressures faced by some of the country’s most distressed and vulnerable people. His black-and-white photographs remind the viewer that despite the loss of home, community, and culture, so many continue to push forward, and are “still here.”

Date: Thursday, October 2, 2008
Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: powerHouse Arena
Street: 37 Main Street
City/Town: Brooklyn, NY
Phone: 718-666-3049

ALSO: SANCTUARY on exhibit thru October 4 @ Soho Photo:

Sanctuary features six photographers from New Orleans–Victoria Ryan, Samuel Portera, Lee Area, Eric Paul Julien, Jennifer Shaw and Michel Varisco—all brought together by the devastation and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It allowed them to reexamine their own sacred places and the refuge that is New Orleans. Sanctuary is about this seductive city of dreams and inspiration where one can muse about life and death, direction and vision. For these six photographers, sanctuary literally came in the refuge of their art and resulted in six unique visions of the city. The 30 images in the show describe life spawned by the Mississippi, its rich wetlands and fragility of the land, its historic architecture, and free spirited people. Photographer Michel Varisico’s exhibit was sponsored in part by the Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation.

Soho Photo
15 White St, NYC 10013
212-226-8571