I first came across Roman Vishniac’s book A Vanished World as a child, seeing it prominently displayed on a family friend’s bookshelf. The striking and sensitive black-and-white documentary photographs of people who seemed somehow both foreign and familiar commanded my attention. Even at that age, I understood their significance.
Vishniac’s photographs comprise an intimate record of the final moments of Eastern European Jewish communities before the Holocaust. His images record life in the villages and ghettos from which so many fled persecution—and from which so many did not escape. Being Jewish himself and living in Berlin at the time, he imbued his photos with a great deal of sensitivity and understanding.
An excellent new documentary about Vishniac’s life and career, directed by Laura Bialis and simply titled Vishniac, tells the story of the man behind the photographs from the perspective of his daughter, Mara Vishniac Kohn. She took up the task of managing Vishniac’s photographic archive after his passing in 1990. (Initially slated to be acquired by the International Center of Photography, it is now housed as part of The Magnes Collection at Berkeley.)
Bialis moves quickly through Vishniac’s turn-of-the-century Russian childhood to his early adult life. As a young boy with a keen interest in science and biology, Vishniac became enamored with taking photographs through his microscope – his earliest attempts to document worlds largely hidden from view. In the 1920s, forced to flee Russia, Vishniac moved his wife and two children to Berlin, where he discovered Modernist photography and began capturing life on the street in stark, dramatic tones.
In the early 1930s, with Nazism fast on the rise, he started surreptitiously documenting the anti-Semitic propaganda spreading throughout Berlin. Mara relates that in order to avoid attracting suspicion, he would bring her along and have her pose for the camera, so that it would seem like he was simply taking a snapshot of his young daughter. In a journal entry, conveyed effectively via voice-over, Vishniac refers to a shop selling bogus craniometric instruments to supposedly prove one’s Aryanism as “the height of lunacy.” Vishniac’s shift towards a more socially conscious perspective leads up to the landmark body of work that ultimately became A Vanished World.
Meshorerim [choir singers] at the house of Rabbi Baruch Rabinowitz, Mukacevo, ca. 1937-38, Roman Vishniac. The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. Gift of Mara Vishniac Kohn.
First, however, the film first takes a more personal turn. Mara reveals that during this time, her parents were struggling to hold their relationship together—and that her father had begun a passionate affair with a German woman named Edith. It’s a poignant story about parents who grow apart and the toll that it takes on the children. But the way this family drama unfolds during such an extraordinarily tumultuous era gives it greater significance. Under newly passed Nazi laws, the affair becomes a criminal act. After Kristallnacht, the family strives to seek asylum elsewhere. In one of the most moving segments in a film that has no shortage of such moments, Mara discusses the Vishniacs’ efforts to emigrate to America and provides a window into how difficult it was for German Jews to leave the country at that time.
Fortunately – spoiler alert – the family made it to America, arriving in New York on New Years Eve 1940. From there, Bialis fills in the lesser-known aspects of Vishniac’s biography as he rebuilt his life and career yet again. She also chronicles his children’s entrance into adulthood.
Albert Einstein in his office, Princeton University, New Jersey, 1942, Roman Vishniac. The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. Gift of Mara Vishniac Kohn.
Once settled in America, Vishniac returned to his early childhood interest in biology and photomicroscopy. He made several breakthroughs in the field of scientific photography, became a contributor to Life Magazine, and appeared in a series of short educational films that explored “the big little world of Dr. Roman Vishniac.” He also developed a close friendship with Magnum photographer and International Center of Photography founder Cornell Capa, which led to the rediscovery and renewed appreciation of his photographs of Eastern European Jewish life.
Deftly interweaving these strands into the larger story, the director tells a tale about Jewish life during the early-mid 20th Century that celebrates the value of photography. Ultimately, this absorbing documentary is a portrait of a family just as much as it is a portrait of an artist. And it makes a strong and compelling case for Vishniac’s inclusion in the canon of great 20th Century photographers.
Roman Vishniac and his daughter Mara.
Vishniac(directed by Laura Bialis). Color, 95 min., 2023.
Parallax Review editor and founder Aaron M. Cohen’s review of Joel Meyerowitz’s latest book, The Pleasure of Seeing, appears in the November issue of The Brooklyn Rail. There’s also an excellent interview with Meyerowitz by Charlotte Kent in the issue.
Photographers as Filmmakers is a series that explores films made by iconic photographers.
“For me, photography is sketching. On the other hand, to make a film is to make a speech.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson completed just six documentaries during his legendary career. Nevertheless, these efforts are significant additions to his body of work that also shed insight into his photographic practice.
In 1935, Cartier-Bresson learned the basics of documentary filmmaking with Paul Strand and Leo Hurwitz at NYKino in New York. NYKino’s approach to documentary filmmaking was rooted in Left Wing activism, progressive politics, and social change.
