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| © Hazel Hankin |
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| Polar Express Disco Ride, 1985 © Hazel Hankin |
"As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, Coney Island was a place of wonder. Alluring yet a little scary, it seemed to exist outside of normal life. It was a dazzle of exotic sights, sounds and tastes. In my teens I went with friends to scream on the Cyclone, to swing high above the ground on the Wonder Wheel, to wolf down Nathan's delicious franks, fries and clams. When I became serious about photography in the late 1970s, Coney Island became the subject for my first long-term project. Now, on top of the amusement park theatrics, I was touched by Coney's air of faded glory, amused by its visual ironies, and heartened at the persistence of its unique brand of popular culture, carrying on stubbornly in the face of poverty and neglect. This was no Disneyland: no slick, sanitized, carefully packaged corporate resort. I loved Coney Island for its pluck, for its funk. In the 1980s I became part of the Coney Island Hysterical Society, a pioneering troupe of visual artists who created art in, for and about Coney Island. Like New York City itself, Coney Island has multiple layers of history and character. Like the City, its tawdriness is part of its richness and charm. But today powerful real estate interests and the politicians who serve them are gradually hollowing out New York, and those same forces now threaten Coney Island. America's beloved, iconic amusement beach is under attack by forces that would destroy it in order to "save" it. I truly hope that whatever happens on that stretch of shore, Coney Island will survive; that its spirit will live on for future generations of New Yorkers and the world."Click here to see all the photographs
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| Piel Canela Performance Group © Hazel Hankin |
“I wanted to show what it felt like to be dancing. It’s extremely visual. It’s a challenge to capture things in motion. When I first started it was hard, because you don’t know what’s going to happen next. When things are in flux, to get a good picture requires everything coming together in a certain way.”
ALL ROADS LEAD TO CONEY ISLAND curated by Andrew Garn
Contemporary works of art, paintings, sculpture, films, photographs and historical ephemera.
Works by robert & robbie bailey, todd boebel, matilde damele, françois deschamps,richard eagan, emily feinstein, hazel hankin, robert hickman, hawley hussey, bill jacobson, marc kehoe, salem krieger, laure leber,andrew lichtenstein, doni lucas, ingrid ludt, barbara mensch, philomena marano,ann murphy, bethany obrecht, james reeder, arthur robins, molly schwartz, susan shapiro and robert vizzini.
On view MAY 29th – JULY 12th, 2009
Fri-Sun 1-6pm
Combining elements of fine art and documentary photography, HAZEL HANKIN'S work has been widely published and is represented in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum of the City of Hazel photographed regularly in Cuba In the 1990s. Graphis Press published work from her photo essays on Cuban life in a time of economic crisis and on Muhammad Ali’s humanitarian aid tour of
Hazel’s images of the innovative architecture of
Hazel’s ongoing project, Rhythm & Rapture, brings together two of her life’s passions — social dancing and photography — in images of salsa, swing and tango dancers. Work from this series was exhibited in a one-person show at the
http://www.px3.fr/winners/hc/zoom.php?eid=2178-07&uid=3225638
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