Barron Claiborne

Barron Claiborne is an American photographer and cinematographer who grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He began taking photographs at the age of ten. After moving to New York in 1989 he began assisting established photographers such as; Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Saint Claire Born, and Richard Numeroff. His photographic mentor, was Gordon Parks.[1][2]

Claiborne's portraits of musicians have been published in hundreds of publications, such as his image of DJ Khaled that appeared on the September 2016 cover of Paper (magazine). His work has also appeared on dozens of record covers including; Tricky's Angels With Dirty Faces and N'Dea Davenport 's album "Bring It On". His fine art images are in permanent collections around the world including the Polaroid Museum in Cambridge, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and MoCADA. His work has been shown in Paris, Martha's Vineyard, and Art Basel. In 2012, Claiborne received a grant from The National Endowment for the Arts and the following year received a grant from Creative Time.[3][4]

"The King of New York"

One of Claiborne's most significant achievements in the urban music community is a series of portraits of The Notorious B.I.G wearing a plastic gold crown in front of a deep red backdrop.[5][6][7] The pictures were made in Claiborne's New York studio in March 1997, only three days before the rapper's untimely death in Los Angeles, resulting from a drive-by shooting. The most known image from the series entitled "The King of New York,"[8] is one photograph from a couple of dozen images of the rapper from the photo session.[9] Most of these other photographs from the session had never been seen by the public before being included in the 2018 book Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop. In a 2019 exhibit based upon the book, (hosted by The Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles), an entire installation of this memorable photo session was constructed. In addition to a 100 cm x 150 cm print of the principal image, the museum exhibit installation of "The King Of New York" featured one of The Notorious B.I.G's music videos playing on a small screen alongside of two enlarged contact prints as well as the original two-dollar plastic crown that Claiborne had purchased specifically for the shoot, displayed in a glass jewel case as if it was made of real gold.

In an interview given to undiscovermusic.com in 2019, Contact High's's creator and curator Vikki Tobak described the King Of New York image as, 'the Mona Lisa of hip hop'.' And added “It is a defining photo when you think of Biggie."

Solo exhibitions
  • 2019 : Bishop Gallery - Bedford-Stuyvesant[10]

Group exhibitions
  • 2001 : Brooklyn Museum Of Art "Body and Soul" (Curated by Barbara Head Millstein)[11]

Books
  • Contact High: A Visual History Of Hip Hop (1993, Clarkson Potter)[12]

References
  1. "Barron Claiborne Imagemaker". Thesource.com. January 10, 2014.
  2. "Barron Claiborne". Annenberg Space for Photography.
  3. "DJ Khaled On the Moment That Changed Everything". Papermag.com.
  4. "Barron Claiborne". Discogs.com.
  5. "Iconic Hip Hop Contact Sheets". September 15, 2017.
  6. Alvarez, Lauren. "'CONTACT HIGH: A Visual History Of Hip-Hop' Is A Pure Documentation Of A Cultural Phenomenon". Forbes.com.
  7. "How I Took The Last Ever Picture Of Biggie Smalls". Gentlemen's Quarterly.
  8. ""King of New York" Portrait Session with Barron Claiborne". Annenberg Space for Photography.
  9. Simon, Johnny; Simon, Johnny. "From Biggie to Kendrick Lamar: outtakes from hip-hop's most iconic photos". Qz.com.
  10. "'The King of New York': Art exhibit pays tribute to Biggie". Brooklyn.news12.com.
  11. "Body and Soul | Village Voice". Villagevoice.com.
  12. Paula Froelich (April 4, 2019). "A stark, new exhibit at the Annenberg take us on a visual historical journey of Hip-Hop". Newsweek.com.
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