Philip-Lorca di Corcia learned early on as a student at The Museum School in Boston, a "fundamental anti-romantic lesson that meaning in photography derives as much from concept and culture as from serendipitous inspiration." (Bennett Simpson, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston) He later studied at Yale where Walker Evans, the great documentary/fine art photographer taught for decades. Both schools influenced diCorcia’s future work and ideas profoundly. diCorcia’s photographs cut across various styles of photography including staged, conceptual and documentary.
Early work was almost completely staged using family and friends as models, later moving on to, hustlers, prostitutes and nude dancers. In diCorcia’s street photography, however, documentary and staged processes are blended to create his own definitive results. In the series “Streetwork” for example, he uses the actual street scene as a stage set for his event to unfold [some images here]. Hidden strobes set to sync with his medium format camera, many feet away, are used to create the distinctive lighting. He arranged as much as he could and then waited for the moment when his subject would step across this landscape.
Photographing people on the street is nothing new and the masters are numerous. What diCorcia shares with well-known street photographers like Henri Cartier Bresson or Gary Winogrand are glimpses of unsuspecting humans found on the streets. DiCorcia’s "chosen moments", however couldn’t feel further away from the spontaneity of Bresson or even the “Uneasy Streets” of Winogrand. It’s distinct from these artists’ works because of the added artificial lighting and lack of spontaneity that’s felt in the image, reinforcing his peculiar style and content. Winogrand’s “Uneasy Streets” for example, are sprinkled with subtle mockery and humor, while Bresson ties into representing human emotional ranges in identifiable clips. What diCorcia’s work presents for us in this series are glimpses of the modern man’s dilemma -ennui, struggle, fear, blankness and the feeling of a frozen moment, the moment between the moments. In a way, his work is more reminiscent of Lee Friedlander’s reflections of himself in mirrors on the streets of New Orleans- partly staged and ambivalent in emotion.
“Heads” is another intriguing series of photographs by diCorcia, of people traveling through the city (completely unaware of being photographed) with just their heads and shoulders captured against a blackened background where the light falls off. Their expressions are usually dull, troubled (with the occasional positive thought). What is fascinating is the randomness of the heads and the privacy of their moment as diCorcia steals the image so successfully. The dramatic lighting makes each individual glow in what seems an omniscient moment. The lighting in this series is comparable to the Renaissance painter Caravaggio. The randomness of his subjects also recalls the film work of Andy Warhol who shot hours of unedited film of people walking on the sidewalks of NYC, challenging the viewer to perceive something of interest in the mundane. By contrast, diCorcia, who shot thousands of photographs for this series, consequently edited them down to 16 final prints.
Of the multitude of artists that do use the public sphere to pull from, diCorcia stands out even more substantively with his unusual point of view and obvious influence on those who follow. Through his work, we find representations of modern human’s banal existence revealed through a non-judgmental lens under perfect lighting and masterful compositions.
MV
No comments:
Post a Comment