MLK Stamps

Stamps honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. have been issued worldwide over the years. More stamps have been issued in Dr. King's honor than of any other African American. The King stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service are really nothing to write home about (sorry), but here are some from elsewhere, that are.

I found many of these stamps, including this one from Tuva, on the website of The Ebony Society of Philatelic Events and Reflections (ESPER). Its mission is to promote "the collecting of African Americans on stamps and the collecting of stamps by African Americans.” There you can view the close to 200 stamps on which King has appeared.

The Republic of Tuva is located in the Tannu Mountains on the Siberian border in northwestern Mongolia. It is famous for its throat singing tradition and its exotic stamps (can't wait to see these, and I promise to share if they are as great this set).

Dr. King often appears on one stamp in a series of notables, and sometimes with others on the same stamp. Then there are countries that have issued MLK stamps in various denominations. I’ve posted a small selection.

Ras Al Khaima, an emirate of the UAE was the first

to honor Dr. King with a stamp on May 25, 1968.

Sources: Aside from ESPER, these stamps are from eBay and various stamp-collecting sites.

Natural High Fashion

German photographer Hans Silvester has documented the Surma and Mursi people of southern Ethiopia and their creative DIY/haute couture tradition of body decoration. "Natural Fashion," a book of the photos was published in 2008 and there is a small show of these works in New York through January 8, at Marlborough Graphics, 40 W. 57th St.

The exuberance with which the tribe members employ animal, vegetable and mineral for mark-making and other adornment is stunning in its inventiveness and sophistication. The images, which celebrate the art and physicality of people who wear nothing but fingerpaint, flowers, and seedpods, are utterly enchanting. You might very well find yourself inspired to frolic in nature and take up crafting.

Or, alternatively (since you are probably dressed entirely in black), you’ll be mentally placing Silvester’s photographs within the universe of ethnographic images made by Irving Penn and Leni Reifenstal, or those we’ve seen in Vogue, National Geographic and modern advertising. Before you know it, you’ll be pondering post-structuralist anthropology, the Western gaze, and the entire artistic/fashionistic industrial complex.

Perhaps we simply are what we wear.














Much thanks to Vito Zarkovic for posting about "Natural Fashion" on his FB page. The images here and many more can be seen here.

Maske by Phyllis Galembo

New York-based artist PHYLLIS GALEMBO has been documenting masquerade and carnival-based practices around the world, and she is most celebrated for images taken in West African countries and also Haiti, where she has traveled annually for the past decade to work in Jacmel. By returning to certain places over a period of several years, Galembo has developed an understanding with some of the more secretive societies in Sierra Leone, Mali, and Burkina Faso, and this has enabled her to document carnival costume and masking practices from a broad spectrum of groups covering an immense geographical area. After years of photographing indigenous cultures, Phyllis Galembo has compiled her new book MASKE, which shows traditional masquerades from Africa. 
Galembo's photographs of African masks in their figural resplendence make one wonder with great regret what visual and artistic knowledge of masking in Africa is now forever lost. Masking is one of the most complex and secretive, yet profoundly important, phenomena in Africa.
Here are some excerpts from MASKE.

Makishi Masquerades

Zambia

Animal and Spirit Masquerades

Burkina Faso

Masquerades of Cross River

Nigeria

Gelede and Egungun Masquerades
Benin

Maske will be released on October 16, 2010

Courtesy Phyllis Galembo and publisher Chris Boot

Masquerade, a Decade by Phyllis Galembo

For more than a decade, Phyllis Galembo has been traveling to Africa and the Caribbean to photograph ritual performances and celebrations. Some of Galembo's most striking work comes for Haiti, and in the last 14 years, she has visited the island almost annually.
" Haiti is just an amazing place, I don't know whether it's the survival mechanisms they have in music and art, but there is a very special energy there that is hard to describe, "she says.
Phyllis Galembo has captured images of voodoo ceremonies under Haitian waterfalls, masquerades in Zambia and kings and queens in Nigeria.
" I think in all societies, people like the opportunity to express themselves through virtual, or through dress,"she says.

Haiti

West African Masquerade

Images courtesy of Phyllis Galembo