That influence is highly apparent in Cartier-Bresson’s first efforts, a trio of activist documentaries made during the Spanish Civil War, starting with Victoire de la Vie in 1937. (He collaborated with the Photo League’s Herbert Kline on several of these.) The films, made with the intention of increasing support and funding for the Loyalist cause, are much more ideologically-driven than his street photography. Ultimately, viewed through the prism of Cartier-Bresson’s career, they are formative works made by a young artist still striving to find his voice.
Around the same time, Cartier-Bresson began assisting French director Jean Renoir, working on La vie est à nous and Une partie de campagne. In 1939 he was second assistant director—and made an onscreen appearance as well—in Renoir’s masterpiece, La Règle du Jeu.
As France found itself caught in the throes of World War II, Cartier-Bresson enlisted in the French Army’s film and photography unit. In 1940, he was captured by the Germans. He spent three years, 1940-1943, in a Nazi prison camp before escaping – on his third attempt, no less.
In 1944, the United States Office of War Information commissioned Cartier-Bresson, along with several other former French prisoners of war, to make Le Retour, a half-hour documentary about the liberation and repatriation of French prisoners of war. French author and poet Claude Roy provided the voiceover narration.
Although Le Retour was funded by the United States government, it is far from a propaganda effort. The finished work is largely the product of Cartier-Bresson’s vision and the cause was one that he was passionate about. Furthermore, the theme of the film—the desire to return to normal life after enduring such a traumatic experience—sets it apart from other films sponsored by the U.S. government at that time.
Accompanied by narration and a symphonic score, Le Retour’s structure generally follows the journey of the displaced from the newly liberated camps to their home countries. The film concludes with a homecoming celebration in Paris. The chronology is a little muddled at times, but the images captured on film are undeniably powerful and, at times, difficult to watch. It’s worth noting that some of the most dramatic footage from the camps was taken by the United States Signal Corps prior to the start of the project. Additionally, to capture some of the exhilaration around the soldiers’ arrival at Gare de l’Est in Paris, Cartier-Bresson enlisted Jean Renoir’s nephew Claude Renoir as a cameraman.
Le Retour is especially noteworthy for a scene that was also memorialized in one of Cartier-Bresson’s best-known photographs from that era. It takes place at Dessau, after the United States and Soviet armies repurposed the camp as a shelter for war prisoners and refugees. A Belgian woman who had acted as a Nazi informer—and who apparently hoped to pass through the repatriation process unnoticed—is recognized and denounced by another woman.
from Le Retour
Gestapo informer recognized by a women she had denounced, deportation camp, Dessau, Germany. Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
Le Retour captures the moment when the woman on the right identifies the informer and slaps her hard across the face. The camp commandant keeps his composure and sits calmly as the scene unfolds in front of him.
Cartier-Bresson’s image preserves a slightly different moment: the almost gleeful antagonism of the woman who not only recognizes her former tormentor but now has seized the opportunity to hold her accountable and bring her to justice. The photo also preserves the humbled expression and defeated body language of the woman as she appears before the commandant. (Is the woman genuinely penitent or simply trying to appear so, in an effort to gain clemency?) The man on the far left, still clad in a striped prisoner’s uniform, serves as a reminder of the recent ordeal that these prisoners have undergone. This marks a rare and fascinating instance of overlap between Cartier-Bresson the photographer and Cartier-Bresson the filmmaker.
After Le Retour, Cartier-Bresson put aside the moving image for several decades. During this time, he shifted away from war photography as well, preferring to focus his Leica on everyday life. Yet, the connective tissue remains. The countries he documented, such as India, China and the Soviet Union, were often in states of cultural and political upheaval in ways that paralleled postwar France.
Cartier-Bresson didn’t accept another filmmaking assignment until 1969. Around the same time, he started to wind down his photography career to focus more on painting and drawing. Still, his final two films—both half-hour slotted documentaries made for CBS News—are the first that truly feel like they are made by the same person who wrote the landmark 1952 essay “The Decisive Moment.”
CBS News added a brief prologue to “California Impressions,” the first of the two short documentaries. Over a montage of Cartier-Bresson’s best-known photos, a news anchor informs the TV audience that the network gave Cartier-Bresson the leeway to make a film on any subject of his choosing, anywhere in the world. Their only stipulation was that the work must be in color—“instead of his usual black-and-white.” Cartier-Bresson chose to portray the place that most encapsulated the cultural changes happening around the United States during the 1960s.
“California Impressions” opens with surfers riding the waves, the ultimate West Coast fantasy-cliché, with the sounds of a church choir singing “Joy To The World” incongruously overlaid. A jump cut to a ladies’ church luncheon reveals the source of the music. From there, Cartier-Bresson’s camera skips around to a variety of situations, providing glimpses into peoples’ lives.
