BRAUNSCHWEIG.- The Museum für Photographie Braunschweig has opened New York Moves and Black Communities, the first museum exhibition in Germany devoted to the work of Brooklyn photographer Jamel Shabazz.
On view through September 13, 2026, the exhibition brings together major groups of black-and-white and color photographs made since the early 1980s, alongside early photo albums and books that trace the development of Shabazz’s distinctive approach to street portraiture.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Shabazz began photographing people he encountered across New York City in the late 1970s. His images capture the street not simply as a backdrop, but as a place where identity is formed, friendships are expressed and communities make themselves visible. Fashion, gesture, music and carefully chosen poses all become part of the story.
Shabazz is especially known for his portraits of members of New York’s Black and Latino communities. His subjects often meet the camera directly, appearing confident, stylish and fully aware of how they wish to be seen. Rather than presenting the city’s residents as anonymous figures, he creates intimate portraits that convey dignity, personality and a strong sense of belonging.
The exhibition explores how public space became a stage for self-expression during a period of significant social and cultural change in New York. Shabazz photographed young people, families, friends and neighborhood groups at moments that might otherwise have passed unnoticed. His photographs preserve not only the appearance of the city, but also its emotional atmosphere and social rhythms.
Although many of the people he photographed faced discrimination, economic hardship and difficult living conditions, Shabazz’s work does not reduce them to those circumstances. Instead, his images emphasize resilience, pride and the everyday energy of community life.
His work is closely connected to the tradition of socially engaged photography and has often been discussed in relation to Gordon Parks, whose photographs also combined social awareness with empathy and visual sophistication. Shabazz received an award from the Gordon Parks Foundation in 2018, followed by a publication award in 2022 for a book released by Steidl.
Following major exhibitions in New York and elsewhere in Europe, the Braunschweig presentation offers German audiences a broad introduction to the photographer’s career. The exhibition demonstrates how Shabazz transformed encounters on the street into lasting records of personal style, cultural identity and collective memory.
The show opened with a summer celebration on July 10. An exhibition tour was held the following day with curator and museum director Barbara Hofmann-Johnson, art and media scholar Lukas Helling, whose research focuses on hip-hop culture, and Shabazz’s gallerist Bene Taschen.
New York Moves and Black Communities was organized in cooperation with Kunsthaus Nürnberg and with the support of Galerie Bene Taschen in Cologne.
