MAASAI MARATHON: NYC Eco-Warriors

Kenyan's (click for bio's) Samson Parashina, Martin Sunte, and Parashi Ntanin in NYC to run the Marathon

Samson Parashina, Edward Norton, Parashi Ntanin, Andrew Wolff, Martin Sunte, Luca Belpietro, Founder of Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust

Parashi Ntanin with Dung Beetle

Kenyan Running Shoes

Huge Strangler Fig Tree, Sacred to the Maasai, in the Chyulu Forest

Maasai are natural runners, it is a part of their culture and tradition as warriors, so it seemed very organic to have some of these new generation ‘eco-warriors’ come brave the NY streets for their community–Edward Norton

NOVEMBER 1, 2009, actor Edward Norton and three Maasai Warriors from Kenya, will lead a team of 30 runners in the New York City Marathon to raise awareness and funds for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust
MAASAI MARATHON

DUTCH SEEN: 400th Anniversary of the Dutch Arrival in New York

Napkin, 2009 Photograph © Hendrik Kerstens/ All rights reserved

Alexander and Nicky Vreeland
Photograph©Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin/All rights reserved

THE MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK and Foam I Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam present Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered. This exhibition marks the 400th anniversary of the Dutch arrival in Manhattan and features the work of renowned contemporary Dutch photographers. Guest curated by Kathy Ryan, Photo Editor of The New York Times Magazine.

"Through their considered gaze, the participating Dutch photographers give a portrait of what New York City is today. The rich diversity, energy, tolerance, and commerce the Dutch brought with them to the first settlements, along with the stunning landscape that originally attracted the Dutch to the region 400 years ago still define New York City today and are clearly visible in the photographs on display. The concept of the exhibition is created around the theme ‘portrait of the city’. The exhibition consists of portraiture, landscapes, still lives, conceptual photographs, and documentary photography. It's modern work, firmly rooted within the Dutch tradition."

"This exhibition presents some of the most exciting imagery in the photographic medium being done by the Dutch. The artists featured in the exhibition range from the legendary Rineke Dijkstra to emerging artists who are just now gaining recognition. Participating artists include: Morad Bouchakour, Misha de Ridder, Wijnanda Deroo, Rineke Dijkstra, Charlotte Dumas, Hendrik Kerstens, Arno Nollen, Erwin Olaf, Jaap Scheeren, Danielle van Ark, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, and Hellen van Meene. The majority of the work in the exhibition iscreated and premiered in this exhibition. A fully illustrated catalogue featuring work created by all of the participating photographers accompanies the exhibition."

New York Times Slideshow

Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered June 10 - September 13
Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave at 103rd St, NYC 10029

HEUNGMAN: Shanghai, City of Shadows

Photograph (c) Heungman/All rights reserved

Photograph (c) Heungman/All rights reserved

Photograph (c) Heungman/All rights reserved

Photograph (c) Heungman/All rights reserved

HEUNGMAN was born in China, brought up in Hong Kong and lives in New York City. He received a BA in Cinema and Television Arts from California State University and BFA in Photography from the Art Center College of Design in L.A.. He was a successful commercial photographer for many of the 15 years he lived in New York City. His work was published in Rolling Stone, Spin, and Paper Magazines. He shot numerous musicians; Usher, Moby, Lil' Kim, Ben Harper, The Black Crowes, Duran Duran and celebrities Hugh Grant and Conan O'Brien, as well as many advertising campaigns such as Tommy Hilfiger.

Missing his "roots", Heungman returned to Shanghai for several years, documenting the city around him. He applied his early love of American film noir in his series "The New Noir". He's exhibited this work in galleries from Austria, China to New York City.

"Shanghai is the natural capital of international neomodernism because, without obvious parallel, it is an interrupted city. Not only is it undergoing a self-conscious process of rebirth, it is doing so with explicit reference to its previous age of cosmopolitan flourishing. It is doubling back upon itself, across a hiatus. In its restoration structures, which typically wrap or encase the old brick and metal skeleton of the early 20th century in the glass, light and digital electronics of fashionable art spaces, leisure venues and creative industries, Shanghai's 1930s and 1990s incarnations click seamlessly together, as if assembling the precision-engineered pieces of a cryptic historical jigsaw puzzle...the still photography of Heungman's Shanghai Noir series engages in a stubborn exploration of broken neomodern duration. At its most elementary, it exploits high-contrast (chiaroscuro) black-and-white imagery and noir aesthetics as a time-code, translating the city's futuristic highrises edifices back into the historical period implied by its style of perception. More subtly, the aspects of Americana (replete with both Gothamite and Hollywood references) disorient and cosmopolitanize, entangling the city's local storyline in wider and more incomprehensible structures of trans-regional fatality. The city's harsh – even infernal – incandescence is cast adrift within an oceanic vastness of pitiless, world-swallowing night. The heavens are an absolute nothingness (so everything is permitted)." Read the complete piece by NICK LAND

HEUNGMAN: WEBSITE
New York: INES DESEROUX GALLERY
Shanghai: ART LABOR GALLERY