Whether you think of Weegee as an artist or not, it can be
easy sometimes to forgot how many good pictures he has made. The show is a great
display of his skill, an overwhelming salon hanging which is probably the best
way to experience Weegee, since his more prosaic shots only serve to establish
a mood of the noir world of his photographs. This mood is partially a result of his employment as a crime photographer
for the New York tabloids and partially his skilled craftsmanship that turns
what could easily have been evidential moments into small cinematic
triumphs. But even if you were to
chalk his work up entirely to being the result of his occupation, it is hard to
believe that it wasn’t a job that fit his personality. An underling gallows humor
infuses so much of his work, that in the masculine world of first responders to
a crime scene, I imagine he would have been an enjoyable person to share a
smoke with. Its also nice to see Kasher putting on a quality show of work that so
emphatically embodies their mission statement, that is, to show work that
occupies the boarder between art and vehicular images. It is also one of the
first shows since they moved to the ground floor that isn’t made up of highly commercial
National Geographic pictures.
Through Feb. 5th
0 comments:
Post a Comment