En Foco
Encyclopedia
En Foco is a non-profit organization that nurtures contemporary fine art and documentary photographers of diverse cultures, primarily U.S. residents of Latino, African and Asian heritage, and native peoples of the Americas and the Pacific.

Founded in 1974 and inspired by the civil rights movement, it has been in the forefront of documenting the artistic journeys created by photographic artists often overlooked by the mainstream art world.

En Foco, through its Chairperson Frank Gimpaya, was instrumental in discovering Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz is an American documentary photographer of Puerto Rican descent, the author of several photographic collections and the recipient of a number of awards. He is best known for his documentary photographs of people's living conditions in less developed countries...

. Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz is an American documentary photographer of Puerto Rican descent, the author of several photographic collections and the recipient of a number of awards. He is best known for his documentary photographs of people's living conditions in less developed countries...

 is the best known photographer featured in En Foco's exhibitions and publications.

Through its visual arts programs, En Foco strives to balance the inequities of the art world by creating the 'missing pages' in art history. In 1984 it created the bilingual (English/Spanish) photographic magazine Nueva Luz, which concentrates on works by U.S. based photographers of color. Some photographers En Foco has exhibited or written about are Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz is an American documentary photographer of Puerto Rican descent, the author of several photographic collections and the recipient of a number of awards. He is best known for his documentary photographs of people's living conditions in less developed countries...

, Hank Willis Thomas
Hank Willis Thomas
Hank Willis Thomas is a contemporary African American visual artist and photographer whose primary interests are race, advertising and popular culture.-Parents:...

 and Sama Raena Alshaibi
Sama Raena Alshaibi
Sama Raena Alshaibi سما الشيبي to an Iraqi father and Palestinian mother. She is an artist and photographer, in which she uses her cultural heritage to reflect her work and help inform her audience of her identity....

.

History

Inspired by the 1973 traveling exhibition Dos Mundos (organized by the Institute of Contemporary Hispanic Art and exhibited in NYC, Los Angeles and Puerto Rico), a group of Puerto Rican photographers - Charles Biasiny-Rivera, Phil Dante, and Roger Cabán - banded together to form the core En Foco group and incorporated in 1974.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK