This Tuesday night marked the 10th year anniversary of the Gordon Parks Foundation, an organization dedicated to preserving the work and legacy of Gordon Parks and other photographers, filmmakers and artists.
The Awards dinner honored individuals who have contributed to giving opportunities in the arts. Honorees included Founders of Public School and Creative Directors of DKNY Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow, photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier, artist and actress Janelle Monáe, and Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson. Other notable attendees included Kasseem ‘Swizz Beatz’ Dean, Usher, Alex Soros, Gayle King, Sarah Arison, Andrew Rannells, Hilary Rhoda, Diana Revson, Constance Jablonski, Prabal Gurung, Victor Cruz, Chanel Iman, and former Black Panther Leader Kathleen Cleaver. Taking place at the beautiful Cipriani 42nd street, guests enjoyed cocktails in the elegant lounges and dined at the luxurious ballroom.
We had a chance to speak to some of the event’s important attendees at the event:
Daniel Tischman, former board member
“I was a board member about 15 years ago. I helped to it do I loved Gordon Parks’ work, I loved the concept of preserving and recording life of great artists. There’s no particular photo I’m drawn to, I loved the whole body of his work.”
Asan Paskaraja, advisor
“I’m a big supporter. It’s a tremendous event that continues to grow and influence year after year, it’s a wonderful collection of people who come through and support. The great work that The Gordon Parks Foundation does is it continues outreach into the communities to provide support for young students looking to appreciate the arts. This is very very exciting. I think Gordon Parks did a phenomenal part in capturing a part in American history where there were a lot of social changes going on and he was a lens and a eye to that to preserve for future generations and I think that there a lot of lessons that can be drawn from that as we continue to move forward to see that change is possible and the status quo is not always the status quo.”
Stephen Urkel, photographer
“I met Gordon Parks in 1986 when I was an emerging photographer of the year and Gordon received his Lifetime award and now I’m head of a museum in Berlin, C/O Berlin Foundation, and we’re doing a very big Gordon Parks exhibition in September. We will do a retrospective to show everything that he has created and we are very excited because we have a book coming out and it is the very first big show of Gordon in Germany.”