The freeform, open-ended structure of “California Impressions” is incredibly avant-garde for a television program. And it’s more reminiscent of a photo essay than a linear film. Nothing is staged, there’s no narration, and the scenes are filmed in a purist observational style comparable to Frederick Wiseman’s. (The exception might be a short satirical montage focusing on Americans’ food consumption habits that comes across as overly judgmental and a little mean-spirited.) For this film. Cartier-Bresson hired Jean Boffety, a French New Wave cinematographer who had worked with William Klein on Polly Magoo several years prior, to assist with the camerawork.
Cartier-Bresson made sure to place commonplace activities, such as high school cheerleading tryouts, in a larger context, portraying them side by side with the social struggles of the day. Anti-war protesters march while a mob of counterprotesters heckle them. Organizers speak at a United Farm Workers meeting during the Delano grape strike. A group of Black women receive assistance at a local welfare office.
Themes of racial and class disparity are interwoven into the proceedings. Still, Cartier-Bresson places the focus on the individuals first and foremost. Rather than shooting wide, he consistently frames peoples’ faces in extremely tight close-ups. In the midst of everything, the individual expression is what holds the greatest interest.
from California Impressions
from California Impressions
Towards the end, an encounter group session at Esalen provides a kind of climax. Guided by a group leader, a husband and wife engage in a tempestuous “game” that is both literally and figuratively bruising. It’s a standout moment emotionally and visually, presented without judgement and with the curiosity of an onlooker.
This scene gives way to perhaps the second most memorable part of the film. On a hippie commune, a handful of musicians noodle around in an impromptu jam session while members do Sufi-esque spinning dances—the kind that would become a mainstay at Grateful Dead shows over the decades. Nearby, a young woman breastfeeds her baby. As the music continues, the scene crossfades from an Edenic forest grove to a freeway at night. Only car headlights are visible. These machines in the garden, like fireflies at night, dot the frame and move around, forming patterns and transforming into a Modern art piece. The moment is both beautiful and surreal–and in this way, too, of a piece with Cartier-Bresson’s oeuvre.
from California Impressions
from California Impressions
Is it possible that one of the world’s greatest photographers, who could never overcome his feelings about the limitations of the still camera, might have made more films if the opportunities had presented themselves? Sadly, this is a question without an answer.
Regardless, it’s highly worth tracking down these films, which were collected and released in somewhat-restored condition on a two-disc DVD set, Henri Cartier-Bresson: Collector’s Edition, in 2010 by a now-defunct DVD company called Arthouse Films, along with some impressive extra features.
Le Retour(directed by Henri Cartier-Bresson with Richard Banks). B/W, 33 min., 1945.
California Impressions (directed by Henri Cartier-Bresson). Color, 25 min., 1970.
Overall, 2022 was another strong year for photobooks. There were self-published works that stood toe-to-toe with new releases from the heavy hitters, rediscovered bodies of work from past decades, and comprehensive artist retrospectives, not to mention several book-length essays exploring the nature of photography. As always, it’s an impossible task to choose the best, but here, in no particular order, are five that stood out.
Baldwin Lee by Baldwin Lee (Hunters Point Press)
Untitled, mid-1980s (Baldwin Lee)
Surprisingly, the book that probably made the largest impact this past year is a self-titled monograph, the first from University of Tennessee photography professor Baldwin Lee. In the 1980s, he documented Black life across the American South using a 4×5 view camera, but until recently, that body of work remained largely unseen.
At first glance, Baldwin Lee is an unassuming book from an almost completely unknown photographer. Flip through the pages and its significance becomes clear very quickly. Lee studied with Minor White and Walker Evans, and their influences can be felt in these images. Yet, the work is very uniquely the photographer’s own testament and vision. These are powerful, sensitive, and above all intelligent images that convey ideas rooted in racial and social justice without ever seeming didactic, heavy-handed, exploitative or cliche. There’s much more that can be said about this incredible work–in fact, a tonofink has been spilled about it over the past few months –but the bottom line is, if you only seek out one book off this list, this is the one.
Cue The Sun by Trent Parke (Stanley/Barker)
Kolkata, India, 2020 (Trent Parke)
Lee established relationships with the people he photographed as he traveled across the American South. Magnum photographer Trent Parke went a different route in his latest book, Cue The Sun. The work was made in northern India in 2020, just before the pandemic. Parke’s images hue closely to a street photography aesthetic. The hook is that every photograph was taken from the window of a moving vehicle, utilizing fast shutter speeds.
