- Kamoinge
[http://www.kamoinge.com/main.htm Kamoinge] , a group of people acting together... was formed in New York in 1963 to address the under-representation of black photographers in the art world. The group was founded by Louis Draper, Ray Francis, Herbert Randall and Albert Fennar, with Roy DeCarava serving as its first director.
The group was formed in 1963 (the same year that the civil rights bill was introduced into the U.S. Senate) providing crucial support and solidarity for those vying towards artistic equality. Counteracting stereotypical media images and defining their own communities, Kamoinge gained the attention of museum and galleries, moving them to exhibit works by photographers of color for the first time. Since many of the original Kamoinge members are still active today, we have made a photographic selection that spans the past thirty years. The greater impact of their efforts may not yet be in all the art history books, but our hope is that our viewers will draw strength and inspiration from these images. 1
Kamoinge's body of work spans the past forty years and included numerous images of daily life in black America during the last half of the twentieth century.
[1] Intro by Miriam Romais, Editor, for Kamoinge special issue of "Nueva Luz" photographic journal [http://www.enfoco.org/index.php/shop/nuevaluz_back_issues/P16/ Volume 7#1] ( [http://www.enfoco.org/ En Foco] , Bronx, NY: 2001).
Books
* "The Sweet Breath of Life:" A Poetic Narrative of the African-American Family. Poems by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntozake_Shange Ntozake Shange] , Photographs by Kamoinge (Atria Books, NY: 2004)
References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
