Larry Clark 26.5.–12.8.2012 Oranienburger Str

Press information

Larry Clark 26.5.–12.8.2012 Oranienburger Str. 35/36 . 10117 Berlin . Täglich 11–20 Uhr 10/ermäßigt 5 Euro . Tel 030 28 44 41 60 . www.co-berlin.com

Adolescent beauty, sexuality and drug-induced action – Larry Clark radically and realistically documents the everyday life of US teenagers, transgressing bourgeois moral concepts. From the drug scene in his hometown of Tulsa in the early 1960s to contemporary skaters in Los Angeles his works capture extremely intimate moments. The authenticity of Clarke’s images expose the consequences of a dysfunctional society and question the social responsibility and moral stance of its members.

The revolutionary and unique aspect of his photographs is – to this day – the closeness and intimacy between him and the documented persons and situations. As opposed to a classical photo-journalist who views an unfamiliar world from the outside, Larry Clark does not only take an interest in the life of his protagonists. Far removed from any form of voyeurism, he himself is a fundamental part of the scene he photographs. It seems as if he has a familiarity with the persons portrayed rather than just observing them. Without Larry Clark, photography would not have freed itself from the constraints of objectivity. Hardly any other photographer has ever achieved the same degree of intensi- ty with which he immerses himself in his subject. It is here that the artist revives his own youth – each time with new protagonists.

Larry Clark uses a direct visual language that is both touching and disturbing and creates a fascinating dynamic between classical pictorial composition and a special choice of themes. His work focuses on the experience of a completely uninhibited sexuality. By exposure it, the artist never denounces or accuses but allows the viewers to make their own judgement.

C/O Berlin will present for the first time in Germany approx. 200 works of Larry Clark. In addition to his series “Teenage Lust” and “Los Angeles”, as well as videos, the main focus of the monographic exhibition is on collages, in which the artist combines found objects. In a similar way to a film or photo series, new associations and implications are created by supplementing the collages with newspaper cuttings, letters, posters and other objects. C/O Berlin will issue an exclusive publication on the occasion of the exhibition.

Individual art works in this exhibition might offend your moral sensibilities. Young persons under 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

Larry Clark C/O Berlin . Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin-Mitte . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.com Informationen and Dates

Exhibition May 26 to August 12, 2012 Opening Friday, May 25, 2012 . 7 pm Press tour Friday, May 25, 2012 . 11 am

Opening hours daily . 11 am to 8 pm Admission10 Euros . reduced 5 Euros

Organizer C/O Berlin International Forum For Visual Dialogues

Location C/O Berlin im Postfuhramt Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin

Press contact Mirko Nowak Phone 030.28 44 41 641 . [email protected] Auguststraße 5a . 10117 Berlin www.co-berlin.com

Media partner

Larry Clark C/O Berlin . Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin-Mitte . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.com Press images

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Larry Clark C/O Berlin . Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin-Mitte . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.com 11 12 13 14

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Larry Clark C/O Berlin . Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin-Mitte . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.com 18

20 Larry Clark C/O Berlin . Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin-Mitte . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.com 21

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01 Untitled, 1971 02 Untitled, 1971 03 Untitled, 1971 04 Dead 1970, 1968 05 Acid Lower East Side, 1968 06 Brother and Sister, 1973 07 The Girl Next Door, 1969 08 Untitled, 1979 09 Untitled, 1972 10 Jack & Lynn Johnson, Oklahoma City, 1973 11 Untitled, 1984 12 Jonathan Velasquez, 2004 13 Jonathan Velasquez, 2003 14 Jonathan Velasquez, 2003 15 Jonathan Velasquez & Tiffany Limos, 2003 16 Jonathan Velasquez, 2004 17 Untitled (moral inventory), 1989 18 Untitled, 1989 19 Untitled, 1989 20 Knoxville I, 2011 21 I want a baby before u die, 2010 22 I want a baby before u die (Detail), 2010 23 Cuba, 2011 24 Untitled, 1990

All Images © Courtesy of Larry Clark . Luhring Augustine, New York . Simon Lee Gallery, London

Print media can publish up to three images, online media only after permission. The images may only be used once and during the exhibition. The images may not be modified, cut nor otherwise be altered. The correct titles must always be mentioned. C/O Berlin, Larry Clark and the exhibition have to be mentioned in case of publication.

