Our thanks to writer Igor López at El Pais for his article about Martha Cooper and our exhibition running right now in Berlin until Spring 2022. Appearing in the Spanish newspaper’s magazine called ICON, Lopez describes the New York social matrix of the 1970s with pithy acuity; one where the city seemed at war on many fronts while various important cultural scenes were germinating alongside graffiti writing and musicians like Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash or DJ Kool Herc who were laying the foundations of hip hop as the dominant global culture.

“One of the first measures of Mayor Ed Koch, who had taken office in 1978 to save the city from bankruptcy and chaos, was to put concertina wire around the subway garages to prevent “vandals” from accessing the city at night,” he writes.

Enter the documentarians who capture the quickly shifting winds of change, like Martha Cooper, and forty years later we have solid evidence of multi-cultures in motion.  

“I thought I was capturing a phenomenon unique to the city and that it would disappear in a few years,” recalls Cooper of her now seminal body of photography that captured the birth of many movements. Dryly modest, Cooper doesn’t brag much. “I am surprised and grateful that my photos continue to be of interest.”

Check out this article in print and online, and please feel welcome to Urban Nation on our behalf this fall, winter, and spring!

The exhibition, Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures at Urban Nation Museum for Urban and Contemporary Art in Berlin is currently open to the general public. To learn more about the exhibition’s details and schedules click HERE

238

138

45