| Danny Lyon’s photographic and film projects are characterized by a profound personal intimacy with his subjects. His best-known works include The Bikeriders (1968), a photographic odyssey following biker subcultures for which he joined and traveled with the Chicago Outlaws motorcycle gang, and Conversations with the Dead (1971), an empathetic exploration of the lives of individuals in the Texas prison system. Equally personal documentary films or texts capturing the lives of his subjects often accompany his projects. |
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Elisabeth Sussman
Elisabeth Sussman is the Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is the curator of Danny Lyon’s Montage, Film, and Still Photography, on view there until December 2.
Danny Lyon’s photographic and film projects are characterized by a profound personal intimacy with his subjects. His best-known works include The Bikeriders (1968), a photographic odyssey following biker subcultures for which he joined and traveled with the Chicago Outlaws motorcycle gang, and Conversations with the Dead (1971), an empathetic exploration of the lives of individuals in the Texas prison system. Equally personal documentary films or texts capturing the lives of his subjects often accompany his projects.
Lyon’s work also reflects a long-term interest in the grouping and sequencing of imagery. Early in his career he was struck by the power of collections of vernacular pictures or objects—pinned casually to a wall, pasted into a scrapbook, or stuffed into a wallet. In this context, his carefully edited photographic and film montages, often combined with remnants of personally significant imagery, become narratives rich in private history and emotional meaning. The artist has said that over time his original desire to be anonymous "collapsed," and he gradually began to include himself in his work.
In the selection of work for Montage, Film, and Still Photography, including montages incorporating images from The Bikeriders and Conversations with the Dead as well as two little-known films, Lyon demonstrates a style that is uniquely his. His images align themselves with the New Journalism style of photography as they position the artist simultaneously as observer and participant. At the same time, they reveal the influence of such classic American photographers as Eugene Smith, Walker Evans, and Robert Frank. Shown for the first time as a group are montages from his 1999 book Knave of Hearts, nostalgic vehicles of memory and emotion created during the artist’s retrospective of his own career.