The result is a kind of visual travel diary. It’s alsoa creative exercise in image-making with constraints placed on movement and framing.What makes Cue The Sun worthy of inclusion on this list is the amount of thought and reflection on the photographic process that it can provoke. Specifically, on how much photographers rely on split-second reactions (not to mention instinct and muscle memory) when striving to create meaningful work, and just how fast the creative process happens when photographing, compared to other mediums. What’s more, it reveals how a fraction of a second is all the time that people need to establish an emotional connection or rapport with someone or something.
It’s also an exercise in bookmaking. The work folds out, concertina-style, and separates into two back-to-back sequences: photos taken during the daytime and photos taken at night (when Parke cued his flash, blasting everything outside his window with direct light). This format helps the body of work come together in a way that resembles a journey in and of itself.
The Unseen Saul Leiter edited by Margit Erb and Michael Parillo (Thames and Hudson)
It’s hard to believe there was a time when, like Baldwin Lee, acclaimed photographer Saul Leiter worked in relative anonymity. But that was the case until about 15 years ago. Since his passing, the Saul Leiter Foundation has continued to curate and catalog his vast archive of Kodachrome slides taken on the streets of New York dating back to the 1950s.
Essays by Foundation director Margit Erb and associate director Michael Parillo, offers a window into their curation, preservation, and restoration process. Visually, they provide glimpses of the process as well. Open the book and you encounter several photos of a slideshow projection inside Leiter’s former studio, where the Foundation is headquartered, as well as a montage of slides arranged on a light table printed full bleed. Like old 45 records, these vintage Kodachrome slides, in mounts that sometimes feature handwritten notes from the photographer, are themselves art objects.
But it’s the images on those slides that are truly astounding. The Unseen Saul Leiter unearths 76 color street photographs from Leiter’s vast archive that are as strong and innovative as his other known works. His dynamic compositions make masterful and evocative use of color, blurred reflections, rain-drenched abstractions, wide apertures and slow shutter speeds. These atmospheric photos are presented with black borders instead of white–a nod to the slideshow experience.
Refractions 2 by Ralph Gibson (Brilliant Editions)
In 2005, Ralph Gibson published Refractions, a compendium of insights into the theory and practice of photography. 17 years later, he continues this exploration with a follow-up, aptly titled Refractions 2. Gibsonis as insightful here as he was the first time around, going deep into a range of topics. He writes lucidly about the photographic process, visual culture in the digital age, and artistic ways of seeing in general. His written reflections are complemented by gorgeous reproductions of his photos (along with other artwork), including a number of images from his highly regarded Black Trilogy. Like its predecessor (which is sadly out of print), it is at once a manifesto, a memoir, a philosophical treatise, and a how-to guide.
Some Say Ice by Alessandra Sanguinetti (MACK)
from Some Say Ice by Alessandra Sanguinetti
Although it’s not a direct sequel, Some Say Ice is, in a sense, a kind of spiritual sequel. Inspired by social historian Michael Lesy’s 1973 cult classic, Wisconsin Death Trip, Sanguinetti spent eight years exploring the environs of Black River Falls Wisconsin, working in the shadow of late 19th Century photographer Charles Van Schaick. As we wrote in our review, “There’s almost an occult feel to some of the images in Some Say Ice and the entire body of work seems haunted by the specters of the past.” Sanguinetti’s monograph is a rumination on the passing of time, existence and mortality, and photography’s potential for interweaving history and memory.
There are many other photobooks that deserve mentioning as well, but these are five that I find myself returning to most often.
And that’s a wrap for 2022! A huge thank you to all of our readers as we finish out our first full year at The Parallax Review. More to come as we expand in 2023!
In her new monograph Some Say Ice, Alessandra Sanguinettidepicts a place that seems to be perpetually enduring frigid temperatures and long dark nights of the soul.
That place, more specifically, is Black River Falls Wisconsin, the town that was the focal point of social historian Michael Lesy’s 1973 cult classic, Wisconsin Death Trip. The influential legacy of Lesy’s book can be felt on practically every page of Some Say Ice.
For those not familiar with Wisconsin Death Trip, it highlights the salvaged wet plate collodion works made by the town photographer, Charles Van Schaick, at the turn of the 20th Century. Van Schaick’s portraits oscillate from mundane to surreal—all the more extraordinary considering they were work-for-hire gigs.
Lesy places short contemporaneous excerpts from a local newspaper alongside Van Schaick’s photographic output. These scraps of text delineate the unusually harsh and tragic fates of many residents while hinting at the struggles, both internal and external, that the individuals in the tradesman’s tintypes may have been experiencing as well. Whether Van Schaick himself realized it, many of his photographs attain a level of intensity and meaning that most artists strive for—something that is augmented by Lesy’s editing and sequencing.
