Join curator Vikki Tobak and photographer Janette Beckman as they share their exhibitions Contact High and The Mash Up, and visit many of their other favorites around Photoville LA.
Join curator Vikki Tobak and photographer Janette Beckman as they share their exhibitions Contact High and The Mash Up, and visit many of their other favorites around Photoville LA.
Presenters: Vikki Tobak Janette Beckman
Location: Annenberg Space for Photography
Join curator Vikki Tobak and photographer Janette Beckman as they share their exhibitions Contact High and The Mash Up, and visit many of their other favorites around Photoville LA.
VIKKI TOBAK is an author, journalist, and curator. She is the author of critically acclaimed books CONTACT HIGH: A VISUAL HISTORY OF HIP-HOP (Clarkson Potter/Random House), 2018); ICE COLD: A HIP-HOP JEWELRY HISTORY (Taschen 2022) and The Streets Win (Rizzoli 2023). Her work has appeared in Complex, Rolling Stone, The FADER, ESPN’s The Undefeated, Mass Appeal, Paper, Vibe, i-D, the Detroit News, The Library of Congress and more. Tobak is also the curator of the traveling Contact High exhibition at the Annenberg Space for Photography, The International Center of Photography, Manarat Al Saadiyat (MAS)in Abu Dhabi and MoPOP (Museum of Pop Culture). Tobak and the exhibition were nominated for a Lucie Foundation Award for Curator / Exhibition of the Year. She is a former producer and columnist for CBS, CNN and Bloomberg News. Vikki got her start as a culture editor for Paper magazine before going on to work at Payday Records/Empire Management working with groups including Gang Starr, Jay-Z, Mos Def, Show and AG, Jeru and other hip-hop legends of the Golden Era. She has lectured widely about music photography and contemporary culture at American University, The Schomburg Center, The Kennedy Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
Janette Beckman is a British-born photographer who now lives and works in New York. She began her career at the dawn of punk rock working for music magazines The Face and Melody Maker. She shot bands from The Clash to Boy George as well as three Police album covers.
Moving to NYC in 1983 she was drawn to the underground hip-hop scene and photographed pioneers such as Run DMC, Slick Rick, Salt’n’Pepa, Grand Master Flash and LL Cool J. Beckman has published five books: “Rap, Portraits & Lyrics of a Generation of Black Rockers,” “Made In The UK The Music of Attitude 1977-1983,” “The Breaks, Stylin’ and Profilin’ 1982- 1990,” “El Hoyo Maravilla” and “The MashUp: Hip Hop Photos Remixed by Iconic Graffiti Artists.”
Her work has been shown in galleries worldwide and is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of the City of New York and the Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe. She is represented by the Fahey Klein Gallery.
Beckman continues to chronicle sub-cultures of our generation as well as work on shoots for clients such as Levi’s, Dior and Apple.
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