“I’m not exactly misanthropic, but the idea that you can manipulate people and the world is an interesting and compelling motivation for me“.
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (2014)
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (b. 1951) is an American photographer who combines a street photography style with well staged scenes. A kind of staged candid street photography. To achieve this he researches sites and sets them up, usually without the actual subject in place. He then sets up a camera to capture his subjects, sometimes, unknowingly and other times to recreate a grabbed street photography moment. His lighting is theatrical and is a combination of natural daylight and studio lighting.
In one series he set up a tripod in with overhead strobe lighting. The camera triggered as passers-by walked past resulting in Streetwork (1998) and Heads (2001). In these series he does not know the subjects never speaks to them, doesn’t seek their permission and doesn’t pay them. Unfortunately he was sued by one of the people in the Heads (2001) series for using their image for commerce and advertising. The case eventually ruled in diCorcia’s favour because the person was walking in a public place. In addition he had not hidden himself away and also was not portraying them in a negative fashion.
DiCorcia discusses this difficult situation in this YouTube video: Philip-Lorca DiCorcia – Exposed at Tate Modern uploaded by Tate on 15 September 2010. He seems sympathetic to his subjects as he admits to probably not liking it if it happened to him. However, he maintains his right to do. In fact this is one of the points this work highlights, there are CCTV and surveillance cameras across large cities and people are unaware of how many times they are captured.
His study was to show, not how people are different, but how they are all the same. He was not trying to hide from them, he was “trying to show how they were trying to hide from those around them“. This is a trait of most of his work where what a person shows on the outside is not necessarily who they are on the inside.
In a 2014 video by HepworthWakefield published ion 19 February 2014 diCorcia creates everyday scenes and adds “dramatizing’ elements staging, lighting and coloured props, which viewers see as a narrative. The curator Dr Sam Lackey describes how diCorcia work blurs the line between what is real and what is fictional…what is documentary and what the artist is in control of. “It questions the fundamental premise of when you see a photograph you are seeing the truth“.
Because his work is cinematic he understands why people think his images contain stories. However, his process is based on what he calls a persons ‘interiority’ and how it is very different from their external appearance and how “to some degree life is a performance“.
He admits to not being comfortable taking pictures of people and has always distanced himself from the subject, rarely knowing them or even speaking to them. As the photographer he does not have a privileged relationship with the sitter which is unlike a traditional shoot. This comes across in the images and enables the viewer to bring there own meaning to the work.
His early work of the 70s and 80s was based indoors where he captured friends and family in mundane domestic scenes. Mario (1978) is a prime example of use of light, one from the refrigerator and a flash under the kitchen wall cabinets, to create a surreal atmosphere. The late 80s saw him move outdoors to produce the series Hustlers (1989) which was produced at the time of the AIDS crisis. His subjects were male prostitutes. He paid them the equivalent amount of their usual services to be photographed in a scene where he had already scouted the locations and planned compositions. This preparation was not only to control production values but to speed up the end-to-end process and reduce the legal risks associated with negotiations with prostitutes.
This work raised controversy from various quarters. Right wing politicians and religious groups were against federal money being used for exhibitions to display ‘scandalous’ work. Others felt that diCorcia was exploiting his subjects and that the work did not improve or raise awareness of their plight. The inclusion in the image titles of the amount he paid was also felt to be a moral boundary that art should not cross. He revisited similar territory to anger right wing groups with a series of scantily clad pole dancers Lucky Thirteen (2005).
Philip-Lorca diCorcia is not a prolific photographer and will be due to the time he puts in to the set up and production of each of his series. It is very thoughtful and most of his outdoor work has pushed boundaries of acceptability which I believe is one of the intentions of his work. Obviously critics and reviewers are going to place standards on him, the author, but he is asking questions of the viewer and making them consider there own views and what type of people they are.
Martyn Rainbird 