Sanguinetti discovered Wisconsin Death Trip when she was nine years old. In her afterward she writes, “It was the first time my nine-year-old mind understood that many more people had come before me, and I never would have been able to look in their eyes if not for those photographs.” In interviews, she has discussed how this meditation on memory, mortality, and photography, which began at such a young age, has guided her process, dating back to her earliest projects. Starting in 2014, Sanguinetti made repeat pilgrimages to that small Wisconsin town and its environs, working in the shadow of Van Schaick for a period of eight years.
There’s almost an occult feel to some of the images in Some Say Ice and the entire body of work seems haunted by the specters of the past. In Wisconsin Death Trip, Lesy describes the photography of the 1890s as a “semimagical act that symbolically dealt with time and mortality.” That observation is equally applicable to Sanguinetti’s monochrome medium-format images.
Although ostensibly a celebration of birth, the frontispiece of Some Say Ice indirectly references the theme of child mortality in Wisconsin Death Trip. It showcases a homemade circular calendar with a snapshot of a newborn baby affixed to the month of July. Turning the page, the first photo that opens the book proper is of a horse’s torso—almost a perfect mirror image of the opening photo that Lesy selected for his book.
This deliberate echoing continues throughout. One photo eerily recalls a haunting Van Schaick photo of two children who had recently passed. In Sanguinetti’s version, two young boys—brothers, perhaps—dressed in similar outfits, playfully pose upside down with deadpan expressions on an antique two-person sofa. The walls and floor are bare. A hand on the upper right-hand corner of the frame seems to be in the process of ironing and hanging laundry—traditional household chores. Relics of earlier eras are manifold—in fact, there is nothing contemporary about the image at all.
from Some Say Ice by Alessandra Sanguinetti
Sanguinetti’s studious avoidance of present-day signifiers such as cellphones imbues her work with a certain timelessness. In this regard, the images provide a throughline to an earlier, bygone era.
The thematic resonances help the viewer make those connections as well: antique guns, deer antlers, sparse bedrooms, people in uniforms (a soldier, two prisoners, a boy scout.) Guided by Van Schaick’s work and her own curiosity, Sanguinetti explores the life of the town. A striking image of three young girls casting shadows on the side of their house is reminiscent of her best-known work, The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams. Animals appear throughout in ways that bring to mind her first monograph, On the 6th Day
The images tap into something uncanny that lurks just below the surface of things. Meaning is elusive. The photos are presented without captions and aside from a brief afterword, there is minimal text. Like the world Sanguinetti portrays, the work itself is austere to the point of asceticism. This austerity extends to the front cover, which simply features a tipped-in title card, a small rectangle of white in a glacial sea of black.
from Some Say Ice by Alessandra Sanguinetti
from Some Say Ice by Alessandra Sanguinetti
In terms of packaging and presentation, the printing is impeccable, coming as close to realizing the full potential of the images as possible. A tipped-in plate on the back cover adds greatly to its collectability. The book is laid out portfolio-style, in a traditional manner consistent with her previous books.
Ultimately, Some Say Ice represents both a departure and a return for Sanguinetti. It is at once something completely new and of a piece with her other major bodies of work. And it’s easily one of the best photobooks of the year.
Some Say Ice by Alessandra Sanguinetti. MACK, 2022. 148 pages, 102 photographs. Hardcover.
Photographers as Filmmakers is a series that explores films made by iconic photographers.
“Being an artist, censoring myself never came up, because it wasn’t something I thought about doing. And if anyone else wanted to censor me, I said no.” – Larry Clark
With all of the hype around Euphoria lately, several pop culture writers have pointed out that Larry Clark did it first and better with his 1995 breakthrough directorial debut, Kids. What Clark did, exactly, was present a raw, unflinching look at teens experimenting with drugs, sex, and other illicit activities. Set over a roughly 24-hour period in New York City, Kids unfolds in ways that resemble in-depth reportage, rather than plot-driven entertainment.
Kids still holds up a master class in neorealism and social realism. It’s shot almost like a Frederick Wiseman film at times, with long handheld takes that wind through clusters of teens, recording fascinating details and scraps of dialogue. Yet, every scene was scripted (Clark pegged aspiring teenage writer, Harmony Korine for the gig) and carefully rehearsed. Over a quarter-century later, it still retains its power to shock, in large part because it rings so uncannily true-to-life. It also retains a strong social conscience.
In 2002, Korine and Clark reteamed for Ken Park, a movie so controversial it never managed to find a distributor. That film and others that Clark made around the same time constitute what loftier critics than I have referred to as “cinematic provocations.” These later works also contain social commentary, but they too often cross the line into exploitation. There’s not enough heart to balance out the shocking and graphic moments onscreen.
I would argue that Clark’s true maturation as a filmmaker occurs in his criminally underseen second feature. Clark’s follow-up to Kids, the nifty, gritty crime drama Another Day In Paradise, may be more conventional and even restrained at times, but it’s also very well made and a lot of fun to watch. Based on a semiautobiographical novel by Eddie Little, but also rooted in Clark’s own experiences with drugs and crime, it portrays the highs and lows of life on the margins of society from an insider’s perspective.
