Keba Konte’s 888 Show Montages Hip-Hop & Beyond

Yeah, yeah, apparently there’s some fancy sporting event that opened somewhere in Asia this past Friday, but a little closer to home, a very dope art exhibit bowed on 8/8/08 as well. Over at the Oakland Art Gallery, renowned Bay Area photomontage artist Keba Konte just opened his latest exhibit “888 Pieces of We: A Photo Memoir.”

The San Francisco native worked as a rap shutterbug in the early ’90s during hip-hop’s Golden Era and later made a bunch of the flicks into “art” by cementing the images on unconventional wooden surfaces (headboards, dressers, ironing boards etc.). The resulting photomontages (including Tupac, E-40, X-Clan, and a child playing in Johannesburg Cemetary) are both eerie and nostalgic. The exhibit features (you guessed it) 888 of his pieces and runs through September. See a gallery from the show below.