Lucky 13 & Hustlers
The Voyeur at Work

The Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam presents Lucky 13 & Hustlers, on display between April 14th and June 21st, 2006. World famous for showing photography that is both beautiful and critical of Western society, the Foam museum is opening up new avenues for subjects that are not always bound to a single genre. Part beauty and part documentary, Lucky 13 & Hustlers examines the public and the private aspects of the world’s sex industry.

With his meticulously staged and elegant color photography Philip-Lorca diCorcia occupies a unique position in contemporary photography. DiCorcia operates somewhere between postmodern fiction and the actuality of documentary photography. To say his images have a powerful emotional content is an understatement. Viewing them has the effect of opening up the viewer’s very soul and taking hold with a monstrous force. Often diCorcia concentrates on recording a particular person who is apparently oblivious of the viewer’s presence.

Besides evoking a sense of voyeurism, a recurring element in diCorcia’s work is the impression of the subject’s melancholic descent into introspection. This gives his work a powerfully enigmatic, psychological impact. A central feature of the show is diCorcia’s recent series Lucky 13, which depicts pole-dancers against a neutral black background. This work is presented in combination with monumental images from his famous Hustler series, portraying male prostitutes in urban settings.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia, born in 1953, attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Yale University. Since 1977 his work has been the subject of numerous one-man exhibitions. His photographs are in the collections of major institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

For more information visit http://www.foam.nl


Captions

Brunette

Logan 2004 © Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Galerie Almine Rech, Paris

Blonde Girl

Juliet Ms., Muse, 2004 © Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Galerie Almine Rech, Paris