Los Angeles County Museum of Art - LACMA
This exhibition features works from his key series of the past twenty years including Hustlers, Streetwork, Heads, and Lucky 13. His merging of a high degree of photographic preconception with the happenstance of street casting has become an influential mode of contemporary practice. On display also a powerful installation of 1,000 of the artist's Polaroid photographs, titled Thousand. Curated by Charlotte Cotton.
curated by Charlotte Cotton
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Philip-
Lorca diCorcia, an exhibition on one of the most influential photographers
of all time. On view from May 23 through September 14, 2008, Philip-Lorca
diCorcia is the first showing of a powerful installation of 1,000 of the
artist’s Polaroid photographs, titled Thousand. The exhibition also
features works from his key series of the past twenty years including
Hustlers, Streetwork, Heads, and Lucky 13. DiCorcia’s merging of a high
degree of photographic preconception with the happenstance of street
casting has become an influential mode of contemporary practice and
secured a place for diCorcia in photography’s pantheon.
DiCorcia’s installation of Thousand (completed in 2007), his most recent
series, gives an alternative view of the infinite possibilities and
practice of photography. LACMA is honored to be hosting the first gallery
installation of the photographer’s selection of 1,000 of his Polaroids,
which cumulatively offers a vantage point into this artist’s sensibility
and visual preoccupations.
In his series Hustlers (1990-92), diCorcia selected locations along Santa
Monica Boulevard, typically at twilight or night. The artist would then
cast hustlers on the streets around him as his subjects. The series
Streetworks (1993-1998) is an ambitious, international project that illuminates the unconscious choreography and infinite events that occur on
city streets. In Heads (2001-2003), diCorcia’s long-lens camera and
remotely triggered flash singled out people walking on a New York street,
creating random archetypes of a contemporary city.
DiCorcia’s Lucky 13 (2004) hovers on the edge of social acceptability in
its stark and dramatic visualization of pole dancers. As with his other
works, diCorcia’s keen depiction of his subjects offer an open-endedness
of meaning for the viewer to explore.
“We are very excited to be working with Philip-Lorca diCorcia on this
exhibition,” says LACMA’s Curator of Photography, Charlotte Cotton. “He
has an intense and complex vision of the world and both facets of this
exhibition resonate with Philip-Lorca’s unique perspective.”
Born in 1951, DiCorcia studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston and then received a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University in
Photography in 1979. A grant recipient of the National Endowment for the
Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, he received early
acknowledgement of his contribution to photography in 1993 with a solo
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His work was later
exhibited in the 1997 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American
Art, New York,in “Cruel and Tender” at the Tate Modern, London (2003), and
his most recent monographic exhibition was held at the ICA, Boston in
2007. DiCorcia’s books include Philip-Lorca diCorcia (1995); Streetwork
1993-1997 (1997); Heads (2001); A Storybook Life (2003); and Thousand
(2007).
Image: (United States, born 1951) Mike Miller; 24 years old; Allentown, Pennsylvania; $25. 1990–92
From the series Hustlers Chromogenic development (Ektacolor) print
Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner Gallery, New York © Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Press Contact: For additional information, contact LACMA Press Relations at press@lacma.org or 323 857-6522.
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