Object Details
- Exhibition Label
- Frank Espada probably focused his lens on abandoned buildings because they were directly related to his activism. In the early 1960s, he founded East New York Action, a grassroots organization that fought for better housing conditions in the neighborhood where Espada lived with his young family. Like the South Bronx, East New York was peppered with abandoned buildings, many vacated due to both accidental fires and arson. His photographs highlight the un-reconcilable: the beauty of young children in these harsh surroundings.
- Down These Mean Streets: Community and Place in Urban Photography, 2017
- Exhibition Label in Spanish
- Es probable que Frank Espada enfocase su lente en la dirección de edificios abandonados debido a la relación directa que tenían con su activismo. A comienzos de los años 60, Espada fundó la East New York Action, una organización comunitaria que luchaba por mejorar las condiciones de las viviendas en el barrio donde residía con su joven familia. Al igual que en el sur del Bronx, en el vecindario de East New York se encontraban varios edificios abandonados, en muchos casos debido a incendios accidentales o intencionales. Sus fotografías ponen de relieve lo irreconciliable: la belleza de los niños que viven en estos ambientes inhóspitos.
- Por estas calles bravas: Comunidad y lugar en la fotografía urbana, 2017
- Data Source
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Artist
- Frank Espada, born Utuado, Puerto Rico 1930-died San Francisco, CA 2014
- Date
- ca. 1960-1964
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center
- Copyright
- © Frank Espada Photography
- Medium
- gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- image: 9 × 13 3/8 in. (22.9 × 34.0 cm) sheet: 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm)
- Type
- Photography
