Larry Clark: "The Uncensored American Dream?"
Julie Fishkin
Larry Clark, Untitled, 1996. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, NY
As a photographer and scandalous filmmaker, Larry Clark has been systematically rejected in mainstream media while extolled as a visionary auteur by his fans and followers for the same reason: his lurid and stark depiction of emotionally depraved, violent and drug-hording teens in their unfiltered reality. His film KIDS released at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995 remains unrated due to the frenzy of paranoia it caused by candidly showing young New York City skaters who party to oblivion, consume drugs in abundance and constantly engage in mindless, unprotected sex. Although this film received wide-release and critical acclaim for its sordidly novel approach to reality, Clark’s future efforts to depict America at its inglorious worst were less successful. His next film Another Day in Paradise (1998) was greeted with general indifference but Clark unflinchingly pursued his grim vision with the release of Bully (2001), a gruesome true story about a group of disaffected, small-town kids who, amidst incessant sex scenes, plot and execute the murder of their friend. Both films met with indignant censors who accused Clark of showing gratuitous sex and violence thus thwarting his efforts to disclose America’s dirty secrets and ineffable taboos. In fact, his latest film, Ken Park (2002) has not been released in the U.S. Ken Park opens with a teenage skater shooting himself and unravels through integrated vignettes about a kid sleeping with his girlfriend’s mother, masturbation in tandem with self-asphyxiation, a paternal desire to perform fellatio on his own son, and other traumatic instances of life. Clearly, the American censors could not figure out a viable solution for proper expurgation without banning it altogether. Perhaps Clark is a depraved pervert whose penchant for teenagers in lust is somewhat disturbing but at least he is shamelessly frank. What’s unfortunate is that mass audiences cannot accept brutal honesty when it seems too close to home, a feeble reason to shut our eyes and ears and disregard Clark’s picture of our own failures, perverse inclinations, and gut-wrenching predilections.
The International Center of Photography acknowledges the importance and the startling immediacy of Clark’s rarely-seen work with a retrospective curated by Brian Wallis on display from March 11 to June 5, 2005. This exhibition includes images from his books Tulsa (1971), Teenage Lust (1983), 1992 (1992), and The Perfect Childhood (1993). The show follows the chronological order of his work with over 200 photographs, and three feature films. One particularly noteworthy part is the "Collage and Video" section with newspaper clippings, some photographs, notes and videos. One newspaper article recounts how some kid committed murder; it hangs next to a hand-written note summarizing the story, directly next to a large t-shirt that says "BLOW ME" in big black print, an almost droll gesture that uses the crude to somehow mitigate the serious and the scary. Other collage images include posters of "teen idols" and even a blown up chart from St. Luke’s Hospital with Clark’s own drug history meticulously hand-written in vivid detail. For the video segment, Clark taped three separate episodes of Phil Donahue’s Talk Show, each depicting a different 13 year old boy who is accused of rape, the murder of his parents, and one who had a relationship with a 35 year old woman. This part of the exhibition stands out as a sort of twisted archive the purpose of which, as Wallis noted, is to look at how media has affected teenage culture by showing teens at their worst. Clark, then, seeks to understand their personal explanations in observing how they respond to their crises. This maelstrom of images and stories that one doesn’t simply stumble upon by accident, exacerbated by the injection of Clark’s personal history, is particularly disturbing because it depicts the artist’s successful quest for the most wretched and degenerate. And yet Clark continues digging deeper, pushing boundaries that border on invasive and rejecting any objections that his work may incite. Clark once responded to the claim that the sex in his work is pornography with the following (as he said in the LA Weekly, November 2001). "Well it’s not porn because it’s documentary. It’s real things happening; it’s not set up. I mean why can’t you photograph everything about life? Why can’t you photograph intimate moments? People say, ‘Oh no, I can’t take a picture of that.’ Why can’t you? People photograph your first communion, why can’t you photograph your first blowjob? It’s part of life. That’s why it’s not porn."
Larry Clark is not a social commentator or an objective observer; his photographs, like his films, are not ones you can look at and forget once you have left the gallery or museum. Clark’s images of adolescents are difficult, visceral, devastating, and challenging. They force the viewer into a confrontation with each picture of abject life where a teenager can blast his veins with speed, only to search for one last remnant of an unmarked vein on his body where he can inject the next dose. Clark portrays the aimless intensity, indefatigable desires, and utter self-destruction without judgment, contempt or limitations. In fact, it is his personal involvement with the subject matter that makes each image so raw and powerful more so than just an honest depiction of friends à la Ryan McGinley, for example, whose images show his entourage of the tragically hip. In contrast, Clark’s authenticity rests in the fact that he is clearly disturbed yet absolutely brilliant.
The images will surely shock and appall some by calling us to witness despondency through drugs, sexual promiscuity, and violence of his youth. Perhaps other viewers will not be fazed; regardless, a collection of Clark’s work demands at least a cursory examination especially for today’s jaded American youth. We will undoubtedly observe the usual Larry Clark melee of genitals, blood, syringes, guns, empty bottles, bruises, and death — brought together through a demoralizing glance at the antithesis of the American Dream: its tragic nightmare.
ICP is located at 1133 Avenue of the Americas @ 43rd St.
