diCorcia: 'PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA. PHOTOGRAPHS 1975-2012'

diCorcia: 'Philip-Lorca diCorcia: Photographs 1975 - 2012'

diCorcia: 'Philip-Lorca diCorcia'

diCorcia: 'Tuesday Evenings at the Modern - Philip Lorca diCorcia'

Philip-Lorca diCorcia (U.S., 1951-)

 

 

Introduction from Wikipedia

Biography

DiCorcia was born in 1951 in Hartford, Connecticut. His family is of Italian descent, having moved to the United States from Abruzzo. He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he earned a Diploma in 1975 and a 5th year certificate in 1976.


Work
DiCorcia alternates between informal snapshots and iconic quality staged compositions that often have a baroque theatricality.^[3]
Using a carefully planned staging, he takes everyday occurrences beyond the realm of banality, trying to inspire in his picture's spectators an awareness of the psychology and emotion contained in real-life situations.^[4] His work could be described as documentary photography mixed with the fictional world of cinema and advertising, which creates a powerful link between reality, fantasy and desire.^[3]
During the late 1970s, during diCorcia's early career, he used to situate his friends and family within fictional interior tableaus, that would make the viewer think that the pictures were spontaneous shots of someone's everyday life, when they were in fact carefully staged and planned in beforehand.^[4][5] His work from this period is associated with the Boston School of photography.^[6] He would later start photographing random people in urban spaces all around the world. When in Berlin, Calcutta, Hollywood, New York, Rome and Tokyo, he would often hide lights in the pavement, which would illuminate a random subject in a special way, often isolating them from the other people in the street.^[7]
His photographs would then give a sense of heightened drama to the passers-by accidental poses, unintended movements and insignificant facial expressions.^[8] Even if sometimes the subject appears to be completely detached to the world around him, diCorcia has often used the city of the subject's name as the title of the photo, placing the passers-by back into the city's anonymity.^[8] Each of his series, Hustlers, Streetwork, Heads, A Storybook Life, and Lucky Thirteen, can be considered progressive explorations of diCorcia’s formal and conceptual fields of interest. Besides his family, associates and random people he has also photographed personas already theatrically enlarged by their life choices, such as the pole dancers in his latest series.
His pictures have black humor within them, and have been described as "Rorschach-like", since they can have a different interpretation depending on the viewer.^[9] As they are planned beforehand, diCorcia often plants in his concepts issues like the marketing of reality, the commodification of identity, art, and morality.^[10]
In 1989, financed by a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship of $45,000, DiCorcia began his “Hustlers” project. Starting in the early 1990s, he made five trips to Los Angeles to photograph male prostitutes in Hollywood. He used a 6-by-9 Linhof view camera, which he positioned in advance with Polaroid tests. At first, he photographed his subjects only in motel rooms. Later, he moved onto the streets. When the Museum of Modern Art exhibited 25 of the photographs in 1993 under the title “Strangers,” each was labeled with the name of the man who posed, his hometown, his age, and the amount of money that changed hands.^[11]
In 1999, DiCorcia set up his camera on a tripod in Times Square, attached strobe lights to scaffolding across the street and took a random series of pictures of strangers passing under his lights.^[12]
Originally published in W as a result of a collaboration with Dennis Freedman between 1997 and 2008, DiCorcia produced a series of fashion stories in places like Havana, Cairo and New York.^[13]

 

Publications

• Heads. Göttingen: Steidl, 2001. ISBN 3882434414. Luc Sante and diCorcia.
• Philip-Lorca diCorcia. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2003. ISBN 0870701452. Peter Galassi and diCorcia.
• A Storybook Life. Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 2003.
• Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Steidl/Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2007. ISBN 3865213855. Bennett Simpson (author), Jill Medvedow (foreword), Lynne Tillman (contributor), diCorcia (photographer).

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

• Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY.^{[citation needed]}
• Centre National de la Photographie, Paris.^{[citation needed]}
• Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.^{[citation needed]}
• Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.^{[citation needed]}
• Art Space Ginza, Tokyo.^{[citation needed]}
• Sprengel Museum, Hannover.^[5]
• Thousand, David Zwirner Gallery, New York, March 2009. One thousand actual-size reproductions of diCorcia's Polaroids.^[2]
• Roid, Sprüth Magers, London, 2011. A series of diCorcia's Polaroids.^[14][15]
• The Hepworth Wakefield, England, February 2014. His first UK retrospective.