You can order the press images at Mirko Nowak under [email protected] . 030.284 44 16 41

Larry Clark C/O Berlin . Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin-Mitte . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.com Biografie

Larry Clark, born in 1943 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is one of the most important US photographers. He gained his first experience of photography during his schooldays when he helped his mother portrait children. Between 1961 and 1963 he completed his studies in photography at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. From 1964 to 1966 he was a soldier in the Vietnam War. From the beginning of the 1960s he documented the life of his friends in Oklahoma. He published the subsequent photographs, which received worldwide acclaim, in 1971 with the title “Tulsa”. In the next series, “Teenage Lust” from 1983, he once again focused on the theme of sex, drugs and violence among teenagers. Following this, Larry Clark continued to photograph teenagers, however in the less documentary form of portraits – the series “The Perfect Childhood” (1989-1992) testifies to this creative period. Since the 1990s he has produced films such as “Kids” (1995), “Another Day in Paradise” (1999), “Bully” (2001), “Ken Park” (2002) and “Destricted” (2006). His work has been exhibited in institutions worldwide, including the P.S.1 / MoMA in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Photographers’ Gallery in London, the International Center of Photogra- phy in New York and Musée d´Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Larry Clark lives and works in New York.

Larry Clark C/O Berlin . Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin-Mitte . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.com Media Transformer By Felix Hoffmann . Curator C/O Berlin

1. Is the medium the message? In 1967 Marshall McLuhan published the book The Medium is the Message. After first challenging the medium, he advocates its relevance as a message carrier: it is not the respective “content” and the practicality of the media that is decisive but rather the choice of media also influences and shapes the way human beings live together: in the 20th century, records prompted a completely new form of social cooperation – in a very different way to the live concerts, which could not be recorded until the beginning of the 20th century. The fact there is no longer a need for physical sound storage mediums in the 21st century has allowed music to become a constantly available cultural commodity that can be distributed without a carrier medium. Each thing – even the diamond stylus, which traces the grooves of the round, black vinyl – is its own posit, which is not structured according to the content but according to the type of media: a record differs from an mp3-player not only because the music is stored and distributed in a different way but also above all because of the mobile aspect.

In photography, new developments, pleasure in experimentation and innovation have always been communicated in the form of books. The history of the medium of photography in the past 90 years makes it evident that books not only serve to illustrate, or contribute to the dissemination of a photographic work, but represent an autonomous medium. The way in which pictures are sequenced to form a narrative allows an autonomous interpretation to develop between two covers of a book, creating new visual levels of meaning.

2. Larry Clark’ career also began very suddenly in 1971 when his first book of photographs, Tulsa, was published. In this book he compiled visual material from the period between 1963 and 1971. The portraits, snapshots, filmstrips and a few, brief sentences or comments create an unusually compact work, which made a huge impact on the art scene. The portrait-format book, with only 62-pages, was issued by the publishing house founded by Ralph Gibson, Lustrum Press. From the perspective of the participating viewer, it highlights a particular social group of youths and young adults, who had never been documented on photos in this way previously. The shallowness of a social group that has been ignored because they have been perceived as a te dead end” is the central focus of the publication. In the course of his life, Larry Clark has edited numerous books. In all of them he works on the medium in his own way, which means he never simply illustrates an existing work complex because for him a book is and autonomous object and medium. He combines pictures with one another and in this sequence allows rhythms and a context of meaning to develop and unfold their own narrative. (Fig. double spread Tulsa small)

In 1968, parallel to his first book, he produced his own film on 8mm-material with the same title Tulsa, which was the starting point for an extensive cinematic œuvre. Parts of this film appear in the book as au tonomous illustrated pages. Set up as a double spread in the book, four filmstrips positioned next to one another create a visual sequence made of body parts, the portrait of Billy Mann (one of the protagonists in Tulsa), a man sitting on the bed and an arm with very visibly protruding veins. The individual images on the filmstrips repeat virtually the same image as a vertical sequence – a millisecond from the film. The book and the film are interwoven from the very beginning.

