A Review of Philip-Lorca diCorcia Exibition at the MoMa

Philip-Lorca diCorcia (born 1951) is an American photographer. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Afterwards diCorcia attended Yale University where he received a Master of Fine Arts in Photography in 1979. He now lives and works in New York, and teaches at Yale University.. He has been recognized since the 1980’s for portraits of subject in settings at once vivid and ordinary. Treading the fine line between fiction and reality, his photographs , although staged , are still very much part of the history of documentary street photography.

This MoMa exhibition features photographs that explore fantasy, sexuality , danger , and commodity. The large-scale photograph Tennille , from the series lucky Thirteen , depicts a pole dancer caught in mid-routine, her body is showered in bright lights. For his hustler series , a selection of which are on view at the MoMa presently, diCorcia sought out male subjects in an area of Hollywood known for prostitution and drug trade. The men posed under dramatic lighting in hotel rooms and laundromats or outside fastfood restaurants. Each portrait is titled with the subject’s name, age , the city he came from , and the amount diCorcia paid him for posing , corresponding to the fees the subjects charged their usual services.

The different Parts of this series can be found by clicking on the links : Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4

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