LATOYA RUBY FRAZIER
Since she was 17, LaToya Ruby Frazier has been taking black-and-white photographs of her family and hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Her camera techniques are decidedly old school, and the formal beauty of her images evokes Diane Arbus: gray skies blend into empty streets; a still life of personal effects on a bedside table could date from the 1970s; a boxy sedan on a lawn looks like a 20th-century relic.
Yet it is Frazier's second turn as a performance artist that brings the post-industrial decay of Braddock, a former steel town, into a relentless present. In 2010, Levi's featured the town prominently in an ad campaign, calling it "the new frontier." In response, Frazier performed in front of a pop-up Levi's photo gallery in SoHo with artist Liz Magic Laser, rubbing her body on the concrete sidewalk to wear out a pair of jeans as a critique of Levi's commodification of working-class America. "When I asked my elders about denim, they expressed how it was frowned upon to wear denim outside of work," Frazier remembers. "In fact, my great-step-grandfather, Gramps, never wore denim. He was one of the few African-American men who worked in Andrew Carnegie's steel mill. Gramps only wore suits. I will never forget watching him suffer from chronic arthritis and multiple other ailments that he developed while working in the steel mills . . . It came natural for me to tear a pair of Levi's jeans as a political gesture and testament for the men and women whose views counter such a fictitious, superficial, propagandized ad campaign."
The 30-year-old Frazier continues her critique of the Levi's Braddock ads by mixing their imagery and messages along with her own—and incorporating questions from community residents—for the 12-piece photo series she will show at the Biennial, entitled Campaign for Braddock Hospital (Save Our Community Hospital) (2011). "My main focuses are lack of healthcare and corporate exploitation," Frazier says of these works.
In repurposing advertising's images and phrases for political critique, Frazier's work continues in the subversive tradition of artists like Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, and Martha Rosler. And although Braddock is overwhelmingly the subject and setting, Frazier's work could also be seen as self-portraiture. Also on view will be her Homebody Series (2010), black-and-white photographs in which Frazier haunts her abandoned family home wearing "Gramps' pajamas" and "Grandma Ruby's velour bottoms."
ABOVE: LATOYA RUBIE FRAZIER IN NEW YORK, JANUARY 2012. ALL CLOTHING FRAZIER'S OWN. SPECIAL THANKS TO FAST ASHLEYS.
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LaToya Ruby Frazier
at the Whitney Biennial
By Susan Wallner
Self Portrait (March 10 a.m.) 2009 © LaToya Ruby Frazierr.
Frazier’s photographs hearken back to the poetic yet profoundly political images created by photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Lewis Hine, and Berenice Abbott. She has taken up their goal of social commentary through documentary photography, yet she is also strongly influenced by later conceptual artists. As with many 21st century artists, Frazier is focused more on ideas than on a particular medium. She is best known for her large-format silver print photographs, but video, printmaking, writing, and performance art are all central to her work.
Frazier is committed to Braddock as her ongoing inspiration and social cause. She began as a teenager taking photographs of her family, which has deep roots in the city: her great-grandfather once worked in Carnegie’s steel mills, her grandmother lived through the Civil Rights struggles and white flight, and she herself was born during Reaganomics, a time when Braddock suffered from a deadly crack epidemic.
Sixth Street & Washington Avenue 2009 © LaToya Ruby Frazier.
Frazier now sees Braddock as part of a larger whole: “Taking the NJ Transit through New Jersey, passing through Newark, seeing the industrial ruins and the degradation,” she reflects, “there’s even a factory that says Pittsburgh Steel on it that I pass every day! It expanded me, realizing that this is a whole American problem with the global economy and the loss of blue collar jobs and the demise of all the factories.”
The New York Times calls it “one of the best Whitney Biennials in recent memory.” LaToya Ruby Frazier says she is honored to be part of the exhibition with some of her heroes, including documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. Her work can be found on the 2nd floor of the Whitney through May 27, and on May 11 she’ll be giving a performance, “Demystifying the Myth of the ‘Urban Pioneer’”, free with admission to the museum.
“LaToya Ruby Frazier: Politics & Poetics” is featured on the next episode of State of the Arts, airing on Sunday, April 1 at 8 pm on NJTV. Watch a special preview.
The Whitney Biennial 2012 runs through May 27; for more information, visit whitney.org.
Susan Wallner is an award-winning producer with PCK Media. She is a long-time contributor to State of the Arts, now airing on NJTV Sundays at 8 pm.
>via: http://www.njtvonline.org/njtoday/2012/03/30/latoya-ruby-frazier-at-the-whitn...
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What is the responsibility of an artist to her community? In this film, artist and activist LaToya Ruby Frazier discusses the economic and environmental decline of her hometown—Braddock, Pennsylvania—the city that the clothing company Levi’s used as inspiration and backdrop for a major advertising campaign in 2010. Having photographed in Braddock since she was sixteen years old, LaToya’s black-and-white images of her family and their surroundings present a stark contrast to the campaign images of “urban pioneers” and slogans such as “everybody’s work is equally important.” In a performance developed in collaboration with the artist Liz Magic Laser, LaToya carries out a choreographed series of movements on the sidewalk in front of the temporary Levi’s Photo Workshop in SoHo. Wearing a costume of ordinary Levi’s clothes, the artist’s repetitive and relentless motion ultimately destroys the jeans she’s wearing.
LaToya Ruby Frazier (b. 1982, Braddock, Pennsylvania, USA) lives and works in New Brunswick, New Jersey and New York, New York. CREDITS | “New York Close Up” Created & Produced by: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Cinematography: John Marton & Andrew David Watson. Sound: Nicholas Lindner & Nick Ravich. Associate Producer: Ian Forster. Production Assistant: Paulina V. Ahlstrom, Don Edler & Maren Miller. Design: Open. Artwork: LaToya Ruby Frazier & Liz Magic Laser. Additional Photography: Liz Magic Laser. Thanks: Kim Bourus, Ron Clark, Higher Pictures & The Whitney Independent Study Program. An Art21 Workshop Production. © Art21, Inc. 2011. All rights reserved. “New York Close Up” is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Additional support provided by The 1896 Studios & Stages. For more info: art21.org/newyorkcloseup