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About U.S. photographer, Gordon PARKS (1912-2006)
“I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs." (frei übersetzt, © Gordon PARKS, 1999)
Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan PARKS gained national attention in the U.S. as the first African American photographer & film director. His main subject was documenting social injustice. Initially, he himself lived in great poverty from changing jobs. With a first camera acquired in a pawnshop in 1938, he quickly developed into a freelance reportage photographer in addition to his bread and butter jobs, and then went into business for himself as a portrait photographer in Chicago. Beginning in 1941, he produced social documentary photo reportage on the everyday urban life of African Americans for the government-owned Farm Security Administration (FSA). During World War II, he became a war photographer through the intercession of FSA director Roy Stryker, and from 1944 worked for 'Vogue' for four years. In 1948, he succeeded in being taken on as a permanent staff photographer for the leading photo magazine of the time, 'Life'. He worked there until 1972, documenting poverty and racial discrimination in the USA and the world. He got to know the most famous protagonists of the civil rights movement and also actively participated in it. With the detective John Shaft in the blaxploitation film 'Shaft' he created the first African-American cinema hero in 1971. Gordon PARKS died in New York in March 2006 at the age of 93.
Photo books by and on the work of Gordon PARKS
- 'A Harlem Family' (2012); 'Collected Works' (2012, 2017 as 'Study Edition'); 'The Making of an Argument' (2012); 'Segregation Story' (2015, 2017); 'Back to Ford Scott' (2015); 'I AM YOU' (2016); 'Invisible Man' (2016, 2017); 'The Flavio Story' (2018); 'The New Tide' (2018); 'Muhammad Ali' (2019); 'The Atmosphere of Crime' (2020, 2021); 'Pittsburgh Grease Plant 1944/46' (2022); 'American Gothic' (2024)
Exhibitions in Germany
In Germany, Gordon PARKS' work was rarely and widely shown, although at photokina 1966, the Time Life Gallery exhibition of photo reportages he had made for Life was one of the most talked about exhibitions. It was not until documenta 6 and photokina 1980 that individual images by him were shown again. In 1989/90, an exhibition of works spanning 40 years was shown in 12 German museums. In 2016, C/O Berlin dedicated the extensive exhibition 'Gordon Parks. I Am You. Selected Works 1942-1978'.