Stonewall: The Proud Moment the Closet Door Finally Opened

America may finally be legalizing gay marriage in 2012, but the real beginning of the modern gay rights movement began in 1969 at NYC’s Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. On June 28, 1969, police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, which immediately sparked a series of violent protests. To commemorate the event, a parade is held on the last Saturday of June every year. Relive the history of the gay rights movement:

The Stone Wall Against Oppression

The First March: The Closet Door Opens

The Stonewall Riots: A Night That Changed the World

Technorati: Proud, Pride, Gay Pride, Stonewall Riots, Stonewall, Gay Pride Parade, Gay Pride March, African-American, art, photographs, photography, gallery, photo-gallery, slideshow, entertainment, multimedia, audio, music, music audio, songs, Judy Garland, Over the Rainbow, video, documentary, film, culture, cultural issues, cultural, gay, gay life, gay pride, gay rights, freedom, rights, GLBT, politics, social, social issues, social life, society, news, world news, world

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L’Odyssée de Cartier: The Cartier Panthere Travels the World Searching for Inspiration

L’Odyssee de Cartier is a dazzling 3 1/2-minute CGI short film directed by Bruno Aveillan, which was nearly two years in the making with a team of 50 people. The original score for L’Odyssee de Cartier was composed and arranged by renowned orchestrator Pierre Adenot and recorded at London’s legendary Abbey Road studios; special effects were created by Digital District.

The movie, showcasing Cartier’s standout creativity and innovation, centers around the iconic Cartier Panthere traveling around the world in search of inspiration. The diamond encrusted Panthere comes to life after the lights go down in Cartier’s Paris flagship store and then takes an intricate CGI journey around the world, visiting Russian royals taking a horse-drawn carriage ride, then conversing with a dragon that becomes the Great Wall of China, and then encountering one of India’s famous roving palaces (on top of an elephant) before being flown back to France by Alberto Santos-Dumont, the aviation pioneer for whom the Cartier Santos wrist watch is named.

L’Odyssée de Cartier: The Cartier Panthere Travels the World Searching for Inspiration

(Best Viewed in Amazing HD Full-Scale Mode)

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Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera

Exposed is a photographic collection presently on exhibition at London’s Tate Modern Gallery, which offers a fascinating look at pictures made on the sly, without the explicit permission of the people depicted.  With photographs from the late nineteenth century to present day, the pictures present a shocking, illuminating and sometimes witty perspective on iconic and taboo subjects.  Exposed presents 250 works by celebrated artists and photographers, including Weegee, Guy Bourdin, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Philip Lorca DiCorcia, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Nan Goldin, Harry Callahan, Lee Miller, Helmut Newton and Man Ray.

The United Kingdom is now the most surveyed country in the world, fostering an obsession with voyeurism, privacy laws, freedom of media, and surveillance, images captured and relayed on camera phones, YouTube or reality TV.  Much of Exposed focuses on surveillance, and the issues raised are particularly relevant in the current climate, with debates raging around the rights and desires of individuals, terrorism and the increasing availability and use of surveillance.  Exposed confronts these issues and their implications head-on.

Exposed at Tate Modern: Sandra Phillips on Celebrity Photography

Exposed: Richard Gordon on Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera

Slide Show: Exposed/Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera

(Please Click Image to View Slide Show)

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Be Proud: The Moment the Closet Door Finally Opened

“For all of us, there are genuine needs and wishes, deep longings for human warmth, empathic responsiveness, trust, mutual recognition and creative playfulness.  These are many of the ingredients that we think of when we speak of love, or the loving feelings we have for the cherished other person.”

Monday, June 28, is the 41st anniversary of the famous Stonewall riot, an event that changed history.  Gay people battled their way out of the closet with bricks and uprooted parking meters, and with a defiance so shocking it scared the men of the NYPD.  And despite many challenges, they have never gone back in.

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village.  They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the gay  community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities.  The riots have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

Christopher Street Liberation Day on June 28, 1970 marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots with an assembly on Christopher Street and the first Gay Pride March in U.S. History. The March  traveled up 51 blocks to Central Park, beginning with a relatively small group that grew into a massive crowd of 15,000 people as it made its way up from Greenwich Village.  Similar marches were organized in other cities.  Today, Gay Pride events are held annually throughout the world toward the end of June to mark the Stonewall riots.

Stonewall: The Stone Wall Against Oppression

The Stonewall Riots: A Night That Changed the World

After Stonewall: The First Gay March

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Proud: The Moment the Closet Door Finally Opened

The Stone Wall Against Oppression

The First March: The Closet Door Opens

The Stonewall Riots: A Night That Changed the World

Technorati: Proud, Pride, Gay Pride, Stonewall Riots, Stonewall, Gay Pride Parade, Gay Pride March, African-American, art, photographs, photography, gallery, photo-gallery, slideshow, entertainment, multimedia, audio, music, music audio, songs, Judy Garland, Over the Rainbow, video, documentary, film, culture, cultural issues, cultural, gay, gay life, gay pride, gay rights, freedom, rights, GLBT, politics, social, social issues, social life, society, news, world news, world

Please Share This: