LARRY CLARK STUFF Art Happening

reporter: Miguel Dominguez

Larry Clark Stuff, Boo-Hooray‘s exhibition drawn from Larry’s personal collection of skateboard decks, skater t-shirts and related posters, stickers, photographs and stuff had it's New York opening in the Chelsea art district of New York on March 6th.

Curated by Johan Kugelberg, the show features Larry’s collection of skateboard decks and t-shirts spanning the late 1980′s up until today showcasing the guerrilla graphic design of companies like Fuct and Supreme, alongside outfits and boards used in Larry’s movies Wassup Rockers and Marfa Girl. We are also showing a comprehensive collection of Larry Clark movie posters, exhibition posters and skateboard culture posters alongside portraits of Larry wearing a selection of vintage Fuct t-shirts. This is an expanded version of the show at MOCA in Los Angeles last February.

Johan Kugelberg and Larry Discussing the exhibit

Lawrence Donald "Larry" Clark (born January 19, 1943) is an American film director, photographer, writer and film producer who is best known for the movie Kids and his photography book Tulsa. His most common subject is 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. He 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

In 1959, Clark began injecting amphetamines with his friends. 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."

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 book Tulsa in 1971, a photo documentary illustrating his young friends' drug use in black and white. 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 prestigious 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 and asked Korine to write the screenplay for his first feature film, Kids which was released to controversy and some critical acclaim in 1995. Clark continued directing, filming a handful of additional independent feature films in the several years after this.

Clark is represented by Simon Lee Gallery in London and the Luhring Augustine Gallery in New York City. He has one son and one daughter.

—Wikipedia Biography

Clark's films often deal with seemingly lurid material but are told in a straightforward manner. Directors such as Gus Van Sant and Martin Scorsese have stated that they were influenced by Clark's early photography, according to Peter Biskind's book Down and Dirty Pictures. In both his photographic and cinematic works, Clark pursues a set of related themes: the destructiveness of dysfunctional family relationships, masculinity and the roots of violence, religious intolerance and bigotry, the links between mass imagery and social behaviors, and the construction of identity and sexuality in adolescence.

Film critics who do not find social or artistic value in Clark's work have labeled his films obscene, exploitative, and borderline child pornography because of their frequent and explicit depictions of teenagers using drugs and having sex. In Kids, his most widely known film, boys portrayed as being as young as 12 are shown to be casually drinking alcohol and using other drugs. The film received an NC-17 rating, and was later released without a rating when Disney bought Miramax. Ken Park is a more sexually and violently graphic film than Kids, including a scene of auto-erotic asphyxiation and ejaculation by an apparently underage male (although the actors are all 18 and older). As of 2008, it has not been widely released nor distributed in the United States.

In Australia, Ken Park was banned for its graphic sexual content, and a protest screening held in response was immediately shut down by the police. Australian film critic Margaret Pomeranz, co-host of At the Movies, was almost arrested for screening the film at a hall. The film was not released in the United States, but Clark says that it was because of the producer's failure to get releases for the music used.

Clark has won the top prizes at both the Cognac Festival du Film Policier (for Another Day in Paradise), the Stockholm Film Festival (for Bully) and the Rome Film Festival (for (Marfa Girl). He has also competed for the Golden Palm (Kids) and Golden Lion (Bully).