In a triumphant finishing act, we slapped a few stickers on the board this week to say goodbye to our exhibition, Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures at Urban Nation museum in Berlin. The original sticker board in the gallery area had become overloaded and layered with stickers from visitors to the show and also from sticker artists who mailed them to the museum, so we had to replace it with a new one that is filling up as well. Of course we had to slap one in the wash room too to join the visual chorus of tags and stickers always propagate there as a nod to the restrooms in clubs and concert venues all over this city.

Our sincere thanks to Martha for entrusting us with her history and her hundreds of photographs, ephemera, and personal effects so that we could tell the story 7+ decades and 100+ cities traveled to snap pictures. Thank you to the artists who allowed us to exhibit 80 original artworks that reinterpret her photographs and to pay tribute to her.

Thank you especially to film director Selina Miles for her 16 screen visual poem made specifically for this exhibition, to street artist Seth for his original mural painted directly on a two-story wall in the exhibit, to street artist AIKO for her mural on the facade of the museum, and to artist Shepard Fairey for creating a new Martha Remix collaboration artwork and for producing a 550-print release of it with us and Martha and Urban Nation. Thank you to the entire team at YAP for skillfully bringing the exhibit to fruition and to Urban Nation for entrusting us with the entire museum for this unprecedented show of the photographer’s career.

People like Martha Cooper only come around once in a while and her uncanny ability to capture many of the benchmarks in a changing culture give us collectively greater understanding and appreciation for it. Speaking of the many youth she photographs for her “street play” projects, she may as well be speaking of all the graffiti writers and street artists she captured as well. “”As I photographed these kids, I came to admire their creativity, energy, humor, and willingness to share.’” We are forever grateful for Martha’s willingness to share what she captured with all of us as well.

Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures is currently on view at the Urban Nation Museum Berlin. The exhibition will close this May 15th. For more details click HERE.

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