Exhibitions with others

• Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort traveling exhibition organized by Museum of Modern Art, 1991.
• 1997 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art
• Cruel and Tender, Tate Modern, London, 2003.
• Fashioning Fiction in Photography Since 1990, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2004.
• Carnegie Museum of Art’s 54th Carnegie International exhibition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

Collections
DiCorcia's work is held in the following public collections:

• Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
• Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
• Museum Folkwang, Essen.
• Museum of Modern Art, New York.
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
• Tate Gallery, London.
• Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Selected awards

• 1980: Artist Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts.
• 1986: Artist Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts.
• 1987: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.
• 1989: Artist Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts.
• 1998: Alfred Eisenstaedt Award, Life Magazine, Style Essay.
• 2001: Infinity Award for Applied Photography, International Center of Photography.
• 2013: III International Photography Award Alcobendas, Spain.

External links

• Philip-Lorca diCorcia at David Zwirner
• The artist interviewed by Josefina Ayerza
• Philip-Lorca diCorcia: choice, non-event and truth
• Review of The Whitechapel Art Gallery Exhibition, London,by Greg Whitfield
• Searching and Unknowing: diCorcia at The Hepworth

Litigation
Main article: Nussenzweig v. DiCorcia

In 2006, a New York trial court issued a ruling in a case involving one of his photographs. One of diCorcia's New York random subjects was Ermo Nussenzweig, an Orthodox Jew who objected on religious grounds to diCorcia's publishing in an artistic exhibition a photograph taken of him without his permission. The photo's subject argued that his privacy and religious rights had been violated by both the taking and publishing of the photograph of him. The judge dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the photograph taken of Nussenzweig on a street is art - not commerce - and therefore is protected by the First Amendment.^[16]
Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Judith J. Gische ruled that the photo of Nussenzweig—a head shot showing him sporting a scraggly white beard, a black hat and a black coat—was art, even though the photographer sold 10 prints of it at $20,000 to $30,000 each. The judge ruled that New York courts have "recognized that art can be sold, at least in limited editions, and still retain its artistic character (...) [F]irst [A]mendment protection of art is not limited to only starving artists. A profit motive in itself does not necessarily compel a conclusion that art has been used for trade purposes."^[17]
The case was appealed and dismissed on procedural grounds.^[18][19][20]


References
1.Profile: Philip-Lorca diCorcia by Barry Schwabsky
2.Release: David Zwirner - Philip-Lorca diCorcia: Thousand (February 27 - March 28, 2009). Retrieved on May 20-2009 (PDF).
3.Whitechapel Art Gallery, London Retrieved on November 23-2007.
4.Carnegie International - Artist Bio. Retrieved on November 23-2007.
5.http://www.lslimited.com/dicorcia/pl.html Leslie Simitch Limited - Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Retrieved on November 23-2007.
6."Emotions and Relations: Photographs by David Armstrong, Nan Goldin, Philip Lorca DiCorcis, Mark Morrisroe, and Jack Pierson". photo-eye. Taschen. Archived from the original on April 25, 2015.
7.Unfamiliar Streets. Katherine A. Bussard. The Photographs of Richard Avedon, Charles Moore, Martha Rosler, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Philip-Lorca diCorcia Analogues of Reality. Yale University Press. 2012. p156. Referenced April 6, 2015.
8.Philip-Lorca diCorcia: Streetwork Retrieved on November 23-2007.
9.http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1997/Articles1097/PdiCorciaA.html
10.PHILIP-LORCA diCORCIA by Marlena Donohue Retrieved on November 23-2007.
11.Arthur Lubow (August 23, 2013), Real People, Contrived Settings: Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s ‘Hustlers’ Return to New York New York Times.
12.Philip Gefter (March 17, 2006), Street photography: A right or invasion? International Herald Tribune.
13.Cathy Horyn (February 11, 2011), Q & A: Philip-Lorca diCorcia New York Times.
14."Philip-Lorca diCorcia's 'Roid' At Sprüth Magers London". The Huffington Post. 11 June 2011. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
15."Philip Lorca diCorcia: Roid". London: The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
16.NY Courts.gov - Nussenzweig v DiCorcia (February 8, 2006). Retrieved on May 3, 2008.
17.American Journalism Review - Giving Offense. Retrieved on May 3, 2008.
18.Clancco - Update on Nussenzweig v. diCorcia Case (July '07). Retrieved on May 3, 2008.
19.The New York Times - Case Over ‘Heads’ Photo Is Dismissed. Retrieved on May 3, 2008.
20.Law.com - 'Art' Photo Is Not Subject to Privacy Law, Judge Finds. Retrieved on May 3, 2008.

Unfamiliar Streets. Katherine A. Bussard. The Photographs of Richard Avedon, Charles Moore, Martha Rosler, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Philip-Lorca diCorcia Analogues of Reality. Yale University Press. 2012. p. 156. Referenced April 6, 2015.

