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Dead 1970
Artist
Larry Clark
(American, born 1943)
Date1968
MediumBlack and white photograph
DimensionsImage: 8 1/4 x 5 5/8 in. (20.96 x 14.29 cm)
Sheet: 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.32 cm)
Framed: 17 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/4 in. (44.45 x 36.83 x 3.18 cm)
Sheet: 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.32 cm)
Framed: 17 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/4 in. (44.45 x 36.83 x 3.18 cm)
Credit LineCollection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase
Object number2014.20.1
Status
Not on viewCopyright© Larry Clark. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York.
Category
Label TextLarry Clark introduced Tulsa, his debut collection of fifty black-and-white photographs chronicling the sexual lives and drug addictions of himself and his suburban friends, in 1971. Clark’s unvarnished portrayals of the group’s activities introduced a new documentary rawness to fine art photography, and the series gained instant notoriety for exposing the dark side of young adult culture in the American heartland. Tulsa laid the ground for the artist’s subsequent work. In 1995, he released his first feature-length film, Kids, a coming-of-age story that earned praise and criticism for its frank depiction of sexually active teenagers navigating New York City at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Clark continues to create photographs and films that address the visceral experiences of young adults on the margins of American society.
Clark grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and started taking photographs in his early teens as an assistant to his mother, a door-to-door baby photographer. Between 1963 and 1971, Clark photographed his friends in his hometown. The Modern holds a portfolio of ten of Tulsa’s most iconic images. In Tulsa’s gritty, closely framed images, Clark positioned himself as both a participant and an artistic observer of a hidden world of self-destruction. Dead 1970, 1968, which appeared on the cover of the published portfolio, is perhaps the most famous photograph from the series. It depicts Clark’s friend Billy Mann, bare-chested and sitting cross-legged on an unmade bed, casually pointing a gun in the air, his finger on the trigger. Clark later added the caption ‘dead 1970’ after Mann died in 1970 of a drug overdose. As documents of lived experience, Tulsa’s images occupy a conceptual and moral gray area between reportage and voyeurism, empathy and exploitation.
Clark grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and started taking photographs in his early teens as an assistant to his mother, a door-to-door baby photographer. Between 1963 and 1971, Clark photographed his friends in his hometown. The Modern holds a portfolio of ten of Tulsa’s most iconic images. In Tulsa’s gritty, closely framed images, Clark positioned himself as both a participant and an artistic observer of a hidden world of self-destruction. Dead 1970, 1968, which appeared on the cover of the published portfolio, is perhaps the most famous photograph from the series. It depicts Clark’s friend Billy Mann, bare-chested and sitting cross-legged on an unmade bed, casually pointing a gun in the air, his finger on the trigger. Clark later added the caption ‘dead 1970’ after Mann died in 1970 of a drug overdose. As documents of lived experience, Tulsa’s images occupy a conceptual and moral gray area between reportage and voyeurism, empathy and exploitation.