CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/26/2023

'Jamel Shabazz: Albums' is a love letter to NYC

Featured spreads are from new release Jamel Shabazz: Albums, winner of the 2022 Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book Prize and a book that gives us book people pure book joy. Presenting the photographer’s iconic work from the 1970s to the 1990s as it exists in his original archive of photo albums, this is a volume that simply exudes feeling. In her catalogue essay, titled Looking B(l)ack, noted photography scholar Deborah Willis writes, “Shabazz’s photo albums frame a time in history, enabling us to look back at Black cultural moments, the mundane as well as the more extraordinary. Each page situates his subjects in their element, and each photograph honors their personal self-invention. While larger themes of cultural identity, family, gender, leisure, play and work are all resonant in this book, these albums celebrate personal identity within a larger community. Ultimately, they are Shabazz’s love letter to his home city.”