The rhythm of the pictures creates a pat tern with a structure made up of horizontal and vertical lines can be read as reference to a paradigm of modern art. In 1978 Rosalind Krauss pointed out two aspects in her essay The Originality of the Avantgarde and other Modernist Myths: on the one hand the function of the grid as an equalising composition within Modernist art (for example in the case of Piet Mondrian or Agnes Martin), and on the other hand the window motif, whose grilles structure the gaze to the outside. The window not only frames the view to the outside and divides it through the struts into segments, but it also allows a matrix to develop: “By means of the grid, each respective work of art is presented as a mere fragment, a tiny piece, which is removed at random from the infinitely larger ensemble. “ Thus the grid operates from the work of art outward, compelling our acknowledgement of a world beyond the frame”. Just like Mondrian’s abstract paintings, Clark’s film structure in Tulsa can also be read as a section of “implicit continuity”: the composition of the image is no longer merely a reference to the image itself but to the con- nection between the different elements. Clark’s pictures not only have an immanent sense of continuity because they are filmstrips but also as part of a book or a tiny part in an 8mm film. Here, the gri d refers to more, to an outer structure and complexity.

Larry Clark C/O Berlin . Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin-Mitte . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.com 3. In his second book Teenage Lust (1983), collages of filmstrips can be found once again – just like in Tulsa. However the centrepiece of the book is a collage made up of about 20 photos, which are no longer structured as a grid but as a superimposed cloud of images. The photos, which to some extent repeat themselves and overlap are taken from the book and combined to form a new system of reference. The principle of structuring the grid is done away with in favour of the pleasure of interweaving images and positioning them in direct relationship to one another, which Clark does by removing sections or figures from the picture and reassembling them. There is a repetition of individual motifs, like in the film grids, however these constantly generate new and different meanings: for example the duplica- tion of the figure of the young, naked man with a pistol in his left hand is at one point directed at as pecific figure in the montage while at another point he seems to crouch on top of another figure – while the meaning is changed by the inclusion of the erect genitals and the weapon. Individual images are thus constantly interwoven in a new way and placed in a different frame of reference. (fig. Teenage Lust Collage, small)

Following the collage in Teenage Lust, Clark has begun constructing collages from his own photographs, which he com bines with different materials such as newspaper cuttings, found objects or pictures by other people. In doing so, Clark not only draws on the techniques of Modernism (based on Krauss) but he also combines them with more comprehensive compositional strategies: repetition (the same photographs), citations (images that already exist in other works), the integration of different styles and the combination of several different forms of visual media. This method of approach makes Clark’s “love of materials” tangible – which reveals itself in a virtuoso fusion of media – as photographs or filmstrips in a book, as a moving image in a film and last but not least as a collage.

The principle, which is already inherent in books and films, is completed as cloud formations in the collages from the 1980s and after. With the title I want a baby before u die, the most recent “cloud collage” integrates all the aspects that Clark worked on in the previous decades: a picture of the pubic hair of Clarke’s girlfriend Tiffany, in which the name “Larry” is tattooed. On the left-hand side of the picture next to a newspaper cutting, the Renaissance portrait of a young man by Sandro Botticelli, a title page of the New Yorker, numerous newspaper cuttings, a toothbrush in a plastic bag and a newspaper image of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ. The ensemble triggers the viewer’s own associations, which allows not for a personal view but also a view of the current constitution of society: the personal becomes public and at the same time the public becomes personal. Stories emerge from this personal, network of images that are no longer told in a linear way – like in a book or a film. They extend out in all directions, reconnect and constantly allow for new contexts, rhythms and meanings to develop. These are created in the place where the gaze of the viewer lingers, perceiving the collages selectively and interpreting them individually.

If one reads the collage I want a baby before u die from left to right, the composition is balanced out by a second, larger photo showing a naked Jonathan Velasquez, the protagonist of the series Los Angeles. The most recent collages revolve formally and visually around him. He is the pivotal element of the composition: the early montage technique of the filmstrips from Tulsa and Teenage ng2057 Lust are taken up again and the grids combine to create new collages – new techniques of relating pictures to one another are combined with old ones. Narrative and sequentional patterns are given a new structure, which shows the immanent continuity with which Clark still works today: He doesn’t show what we think we see but the self in the other – like a mirror. As a result we must ask ourselves from what perspective we view things. Larry Clark turns the viewer into the medium. In the collages, not only are the different images combined with one another but the media book, film or photography also enter into a dialogue with one another. This collaboration makes Rosalind Krauss’ theory about the grid of modern painting obvious: the object itself does not reveal the content but extends the gaze to include a larger ensemble. There is an oscillation here between the self and the other: the universal approach of this form of art does not become evident until one realises how strongly Clark has transformed the media, causing it to constantly express something different. It is not only the contents of the works but also the diversity of media that make Clark a “media transformer”. And a collage from the work cycle Perfect Childhood contains a tiny scrap of newspaper with a quote from von Marshall McLuhan: “The criminal like the artist is a social explorer”. That too.