When the film opens, underage speed freak Bobbie (Vincent Kartheiser, a few years prior to being cast as Pete Campbell on Mad Men) and his slightly older girlfriend Rosie (Natasha Gregson-Wagner) are lying in bed together. Bobbie smokes a cigarette, get dressed, and then heads out to loot vending machines at a community college. His clumsy smash-and-grab attempt draws the attention of a security guard. In the ensuing altercation, Bobbie brutally stabs the guard with a long screwdriver and winds up badly wounded himself. A trip to the emergency room is out of the question, so they get in contact with “Uncle Mel” (James Woods). A former army medic, he helps treat Bobbie’s wounds—and administers heroin as a painkiller.
Mel and his girlfriend Sid (Melanie Griffith, in a subtly heartbreaking performance) take the young couple under their wing. Mel and Sid are, by their own admittance, small-time junkies and criminals only slightly higher up the socioeconomic ladder than Bobbie and Rosie. But they have the experience and competence the younger couple lacks. Moreover, they harbor no illusions about the life they’ve chosen.
Soon, the foursome are working on a potentially large score, ripping off a local pharmacy’s adderall supply and selling the goods. Yet it’s the in-between moments that stand out: an overly indulgent shopping spree, a first taste of champagne at a nightclub. Mel and Sid transition from strangers to mentors to surrogate parents in a relatively short timespan, thanks to the compressed storytelling of cinema, and we see the familial bonds grow stronger.
Clark portrays the hazy glamour of this lifestyle as well as its self-destructive nature. Like a vintage coat from Goodwill, there’s a well-worn coziness to it, and it’s a little rough around the edges in ways that only makes it seem that much more cool, fashionable and desirable. Nevertheless, practically every instance of substance abuse has repercussions—especially alcohol. The more Mel drinks, the more he becomes erratic and mercurial, and his pragmatic self-interest shifts to open cruelty.
Mel is the kind of character that Woods was born to play, a fast-talking grifter who can be charming one moment and threatening the next. Woods owns this role to the point where it’s impossible to imagine anyone else playing it.
By the same token, many of the minor characters make indelible impressions as well. Most notably, a self-appointed reverend (James Otis) who delivers sermons to his customers after selling them guns. Later, when an unnerved Bobbie asks Mel what the reverend’s deal is, Mel tersely describes the reverend as “somebody you never want to mess with” and leaves it at that.
Towards the end, Paradise backslides into something more conventional and predictable. (Anytime someone in a movie asks, “have I ever led you wrong before?” you know they’re about to do exactly that.) But the film hits its stride when it simply allows the viewer to get to know these fascinating and ultimately endearing schemers.
At its best, Paradise is a slice-of-life hangout movie about junkies, thieves, and drug dealers. The most obvious cinematic comparison would be Drugstore Cowboy. Gus Van Sant, an executive producer on Kids, is an avowed Larry Clark fan and looked at Clark’s classic photobook Tulsa to gain inspiration for some of the shots and scenes in his film. The influence is clearly mutual. There are also strong parallels to Arthur Penn’s 1967 road picture Bonnie and Clyde, which is referenced ironically by Sid at one point.
The action takes place in 1971, just a few years after Penn’s New Hollywood classic was released, but aside from some exceptionally well-curatedmusic cues (including a standout Clarence Carter performance), there are very few cultural markers to anchor it in that era. One gets the sense that this world has largely operated unchanged and independent of the larger culture for quite some time. It’s its own microcosm.
The film’s visual style is as photographic as it is cinematographic—not surprising, since it was made by a photographer. (Although Clark briefly studied photography, he is a completely self-taught filmmaker.) Clark knows how to let a scene or even a passing moment drive the visual aesthetic, and the result is as effective as it is unconventional. Whenever possible, Clark avoids relying on the cinematographer’s grab-bag assortment of static, rote shots. Instead, kinetic handheld camerawork bolsters and underscores the characters’ drug-fueled states while showcasing the spontaneity of the actors’ performances. Whatever critiques one has about Larry Clark (and let’s face it, if he ever somehow breaks into the mainstream, he’d be an easy target for cancel-culture gatekeepers), it cannot be denied that he has a great eye and a powerful vision.
Ultimately, what differentiates Another Day inParadise from Kids as well as Clark’s later films is the way that it allows the viewer to ride shotgun alongside the main characters. Kids, for instance, adopts a more sociological perspective, whereas Paradise is a genuinely warm and humane portrayal of people who sometimes act inhumanely. It’s a story that only someone who truly lived the life could tell.
