SUMMER EXHIBITION 25TH MAY - 9TH SEPTEMBER 2007

DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION
WILD STYLe hiphop

Photographer Charlie Ahearn‚s documentary pictures from South Bronx in the pioneering days of Hip Hop are going on show at Dansmuseet. These are pictures taken in the late 70s and early 80s, showing a New York we have nearly forgotten now that Wall Street and the city‚s economy are flourishing. Hip Hop was born in a New York where there was no money, where gang culture was deep-rooted and where many housing areas were neglected and run-down.

The exhibition will present the people and the social context in which they moved. Ahearn recorded street jams in which DJ‚s hot-wired their sound equipment to lampposts on the streets and in parks, challenging each other to "battles" of dance, rap and DJ-in‚. Ahearn‚s documentary style and the positivism which his pictures radiate are infectious and go along way to explain why Hip Hop achieved such an impact. The pictures are portraits and group photos, mostly quite unarranged and taken in the midst of everyday life. Each picture on display will be accompanied by comments from the subjects or friends of theirs. Several big street-scene pictures show what their New York was looking like as the 70s turned into the 80s.

Conjointly with the exhibition, a selection of scenes from Charlie Ahearn‚s drama documentary Wild Style will be shown on DVD, featuring any number of known and unknown artists, Grandmaster Flash, Busy Bee, Double Trouble, the Rock Steady Crew, the Cold Crush Brothers, Lisa Lee, Patti Astor, Lady Pink, Fab Five Freddy and Lee Quinones. This film is a document about the origins of Hip Hop, with quite fantastic scenes of DJ-in‚, rappin‚, break-dance and graffiti.

A - Double Trouble before DAZE mural 1981
B - Heroin Kills by Charlie A, Dondi and Zephyr 1981
C - Busy Bee, Fred and Kase before his mural 1980

Photo: Charlie Ahearn