Larry Clark C/O Berlin . Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin-Mitte . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.com Film program accompanying the Larry Clark exhibition TMI – too much information

TMI—or Too Much Information—is a term borrowed from popularized youth culture in the United States. Offered ‘too many’ or ‘too personal’ details about sex, especially from adults, ‘TMI’ offers an abbreviation indicating the transgres- sion of barriers of privacy and intimacy and the refusal of adult entry into and influence on concepts of sex, desire and erotics as developed by young people themselves. Beyond the apparent dualisms of the public and the personal, the acceptable and the taboo, and the self and the other, the film series TMI reflects on the (neoliberal) power structures that regulate social and political dynamics of excess. Violence, drug use, sexual abuse, incest, homosexuality, sexual pleasure and reproduction have been and continue to be targeted as issues that demand certain restraint when presented to youth. The series TMI hones in on many of these issues, seeking to unpack them and to explore how emotions such as fear and shame are critical to creating and maintaining cultures of censorship and taboo. The films and videos that will screen as part of this series have been in part selected to provoke critical reflection about working across boundaries of sexuality, class, race, and age using visual media. How do artists incorporate reflection about their own positions and ensuing power relations into work? What are the artistic positions that cannot coexist with neoliberal youth cultures? How are techniques of capturing, producing and manipulating images utilized by artists to reflect upon the experiences or perceptions of youth and the power dynamics that exist within cross-generational relations, technologies and discourses? The film series TMI . Too Much Information has been curated by anthropologist Todd Sekuler and artist Aykan Safog˘lu to complement the topics of the first monographic exhibition of US-American photographer Larry Clark in Germany, presented by C/O Berlin at the Postfuhramt from May 26 to August 12, 2012.

Film program

June 5 2012, 9 pm . Imagining Past It did happen soon von Annika Eriksson, 2011 Premiere in Berlin . The Movie will be shown in a loop. Annika Eriksson is attending. Admission free.

June 12, 2012, 8 pm . Ambiguous Longing I didn‘t know that I loved you von Sharon Hayes, 2009 . Wednesdays von Deniz Buga, 2009 . Mala Noche von Gus Van Sant, 1986 . Peter Fucking Wayne Fucking Peter von Wayne Young, 1994

June 19, 2012, 8 pm . Dislocating Discourse Aggressive Child von William E. Jones , 2011 . She Puppet von Peggy Ahwesh, 2001 . New Report von Wynne Greenwood & k8 Hardy, 2005 . Why Poem von Bob Flanagan/Kirby Dick, 1997 . Fast Trip Long Drop von Gregg Bordowitz,1994

June 26, 2012, 8 pm . Desire Performed Jollies von Sadie Benning, 1990 . Brothers von Deniz Buga, 2003 . Ein Bild von Harun Farocki, 1983 . Impaled von Larry Clark, 2006 . Chinese Characters von Richard Fung, 1986

July 3, 2012, 8 pm . Press Record Window Water Baby Moving von Stan Brakhage, 1959 . Hunger von Masha Godovannaya, 2011 . A New Year von Sadie Benning, 1989 . Living Inside von Sadie Benning, 1989 . The Mom Tapes von Ilene Segalove, 1974

July 10, 2012, 8 pm . Identity in Transition Action Verité von François Ozon, 1994 . Between the Boys von Jake Yuzna Gênero, 2004 . Oblique von Knut Åsdam, 2008 . Ad Balloon von Lee Woo-jung, 2011 . Sibling Topics (section a) von Ryan Trecartin, 2009