Curator Roxana Marcoci has collaborated with Tillmans to create a labyrinthine arrangement that builds on his earlier gallery shows. It is far removed from a traditional or even a chronological presentation of work. Over 400 images of various sizes, some as small as 4×6”, are arranged dynamically on each wall, creating a kinetic ebb and flow. A handful of the photos are framed, many are affixed with binder clips, and many others are held up with Scotch tape. Long tables fill several rooms with yet more works to explore. Every space in the 6th floor galleries is fair game—even the emergency exit doors.
Installation view of Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear at The Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Aaron M. Cohen
Tillmans’s work spans different genres, both straightforward and conceptual, and includes magazine tearsheets, photocopies, video projections, cameraless works, and appropriated images. Each wall, each room is a meticulously organized explosion of imagery and an immersive experience. Compared to more traditional, linear layouts, it’s dynamic, playful, and innovative. The experience of viewing the work is almost as memorable as the work itself.
At the press preview, Marcoci described each wall as a musical partition with different rhythms and intensities, each constituting a “perfect pop song.” That’s an apt metaphor, given Tillmans’s musicality. To extend it slightly, the entire show could be construed as a concept album. Individual pieces combine to create variations on themes as the works simultaneously echo off of and segue into each other.
Even in the rarified air of the fine art world, Tillmans’s work feel immediate, accessible, and direct. As a photographer, he has the power to conjure emotions difficult to put in words. He also endows in viewers a sense of not just connection but also belonging.
Installation view of Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear, on view at The Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Emile Askey
In his most successful images, Tillmans effectively harnesses the language of vernacular photos and builds on that foundation to add layers of meaning and emotion. Take, for instance, his borderline-iconic photograph of two young men kissing outside of a gay nightclub, caught in the flash. The image is at once provocative and celebratory. It’s a sexually charged picture with a social conscience that’s intimate and inclusive. It’s practically a visceral experience, and the more you look, the more you feel like you’re a part of the moment.
The Cock (kiss) (2002). Photo: Wolfgang Tillmans
Viewing Tillmans’s work in MoMA, it’s tempting to make a connection to William Eggleston’s groundbreaking 1976 exhibition there. To be sure, Tillmans’s work constitutes a democratic forest of sorts in a number of ways. The two photographers also share an uncanny ability to harness the vernacular language of photography in order to cut to the heart of something profound. Additionally, for much of his career, Tillmans, like Eggleston, preferred 35mm over medium- and large-format cameras, steering clear of the type of ornate equipment that typically signifiesthe “serious” art photographer. Tillmans shoots mainly with a digital SLR these days.
One of his strongest works, “Lüneburg (self),” is a digital image made during the early days of the quarantine. At first glance, it might come across as mundane, but there’s a great deal going on beneath the surface.
For starters, there’s a playful quality to the image. One’s eye is drawn to the accidental phallic-ness of the iPhone/water bottle arrangement before noticing Tillman’s face in the phone app’s tiny frame, engulfed by his digital camera lens. There is also an unsettling quality as well as a profound sense of isolation and disconnect. Nobody is on the other end of the video chat. Instead the screen radiates back empty bedcovers. There’s an institutional feel to the surroundings, as if taken from a hospital bed. Nevertheless, there is also a sense of anticipation and the hope that somebody will appear.
Lüneburg (self) (2020). Photo: Wolfgang Tillmans
“There’s more that connects us than divides us,” Tillmans sings on the opening track to his 2021 album Moon in Earthlight.His work in general—and his bold, honest, and intimate pictures of gay life in particular—emphasize human connection and the value of personal relationships.While there is a strong component of social awareness and political idealism permeating his images, they rarely come across as polemical. Rather, they are empathetic, humane, and sincere.
I highly recommend walking through the entire exhibit twice. You’ll be amazed at just how much you overlooked the first time around.
WhenHenryHorenstein revisited a series of old black-and-white photos dating back to his grad school days, what he found was more interesting than he remembered. Centered around the sport of modified stock car racing, the collection of images captured the sparks of a fascinating subculture as it existed half a century ago. Now, those photographs have been assembled into the book Speedway 1972, published by Stanley/Barker.
The catalyst for the series was Horenstein’s brother-in-law, an amateur stock car racer who helped him land a part-time gig shooting for Illustrated Speedway News, New England racetrack Thompson Speedway’s weekly program. For a “historian-with-a-camera in training,” Horenstein writes in his preface, “what better than an old-school sport that would certainly be extinct one day?” He then notes with some irony that Thompson Speedway is still in operation—and their operations have grown substantially.
Nevertheless, Horenstein’s images tap into the unique car culture of the era and evoke a way of life portrayed in classic 1970s movies like Two-Lane Blacktop. Horenstein places the greatest emphasis on the people, whether on the racetrack or in the stands. The various portraits of racers reveal a heavily male-dominated recreational pursuit, while those of the spectators feature a more balanced mix of men and women. There are families, teenage couples, old timers, and young children. Their enthusiasm is contagious, the rough-around-the-edges ethos is alluring, and it’s hard not to get caught up in the daredevil bravado of the participants.
