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Following his Hustlers and Streetwork
series, Philip-Lorca diCorcia's Heads is his
most recent body of work. Taken in New York City, each
image advances the traditions of street photography and
candid portraiture developed by Paul Strand, Walker
Evans, Harry Callahan, and Robert Frank.
Though taken in the
bustling Times Square area of New York City, the
photographs are comprised of very little subject matter
other than a tightly cropped head and the seemingly
meaningless objects surrounding it. Under close scrutiny,
these small details (pedestrian trappings of contemporary
culture such as bottled water, designer sunglasses,
earphones, polka dot "power ties") take on
tremendous importance as icons of our time.
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| Philip-Lorca
di Corcia has been working since the end of the
seventies. At first he concentrated his work on
those close to him, then opened up slowly to the
outside world, urban American society and then
other countries, with the uncompromising
perspective on human involvement in the workings
of society and vice versa evident since his first
collection 'Family and friends' (1978); his
photos always being of faces or people. Philip-Lorca diCorcia
also sometimes works "for hire" for
advertising campaigns or fashion magazines such
as 'W'. Most notably he created a series of
stories which were published in `W'. Some of the
photos never made it into the magazine as the
artist chose to keep them himself. Philip-Lorca
diCorcia chose a certain number of these photos,
whether they were published or not and these
pieces are now part of his collection. The pieces
in question give off an amazing strength in terms
of their aesthetic quality their ambiguity their
smooth luxurious perfection is warped by the
sharpness of their revealing portrayal of men and
women, all pertect illustrations of the dream or
nightmare which results from the current ideal of
beauty and success. They give off a tension which
comes perhaps from their two-sided effect, one
that is both illustrative and critical of
commissions accepted and over-ridden at the same
time.
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W, Sept. 1999, #13 |
Philip Lorca Di Corcia
• Santa Monica Boulevard ......
postmedia ...... Pace
Wildstein, New York ...... Almine
Rech, Paris |
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