Photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia at the Hepworth Gallery


Johnny Tucker finds an often surprising emotional depth in the work of Philip-Lorca diCorcia, the US photographer and artist whose constantly developing photographic style is on show in a retrospective at the Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield


BP

Main picture: 'Ralph Smith, 21 years old, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, 25' 1990-2. Courtesy the artist, Spru¨th Magers, Berlin/London and David Zwirner, New York/London.

As we know, the camera has always lied. Scenes are selected, angled, cropped, editorialised, to show only what the photographer wants you to see. Even many of those 'classic moment' photographs, from the past are now being reassessed and found to have dubious documentary credentials, restaged or even set up.

Di...

Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Photo: Bob Collier

US photographer and artist Philip-Lorca diCorcia - whose first UK show to span his entire career to date, opens at the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield today (14 February) - plays with photography's ability to inhabit this space between fact and fiction, staging and reality, to create real life vignettes where so very little, if anything usually happens. DiCorcia's images are about the interstitial moments in the lives of the dislocated characters that populate his images.

Window

'Hartford', 1979. Courtesy the artist, Spru¨th Magers, Berlin/London and David Zwirner, New York/London

House

'Lynn and Shirley', 2008. Courtesy the artist, Spru¨th Magers, Berlin/London and David Zwirner, New York/London.

Starting from his early output he has worked very hard to create scenes in which nothing is left to chance, everything is meticulously controlled from setting, colour and lighting, through to body language and expression. The result is so many images of transitional moments in his subject's lives - a documentation of the (perhaps) unimportant instances when we live inside ourselves and wait to engage again with the world.

Hus1

'Chris, 28 years old, Los Angeles, California, $30', 1990-92. Courtesy the artist, Spru¨th Magers, Berlin/London and David Zwirner, New York/London

Stylistically and content wise there are obvious, and not new, comparisons to be drawn with the work of film maker David Lynch and painter Edward Hopper, particularly when it comes to diCorcia's series involving people living on the fringes of society, viz his two series involving people working in the sex trade (Hustlers, 1990-92 and Lucky 13 2004).

Hus2

'Roy, "in his twenties", Los Angeles, California, $30', 1990-92. Courtesy the artist, Spru¨th Magers, Berlin/London and David Zwirner, New York/London

Many of diCorcia's Hustler images contain a huge amount of emotional space that the viewer feels wont to fill. For this reason, in particular, Hustlers is a very difficult body of work to look at, not because of any graphic content, but quite the opposite. It's more about the sense of loss, longing, marginalisation. Nothing is happening, it's all left unsaid - very loudly unsaid.

Streetscene

'Tokyo', 1998. Courtesy the artist, Spru¨th Magers, Berlin/London and David Zwirner, New York/London

After the Hustler series, Streetwork (1993-99) saw him introducing an element of chance into the images. Cameras and lights, - sometimes hidden - were set up in public places in different cities across the world. The images capture real people as they travel to the next moment. The city scenery is a backdrop that in many instances, through depth of field control, look exactly like an artificial backdrop. The random people could be his characters again, against a greenscreen. It's a reversal of using staging to look real - now reality looks staged.

He took the level of chance and the feeling of disclocation further with Heads (2000-01) and now with the same kind of street set up we only get the faces, with lighting causing backgrounds to fade almost to black and separate out the characters from their surroundings.

Faces

'Head # 24', 2001. Courtesy the artist, Spru¨th Magers, Berlin/London and David Zwirner, New York/London

Chance may have proved a fine thing, but moving forward diCorcia, returned to a hyper level of control for Lucky 13 (2004) with the subject matter of poledancers. A world away from Heads, he was back with fully staged scenarios, within the very tight constraint of the environs of the pole. Now he wasn't using people who were unaware, his subjects were people who were thoroughly used to being stared at, yet like Hustlers, 'invisible'in many ways.

13

'Hannah', 2004. Courtesy the artist, Spru¨th Magers, Berlin/London and David Zwirner, New York/London. Jpg

In his current and as yet unfinished series East of Eden (2008 to present), he seems to have taken on a more cinematic approach in scope and I have to say I'll need time to adjust and assimilate this part of his ouvre.

DiCorcia's work has a surprising emotional depth if you spend time with it. This is surprising in images that for the most part seem deliberately devoid of emotion, but diCorcia's work often blindsides you, by grabbing you and pulling you into an emotionalengagement with his scenarios and scene players. You complete the scenes in a way that is personal to you and this is particularly true for me in the work through to Heads. But that's just my emotional response. Yours could well be very different.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia: Photographs 1975- 2012
14 feb - 1 June
Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield

 








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