The mechanics’ engineering expertise is also impressive, but thankfully, Horenstein avoids becoming overly preoccupied with the more technical side of things. His square-format photographs provide just enough of a glimpse under the hood to give viewers the gist of how these machines are rebuilt and augmented for racing, while keeping the focus on the more human elements.
One of the most effective images offers a nice view of a racer sitting in a modified open-wheel stock car. There’s not much else, aside from a steering wheel, a gearshift, and a driver’s seat. Large dirt-encrusted tires, a primitive roll frame mounted to a rebuilt chassis, and a large number 28 posted on the side round out the image. Yet, the viewer’s attention quickly gravitates toward the driver: His tense but focused expression, his hand on the gear shift, a bandage on one finger, his goggles resting on his forehead as he gazes out to the left, ready to let loose.
A portrait of a mechanic standing in front of a wrecked husk of an automobile similarly draws the viewer in. The vehicle’s wear-and-tear gives a sense of the intensity of the races and the risks involved – as well as the skill needed to rebuild these machines into racing shape. Still, the emphasis is on the individual standing front and center, first and foremost.
Many of the strongest images were taken at night. Horenstein’s use of flash is highly skilled and helps provide an aesthetic consistency to the work. (Even early in his career, he exhibits a great deal of technical aptitude.)
The sequencing is another strong point. Generally, each two-page spread features one photo that showcases drivers and crew members, and one that focuses on the spectators and fans, in ways that enable them to complement each other.
One such spread presents, on the left side, a photo of two young boys in the stands, clad mostly in denim, an illicit cigarette in hand. On the right, two men that could be their older doppelgangers tool around the track in a banged-up racecar.
Similarly, a portrait of a racer posing confidently, one hand on his hip and the other on his racecar’s windowsill, pairs nicely with one of two young female spectators, both of whom are awkwardly figuring out where to place their hands as they try to project a similar confidence.
An abundance of comparable portraits causes the work to sag a little in the middle. Still, there are inherently interesting elements even in the images that don’t quite “get there”—whether it’s something as simple and graphic as a checkered racing flag, an expression, or an article of clothing.
There are no captions, nor are they really necessary. The book’s title provides enough information: what year the images were made—and, generally speaking, where. After reading the preface, if I was a betting man, I’d guess that the opening photo is a portrait of Horenstein’s brother-in-law, the guy who introduced him to this world. Unlike the others, it has a snapshot-like quality to it, and one can sense a close kinship between photographer and subject. What follows is a mix of people and machines, racers and fans, metal, dirt, and exhaust fumes. It’s nice to get lost in the cacophony of it all and just immerse oneself in the scene.
Recently, it seems that a number of established photographers in the later stages of their careers have been reassessing their early work and finding greater value in it than they did initially. Speedway 1972 represents one of the more successful examples of this. It’s a work imbued with nostalgia and a celebration of a specific time and place, photographed with an eye towards history and memory.
Speedway 1972 by Henry Horenstein. Stanley/Barker, 2022. 88 pages. Hardcover.
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Mosley’s images provide an insider’s look at a stretch of sand near Missouri Avenue in Atlantic City that became a popular destination for vacationing Black families. Since the nearby White-owned restaurants refused to serve Black customers, people brought picnic baskets to the beach, which earned it the tongue-in-cheek nickname “Chicken Bone Beach.” The photos on display cover a roughly three-decade timespan, starting in the 1930s.
In his casual and convivial portraits of African American beachgoers, Mosley provides a window into a specific place and time. The images also serve as a reminder that socially-concerned photography can—and should—show people experiencing joy.
To be sure, there are a lot of posed group shots. People clearly enjoyed the experience of being photographed by Mosley. In turn, he photographed them as if they were celebrities–which, occasionally, they were.
Based in Philadelphia, Mosley enjoyed a lengthy career as a photojournalist, documenting Black society for a variety of publications. These prints were expertly selected from Mosley’s extensive archive, which totals over 250,000 negatives and prints, housed in Temple University’s Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection.
The several dozen images chosen for display are presented in simple black frames with captions affixed at the bottom. Together, they comprise a celebratory montage of Black life and culture during a more racially divided era. And they further the case for a greater appreciation of Mosley’s work.
The exhibit falters a little when it comes to the second half of the title—“the African-American Experience in Atlantic City.” That’s a topic of tremendous depth and breadth, and a one-room show can only begin to scratch the surface of it. But when the focus is on Mosley’s visual documentation of Chicken Bone Beach, it’s captivating.