*from: Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip-Lorca_diCorcia



Introduction from MoMA

      Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s photographs straddle truth and fiction by combining real people and places—but not necessarily people and places that naturally go together. The theatricality of his images is carefully constructed: he arranges the objects of each scene and devises precise lighting and framing for every project. His work is often described as cinematic, a description that diCorcia deplores. He insists that his pictures suggest rather than elucidate a full narrative. His brand of storytelling results in unstable, unfixed images that point in certain directions but never provide a definitive map.

      His earliest work, from the late 1970s, featured his friends and family in scenes that evoke loneliness, contemplation, ennui, or, occasionally, humor. In Mario, diCorcia's brother stares into an open refrigerator, his late-night mission to unearth a snack infused with inertia. The photograph couples an impression of complete stillness with the eerie, seemingly contradictory sense of witnessing a fleeting moment. Peter Galassi, former chief curator of MoMA’s Department of Photography, described the production of this image: “The subject was utterly ordinary but the photograph was carefully planned. The camera was on a tripod and the lighting was supplemented by an electronic flash hidden in the refrigerator and triggered at the moment of exposure. DiCorcia leveled the camera, adjusted and readjusted the lighting, made several Polaroid test shots and more than a few exposures, each aiming at the envisioned result.”¹ DiCorcia’s acute attention to detail has become the hallmark of his process and has influenced a generation of photographers (including Katy Grannan, Justine Kurland, Alex Prager, and Alec Soth, among others) who work with controlled situations and semi-anonymous portrait subjects.

      DiCorcia did not set out to become a photographer. While attending the University of Hartford, he studied with Jan Groover, who planted the idea that a photograph is not necessarily an artifact documenting a specific sliver of time; rather, a photograph should result from careful planning and orchestration. Early- and mid-20th-century photographers who also took this approach include Paul Outerbridge, Philippe Halsman, and Bill Brandt. During his graduate studies at Yale University diCorcia begin to classify himself as a photographer by first determining the kind of image-maker he did not want to be. Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, and Tod Papageorge—who rapidly shot many exposures in order to get to a few final images—attempted to capture the real world at a particular moment in time from a specific point of view. Their mid-20th-century work presented diCorcia with a strand of street photography to push against at exactly the same time that color processes began to be used outside of advertising and news photography. DiCorcia deliberately chose to print in color since it was an underutilized format in fine-art photography.

      MoMA presented diCorcia’s first solo museum exhibition in 1993, featuring his series Hustlers, which was made in Los Angeles between 1990 and 1992. He photographed male prostitutes he approached on Santa Monica Boulevard, paying them whatever they typically charged for their services to instead pose in scenarios he had prepared for the photo sessions. The titles of these photographs, such as Eddie Anderson; 21 Years Old; Houston, Texas; $20, list only the facts. Yet by inserting their bodies into prepared scenes in hotel rooms or on the street, diCorcia made portraits that operate in tandem with—but do not exactly reproduce—the fantasy roles these men were usually conscripted to play.

      Having worked outside on the Hustlers series, diCorcia delved further into street photography. As he explained, “The elements which call into question the normal relationship of appearance to truth in photography are, for most artists of my generation, tools to enrich the experience of work rather than ends in themselves.”² Taking the work of Garry Winogrand in particular as a starting point, diCorcia reinvigorated the genre in the 1990s by freezing the ebb and flow of a city sidewalk in images such as Los Angeles and New York. By arranging flashes and stationing his camera at a precise location, he suspended slices of time in images that have the quiet stillness of Old Master paintings. For his series Streetwork (1993–97) and Heads (2000–01), he took thousands of photographs, of which he selected only a handful for inclusion. Unlike other practitioners of street photography, diCorcia never wanted his images to propagate a moral truth or instigate social change.

      When John Szarkowski, former director of MoMA's Department of Photography, included the artist in the second iteration of the Museum’s New Photography exhibition series, in 1986, he wrote, “Philip-Lorca diCorcia involves us in the issues of story and plot by constructing tableaus that withhold information that we expect to be given.”³ DiCorcia’s photographs succeed because of his will to show more and tell less.

Introduction by Kelly Sidley, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography, 2016

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1. Peter Galassi, “Photography Is a Foreign Language,” in Philip-Lorca diCorcia (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1995), 5. 
2. Philip-Lorca diCorcia, “Reflections on Streetwork,” in Streetwork (Salamanca, Spain: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1998), 11. 
3. John Szarkowki, “New Photography 2: Mary Frey, David T. Hanson, Philip Lorca diCorcia,” MoMA 41 (Autumn 1986): 2. 

*from: MoMA; https://www.moma.org/artists/7027