PHLAC

Last night was an opening for David Alan Harvey’s Living Proof” book—a document of hip hop culture images created from Senegal to the Bronx. This is the third book from the Magnum photographer.

A northeast commute took me from a 4 to a C train at Fulton Street off at High Street in Brooklyn to the Powerhouse Gallery on Main Street in Dumbo. I wasn’t sure if David would remember inviting me the night before at Alex Webb’s opening, but as soon as I said hello he handed me two passes to the after-show “kibbutz.”

The space at Powerhouse is huge—two levels with tall and wide amounts of wall space, a generous section devoted to book sales, and another tier useful for a DJ. DAH chose to keep the presentation direct and accessible. His tightly-toned inkjet prints were pasted without frames from top to bottom. Hand-drawn script titles and a statement accompanied the images.

Magnum In Motion has created a multimedia interpretation of the work which includes pieces of video.

The crowd thins out near the end of the exhibition.

I hopped a taxi with Mike and Maya, two DAH assistants. The party was at his loft on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. Great variety of people—established photographers such as Stephen Shames, local friends as well as visitors from Europe, and young assistants interning and learning from the guru-like DAH. The affair was spread out between two lofts, David’s and neighbor-photographer Robert Clark. I wrote in DAH’s blog that this party was a true-to-life example of the quality of a man’s friends attesting to the goodness of one’s character.

The photos that follow are a testament that red wine and a picture-making with a compact Fuji F30 (regardless of its low-light capabilities) do not go well together.

DAH assistant, Francesca from Milano takes the elevator with her friend Nicola up to the roof.

Outside his loft, DAH holds court while guests wait for the elevator. Ana Sanchez from Valencia, Spain
(back, left) checks images on her DSLR.

A view through a stairwell window overlooks the East River into Manhattan.