Larry Clark: Don’t Put My Baby Down

Larry Clark is cool. His photography, like old pornography, has become vintage, and has little of the shock value that it had in the seventies and eighties, when his images of a gang rape in Bryant Park, and the junkies and adolescent sexuality of Tulsa brought us in contact with people on the edge of society. Now we are overwhelmed by images of sexuality and violence, and there is so much pornographic imagery available at a click, that the slightly guilty pleasure that one gets from voyeuristic imagery is gone. What had been forbidden is now innocent. The style of the outsiders and outcasts has become mainstream. Tattoos are everywhere, gutter punks are trendy-as is heroin. Nan Goldin and Philip-Lorca Dicorcia have followed in Clark’s tracks, and even now in Jessica Dimmock one sees hints of Clark. But it has become harder and harder to gain the intimacy that Clark had when photographing his childhood friends in Tulsa. Everyone is aware of the camera now, as well as the implications of being photographed. Clark has given up reportage in favor of more controlled situations, films in which the relationship between camera and subject are well-defined, and the consequences of being photographed contractual.

“When I was taking pictures in Oklahoma I didn’t know what I was doing
and the people didn’t know what I was doing. Now everybody is very aware of it.”

Le coin des suceuses: Cause We Like Drugs: Click her to Listen