LaToya Ruby Frazier Takes on Levi's | "New York Close Up" | Art21

What is the responsibility of an artist to her community? In this film, artist and activist LaToya Ruby Frazier discusses the economic and environmental decline of her hometown—Braddock, Pennsylvania—the city that the clothing company Levi's used as inspiration and backdrop for a major advertising campaign in 2010. Having photographed in Braddock since she was sixteen years old, LaToya's black-and-white images of her family and their surroundings present a stark contrast to the campaign images of "urban pioneers" and slogans such as "everybody's work is equally important." In a performance developed in collaboration with the artist Liz Magic Laser, LaToya carries out a choreographed series of movements on the sidewalk in front of the temporary Levi's Photo Workshop in SoHo. Wearing a costume of ordinary Levi's clothes, the artist's repetitive and relentless motion ultimately destroys the jeans she's wearing.

LaToya Ruby Frazier (b. 1982, Braddock, Pennsylvania, USA) lives and works in New Brunswick, New Jersey and New York, New York.

CREDITS | "New York Close Up" Created & Produced by: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Cinematography: John Marton & Andrew David Watson. Sound: Nicholas Lindner & Nick Ravich. Associate Producer: Ian Forster. Production Assistant: Paulina V. Ahlstrom, Don Edler & Maren Miller. Design: Open. Artwork: LaToya Ruby Frazier & Liz Magic Laser. Additional Photography: Liz Magic Laser. Thanks: Kim Bourus, Ron Clark, Higher Pictures & The Whitney Independent Study Program. An Art21 Workshop Production. © Art21, Inc. 2011. All rights reserved.

"New York Close Up" is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Additional support provided by The 1896 Studios & Stages.

For more info: http://www.art21.org/​newyorkcloseup

[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.