New York Close Up
[Whitney Independent Study Program--Lower Manhattan]
I am a citizen and an artist from Braddock, Pennsylvania.
I had decided when I was a teenager
that I had to make work that was socially and
politically conscious.
["LaToya Ruby Frazier Takes On Levi's"]
I had all these questions.
I always questioned the authority.
I always questioned the government.
I always questioned what the media was showing.
I never really believed what I was seeing
because I was experiencing something that was
totally different.
[LaToya has been making pictures of Braddock, PA since she was 16 years old.]
Making the work on Braddock is really me
talking about American history and
the impact of the Industrial Revolution
the part that people won't tell.
You know, people, always, are very proud of
America being the creator of steel, but they don't
ever highlight the backside to it or what
happened once the steel mills left the country
and closed.
Braddock is one of the most toxic places
in America.
We're all dying there from cancer,
asthma,
illnesses like lupus.
The CEO of Levi's
decided that they wanted to use Braddock for their
new denim campaign
and they decided to use it because it has this
gritty realism and it could be hip and it could
be profitable to sell their jeans.
And it's really insidious when you put a black man
in a photograph and then you slap on top of it
"everybody's work is equally important"
especially when you know the history of the
steel mills in Braddock.
They didn't want to employ us.
They barely employed us.
Levi's went with the idea that Braddock is the
new frontier.
And to call Braddock the new frontier,
that's like cowboys and indians,
slavery, this brings up a lot of things
that resonate in the darker side of
American history.
[As part of its "Ready to Work Go Forth" campaign, Levi's opened a public photo studio in SoHo.]
[LaToya created a performance in response.]
[sound of denim rubbing against the sidewalk]
[Liz Magic Laser--Artist]
I think it's funny that the Levi ads came out
across the world saying "everyone's work is
equally important" when
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
decided to abandon our town because it said
that it wasn't making enough profit off of us.
Like, I'm watching my mother wither away while
the hospital is being torn down and she lives
right next to the hospital.
Like, does the American public know that?
While everybody's work is equally important
that our top employer, Braddock UPMC Hospital,
abandoned our town and fired over 600 people.
So we... Not only do we not have health care,
we don't have jobs, but we do have the Levi's
ad campaign that says,
"go forth."
And I would like to know,
go forth where?
You know, it's my job as an artist,
I can ask those questions.
It's my job to ask those questions--
that's what an artist should do.
What I feel an urgency to do at this moment
is to really return back home and to really do
something--not as the artist, LaToya Ruby Frazier,
but as the citizen of
Braddock, Pennsylvania, LaToya Ruby Fraizer.
As a citizen, do something about what they've done
to my community.