Curated by Julie Cousens and Linda Mendelson
Omar Kharem’s photos are a pastiche of nostalgia: a New York City where Greenwich Village was artistic, the East Village was Bohemian, The Upper West Side was intellectual, The Garment District produced 95% of the clothing worn in America (today it’s 5%). New York was Shabby, elegant and affordable. And Jazz was still in its Golden Age.
Roaming the streets of the city, frequenting the Jazz clubs and lofts Kharem captured the essence and the spirit of the city, a city where children played in the streets, and homelessness was becoming visible.
Beyond the content of his photos lies the artistry of Kharem’s work, his unfailing eye for found light and composition. He is able to take a Jazz performance or a quotidien moment and create a sublime and yet powerful image.
Two examples from his “City” series: “In the Valley - A Moment in Harlem” at first glance is an instantaneous capture of two men, hanging out on a warm day. It is a perfectly balanced composition of diagonals, lights and darks, the harmony of which draws one’s eye back to the photo again, and again.
“Fellow Poet” is another image entwining the light of the moment with the spirit of the subject: a poet looking pensive, lost in his thoughts perhaps, lit from the side, with a mysterious dark wall beside him.
Most dramatic of Kharem’s works are the photos of musicians, taken in dark clubs where they performed. “Betty Carter at the Five Spot” is a glorious 20th century photographic version of renaissance lighting. Light comes from the side, with deep, dark shadows, the subject of the photo in high contrast.
It was not Kharem’s intention to echo the lighting of renaissance painters. It was the necessity of shooting in the dark that created the lighting, but it is his artistic sensibility that created the wonderfully, mysteriously lit photos of Jazz musicians.
