Khalik Allah

Bio + Artist CV KHALIK ALLAH | BIO AND CV

PHOTOGRAPHER | FILMMMAKER

Khalik Allah (b.1985) is a New York-based photographer and filmmaker whose work has been described as "street opera" simultaneously visceral, hauntingly beautiful and penetrative. From Khalik’s perspective, the streets of and beyond are explored through characters and intimate portraiture to reveal deeper truths. Khalik's passion for photography and visual storytelling was sparked when he began photographing members of the Wu-Tang Clan with a camera he borrowed from his dad. Real and raw, his profoundly personal work goes beyond street photography.

His eye for daring portraiture and bold aesthetics takes us into an entire world. While the people he photographs on the corner of 125th and Lexington Avenue in have been his central inspiration, his work also extends to documentary film with the award-winning “Field Niggas”, a chronicle of summer of nights spent at the intersection of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue. The film takes its name from ’s famous lecture, “Message to the Grassroots.”

Khalik's intimate documentary portraits all very clearly remind us of what photography is, what photography needs: light. The photographs are all taken in New York City, in Harlem, on Lexington Avenue, around 125th Street. They’re taken at night, using a film camera without a flash, substituting street lights and storefront glow. Rich color, and darkness frames the nocturnal urban landscape with intimacy and empathy. In order to capture these photos he directs his close attention to how light and character narrative works in the nighttime. A self- taught photographer, he captures images that . His work has garnered the attention of The New York Times, Vice, New Yorker and The Guardian, among others.

Khalik Allah describes his practice: it “is bringing light without a flash. Entering dark spaces of the mind and looking at them. That’s the only way a problem can be resolved: by looking at it. Not looking is how problems are preserved.” The most striking sort of urban portraiture.

Khalik shoots with a manual, analogue film camera, as photography and filmmaking form a venn diagram in his work. His work has been exhibited internationally, including Baltimore Museum of Art, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, AFI Los Angeles, London and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where he was named YBCA 100 influencing the future of American culture. His films have been awarded the New Yorker best of 2015, the Pulse Brit Genesis award, RIDM Montreal, Best International medium-length Film and Le Prix Scribe, Paris. AWARDS

New Yorker Magazine, Best Films of 2015 RIDM Montreal, Best International Medium-Length Film YBCA 100, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 2015 Terry Porter Visionary Award, Sarasota Film Festival Pulse Films and Brit Doc, Genesis Documentary Award Le Prix Scribe 2015 Cinema Eye 2015 Spotlight Awards Nominee Rooftop Films Technological Cinevideo Services Camera Grant

FILM SCREENINGS AND LECTURES

AFI, Los Angeles The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London IFP, Brooklyn Rooftop Films, Brooklyn True|False Film Festival Maryland Film Festival FID Marseille, France - The Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (MuCEM) RIDM Montreal - Awarded (Best International Medium Length Film) YBCA, SF Jacob Burns Film Center Nickelodeon Theatre, SC Baltimore Museum of Art MICA Lazarus Institute, Baltimore 25 New Faces of Film, Tacoma WA IFP SCREEN FORWARD, Brooklyn SPLIT Film Festival in Croatia Fabriquer l’AFRIQUE, Marseille, France American Film Festival, Wroclaw, Poland George Mason University University of Massachusetts Princeton University Harvard University MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (part of Frieze Films series) SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2016 Space Gallery | Portland, Maine 2016 AgavePrint | Austin Texas 2015 Heron Arts | San Francisco, CA 2015 Area 405 Randall Scott Projects | Baltimore, MD

GROUP EXHIBITONS

2016 New York I Love You But..., New York University Gallatin Gallery, NYC 2016 New York Streets, Then and Now, Salomon Arts Gallery, NYC 2015 LA Film Festival and Underground Museum (Noah Davis) Benefit Exhibition/Auction 2014 Strictly New York 2, Brooklyn, NY

PUBLICATIONS AND REVIEWS

2016 Fox5 New York feature story 2015 TIME Magazine LightBox "Meet Harlem's Official Photographer" 2015 The New York Times, Sunday feature 2015 The New Yorker 2015 Gawker 2015 VICE 2015 Lomography Magazine 2015 FOTOGRAFIA-MAGAZINE 2015 Street Hunters 2015 Boston Globe 2015 LA Times 2015 The Guardian 2015 Village Voice YBCA100

In 2015, Khalik Allah was named to the YBCA 100. The YBCA 100 is an annual compilation of the creative minds, makers, and pioneers that inspire our work at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Each year, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts staff convenes to debate: “Who do we believe is asking the questions and making the provocations that will shape the future of American culture?” The result of this inquiry is a diverse list of artists, entrepreneurs, activists, and creative citizens from around the world that have one thing in common…They are all generating culture that moves people.

WWW.KHALIKALLAH.COM WHAT CRITICS ARE SAYING ABOUT .... FIELD NIGGAS

“SO BEAUTIFULLY CONSTRUCTED THAT NOTHING IN IT EVER SEEMS OBVIOUS.” NEW YORK TIMES

“STUNNING.” VICE

"A BRACING, BRUTAL BLURRING OF FILM AND PHOTOJOURNALISM..." INDIEWIRE

“BOTH GORGEOUS AND ACHINGLY SAD.” THE GUARDIAN

"WITH VAST EMPATHY AND SPONTANEOUS IMAGINATION, THE DIRECTOR KHALIK ALLAH REVITALIZES THE GENRE OF THE OBSERVATIONAL DOCUMENTARY" THE NEW YORKER