July 17, 2012, 8 pm . Generations Light is calling von Bill Morrison, 2004 . Generations von Barbara Hammer & Gina Carducci, 2010 . UNTITLED (Dyketactics Revisited) von Liz Rosenfeld, 2005 . 13 Most Beautiful / Screen Tests Revisited von Conrad Ventur, 2009-2011

Larry Clark C/O Berlin . Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin-Mitte . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.com C/O Berlin International Forum For Visual Dialogues

Since its founding in the year 2000, C/O Berlin has been presenting a lively cultural program of international stature. As an exhibition center for photography, C/O Berlin presents the work of renowned artists, organizes events, promotes talented young artists, and accompanies children on voyages of discovery through our visual culture. C/O Berlin is a private institution that distinguishes itself through modern entrepreneurial thinking and up-to-date cultural manage- ment. Intensive educational work and close cooperation with institutions worldwide make C/O Berlin a unique locus of cultural exchange—one of a kind not only in Berlin, but in all of Germany.

Exhibitions We discover and present photography in all its variety. In the approximately 2,000 square meters of exhibition space at the former imperial Postfuhramt (Old Post Office), C/O Berlin exhibits the work of international photographers including Martin Parr, Annie Leibovitz, Anton Corbijn, Robert Mapplethorpe, James Nachtwey, Nan Goldin, Peter Lindbergh, Sibylle Bergemann, whose exclusively planned solo shows have affirmed C/O Berlin’s conceptual competence and high standards. A program of guided tours, lectures and artist talks provides more in-depth insights into different aspects of each exhibition’s subject matter and perspectives.

Talents We promote young talents and provide them with a first start towards their future. Since 2006, in the Talents series, C/O’s e.V. has been promoting young photographers and art critics, thus providing combined support to new talent in visual and text media. Each year, four photographers are chosen to exhibit their work on a speci fic theme at C/O Berlin as well as at the Goethe-Institut worldwide. Each solo exhibition is accompanied by a publication in which images and text enter into dialogue. The program was initiated in close cooperation with Deutsche Börse Group. As a platform for young international contemporary photography and art criticism the C/O Berlin Talents series is unique and unrivalled in Europe.

Lectures We promote photography through interdisciplinary dialogue and stimulate new discussions. Since 2002, the Lectures series explores current positions and questions in the fields of photography, design, and architecture in moderated discussions. At previous lectures, Daniel Libeskind, Karl Lagerfeld, Jeff Wall, Annie Leibovitz, and Gregory Crewdson have provided insights into their work and their personal experiences and views. Through this event series, C/O Berlin promotes discourse between the disciplines of visual art and design.

Junior Training visual perception and creatively realizing new propositions. Organized by C/O’s e.V., the Junior program offers children and teens the possibility to playfully get to know the creative disciplines of photography, design, and architecture. Up to twelve workshops a year are held by different teams of artists. Therefore, the six to fourteen- year-olds also gain an insight into individual artistic work. Junior thus adds the important aspect of visual education to the lively, multifaceted program of C/O Berlin. The Junior workshops are supported by Erfurt & Sohn.

Teens Recognizing cultural diversity, developing ideas together, gaining new experiences. With the Teens program C/O’s e.V. enables teenagers to get acquainted with visual media from photography to film under professional condi- tions and to playfully try them out in a team. In workshops over several days the fourteen to seventeen-year-olds not only acquire precise knowledge, but also train their visual perception and to deal with their own creativity. The Teens program is supported by Daimler Financial Services.

C/O’s e.V. C/O’s was founded in the spirit of providing support for C/O Berlin’s diverse activities. The aim of this non-profit association is to provide sustainable support for cultural projects, particularly from the disciplines of photography, design, and architecture. C/O’s e.V. provides funding for the Junior program of children’s and youth activities at C/O Berlin, as well as Talents, the program for talented young photographers and art critics.

Location Designed by Carl Schwatlo and erected between 1876 and 1881, the former Royal Post Office was used by the German postal system until 1995. In the beginning, the building served as the base for cartage operations, a post office, and the postal and telegraph school. After 1945 it was home to various government offices, such as GDR news distribution agency and a works polyclinic. Initial efforts at restoring the ancient monument, which had been started in the 1970s, remained uncompleted after German reunification in the year 1989. Since 2006, C/O Berlin has had tempo-

Larry Clark C/O Berlin . Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin-Mitte . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.com