Oggi vi voglio presentare questo fotografo americano (ora si dedica prevalentemente alla regia cinematografica) che durante la sua adolescenza ha dato scandalo, fotografando la gioventù americana e raffigurandola senza filtri o mediazioni, con immagini dirette e molto esplicite. Quelle che trovate di seguito sono solo alcune e ho cercato di non mostrarvi le più pesanti.

Sicuramente negli anni 70 ha rotto gli schemi della fotografia ed ha aperto la strada a numerosi fotografi che hanno poi ripercorso queto tipo di strada.

Ciao

Anna

Non cerco di essere controverso, cerco solo di essere onesto e di dire la verità sulla vita. Venendo dal mondo dell’arte, non penso mai ci siano cose che non si possano fare o mostrare. Ritengo che i film di Hollywood stiano davverso sottovalutando il loro pubblico. Sono artista da tanti, tanti anni. Non sono interessato a fare film per fare soldi. Sono interessato a fare un lavoroc he mi soddisfi, mostrando le vite delle persone che nonv engono mostrate. Se vedessi questa cosa da altre parti, non do0vrei fare questi film. Larry Clark

Lawrence Donald Clark, meglio noto come Larry Clark (Tulsa, 19 gennaio 1943), è un fotografo e regista statunitense.

Fotografo fra i più influenti degli anni settanta e ottanta, fece le prime esperienze a seguito della madre, specializzata in ritratti infantili. Ha frequentato la Layton School of Art di Milwaukee, Wisconsin, e ha combattuto in Vietnam.

Il suo primo libro di fotografie, Tulsa, pubblicato nel 1971, riproduce foto scattate in tre distinti periodi (1963, 1968, 1971) nell’ambiente dei giovani tossicomani di Tulsa, Oklahoma, viventi sul confine e spesso oltre il confine della legge, ambiente di cui Clark fu fino a tutti gli anni sessanta parte attiva (guadagnandone anche alcuni soggiorni in carcere, uno per tentato omicidio). In questo protratto diario-reportage, Clark si limitò a vivere la vita del gruppo (che negli otto anni degli scatti procede verso un progressivo annichilimento) senza interferire e senza mai separarsi dalla macchina fotografica, ragione per cui queste foto in bianco e nero, spesso crude – con immagini di uso di aghi ipodermici, atti di violenza, sesso esplicito – ma sempre visivamente calibratissime, hanno un senso di verità assente da imprese simili. Tulsa ha influenzato largamente non solo la fotografia americana, ma anche il cinema, venendo direttamente citato come ispirazione da registi come Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver) e Gus Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy).

I libri successivi, in cui Clark adopera anche il colore (Teenage Lust, 1983, A Perfect Childhood, 1992) dimostrano un’attenzione sempre più accentuata e, secondo alcuni, morbosa, verso la sessualità adolescenziale, resa esplicita del resto dall’attività di regista cinematografico intrapresa come attività prevalente dal 1995 (Kids, 1995, Another Day in Paradise, 1997, Bully, 2001, Teenage Caveman, 2002, Ken Park, 2002 – occasione di scandalo e tuttora non proiettato negli Stati Uniti -, Wassup Rockers, 2005, The Smell of Us, 2014).

Fonte: Wikipedia

Qua trovate un’intervista rilasciata a Vice

Questo è il suo sito

I don’t try to be controversial, I just try to be honest and tell the truth about life. Coming from the art world, I never think there are things you can’t do or show. I think that Hollywood films are really underestimating their audience. I’ve been an artist for many, many years. I’m not interested in making films to make money. I’m interested in making work that I’m satisfied with, showing people’s lives that aren’t shown.  If I could see this anywhere else, I wouldn’t have to make these films. Larry Clark

Lawrence Donald “Larry” Clark (born January 19, 1943) is an American film director, photographer, writer and film producer who is best known for his controversial teen film Kids (1995) and his photography book Tulsa. His work focuses primarily on youth who casually engage in illegal drug use, underage sex, and violence, and who are part of a specific subculture, such as surfing, punk rock or skateboarding.

Clark was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He learned photography at an early age. His mother was an itinerant baby photographer, and he was enlisted in the family business from the age of 13. His father was a traveling sales manager for the Reader Service Bureau, selling books and magazines door-to-door, and was rarely home.  In 1959, Clark began injecting amphetamines with his friends.

Clark attended the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he studied under Walter Sheffer and Gerhard Bakker.

In 1964, he moved to New York City to freelance, but was drafted within two months to serve in the Vietnam War. His experiences there led him to publish the 1971 book Tulsa, a photo documentary illustrating his young friends’ drug use in black and white.

Routinely carrying a camera, from 1963 to 1971 Clark produced pictures of his drug-shooting coterie that have been described by critics as “exposing the reality of American suburban life at the fringe and … shattering long-held mythical conventions that drugs and violence were an experience solely indicative of the urban landscape.”

His follow-up was Teenage Lust (1983), an “autobiography” of his teen past through the images of others. It included his family photos, more teenage drug use, graphic pictures of teenage sexual activity, and young male hustlers in Times Square, New York City. Clark constructed a photographic essay titled “The Perfect Childhood” that examined the effect of media in youth culture. His photographs are part of public collections at several art museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In 1993, Clark directed Chris Isaak’s music video “Solitary Man”. This experience developed into an interest in film direction. After publishing other photographic collections, Clark met Harmony Korine in New York City and asked Korine to write the screenplay for his first feature film Kids, which was released to controversy and mixed critical reception in 1995. Clark continued directing, filming a handful of additional independent feature films in the several years after this.

In 2002, Clark spent several hours in a police cell after punching and trying to strangle Hamish McAlpine, the head of Metro Tartan, the UK distributor for Clark’s film Ken Park. According to McAlpine, who was left with a broken nose, the incident arose from an argument about Israel and the Middle East, and he claims that he did not provoke Clark.

In a 2016 interview, Clark discussed his lifelong struggle with drug abuse, although stating he maintained total sobriety while filmmaking. Clark stated that his films were made in periods of complete sobriety. He confessed that the only exception made to his practice of abstinence while filming was Marfa Girl 2. Clark explained that while filming that movie he used opiates for pain due to double knee replacement surgery

Source: Wikipedia