Hip-Hop

Conscious, Unconscious

A collage of black and white photographs of a group of people holding a boom box in a city setting

Legend has it that the culture of hip-hop kicked off in a Bronx basement party on August 11, 1973, giving hip-hop an official birthday. Fifty years later, Hip-Hop: Conscious, Unconscious explores the people, places, and things that hip-hop has delivered unto us.

Together with Mass Appeal, Fotografiska has created the definitive destination to celebrate hip-hop’s global impact on visual expression – an immersive experience bringing together a community of artists that have documented this cultural phenomenon.

A photograph of Megan Thee Stallion dressed in all black, posing on a reflective blue background — Megan Thee Stallion posing for The Cut Magazine, 2022 © Campbell Addy<br /> <br />

A black and white portrait of Notorious B.I.G. smoking — Notorious B.I.G. #01, 1994 © Geoffroy De<br /> Boismenu

A portrait of a woman wearing a strapless black top and fingerless gloves against a dark red background — Eve, 2001 © Sacha Waldman

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Co-curated by Sally Berman and Sacha Jenkins, Chief Creative Officer of Mass Appeal, Hip-Hop: Conscious, Unconscious presents images ranging from iconic staples of visual culture to rare and intimate portraits of hip-hop’s biggest stars from legendary pioneers including Nas, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G, and Mary J. Blige to modern icons such as Nicki Minaj, Megan Thee Stallion, and Cardi B.

The works on view traverse intersecting themes such as the role of women in hip-hop; hip-hop’s regional and stylistic diversification and rivalries; a humanistic lens into the1970s-Bronx street gangs whose members contributed to the birth of hip-hop; and the mainstream breakthrough that saw a grassroots movement become a global phenomenon.

“There was an exponentially paced transition where hip-hop culture became conscious of itself as an incredibly lucrative global export. The exhibition’s lifeblood is the period before hip-hop knew what it was.”

- Sacha Jenkins

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Tracing the cultural genre’s collective trajectory over five decades, the exhibition spans photography by hip-hop’s earliest documentarians of the 1970s to younger hip-hop photographers who are furthering the proliferation of the genre’s aesthetic.

In partnership with Hip Hop 50, $1 of each ticket sale goes to support the Universal Hip Hop Museum.