TULSA
Larry Clark
New York: Grove Press, 2000. First edition thus [originally published in wrappers, 1971 and cloth from first edition sheets in 1979]. Folio. Black cloth titled in silver gilt. Photo illustrated dust jacket. Unpaginated. 64 full page halftones. Interior unmarked and very clean. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. A true classic.
9.25 x 12.25 hardcover facsimile edition with 64 of full-page black and white photos of life in Oklahoma (1963-1971). One of the highlights of the New Documentary movement, and a Roth 101 title, to boot. Larry Clark's photographs in Tulsa are unflinching portrayals of difficult and often unsightly circumstances viewed through a participant's eyes. Their first hand intensity, recollects the work of Danny Lyon and Bruce Davidson, but Clark's raw voyeurism and insistent exposure of detail results in a somberness that differentiates his work from that of others in the early 1970s. His recent photography addresses similar subjects, but with the distance of an observer, and a more prominent formal sensibility.
When it first appeared in 1971, Larry Clark’s groundbreaking book Tulsa sparked immediate controversy across the nation. Its graphic depictions of sex, violence, and drug abuse in the youth culture of Oklahoma were acclaimed by critics for stripping bare the myth that Middle America had been immune to the social convulsions that rocked America in the 1960s. The raw, haunting images taken in 1963, 1968, and 1971 document a youth culture progressively overwhelmed by self-destruction -- and is as moving and disturbing today as when they first appeared. Originally published in a limited paperback version and republished in 1983 as a limited hardcover edition commissioned by the author. Now from Grove Press, this seminal work of photographic art and social history is once again available to the general public. Rejoice.
Tulsa is a collection of black-and-white photographs by Larry Clark of the life of young people in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its publication in 1971 "caused a sensation within the photographic community", leading to a new interest in autobiographical work. Later better known for directing the movie Kids, Clark was a Tulsa native and a drug addict during the period (1963–1971) when he took the photographs. The book is prefaced by the statement:
“i was born in tulsa oklahoma in 1943. when i was sixteen i started shooting amphetamine. i shot with my friends everyday for three years and then left town but i've gone back through the years. once the needle goes in it never comes out. L.C.”
Tulsa, Clark's first book, was published in 1971 by Lustrum Press, owned by Ralph Gibson. It has been claimed that thanks to Gene Pitney's 1960 song "Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa", Tulsa then represented "young love and family values"; Clark's book challenged this with scenes of young people having sex, shooting up drugs, and playing with guns.
Clark has said that he "didn't take these photographs as a voyeur, but as a participant in the phenomenon,”and commentary on the book has emphasized how Clark did not just live with the teenagers portrayed but "did drugs with them, slept with them, and included himself in the photographs"; this conferred an authenticity on the work, which brought it great praise.
Criticism of Tulsa has not been limited to a visceral rejection of images of drugtaking, casual sex, and gunplay; Martin Parr and Gerry Badger say that the "incessant focus [of Tulsa and Clark's 1983 book Teenage Lust] on the sleazy aspect of the lives portrayed, to the exclusion of almost anything else — whether photographed from the 'inside' or not — raises concerns about exploitation and drawing the viewer into a prurient, voyeuristic relationship with the work.”
Clark discusses his techniques in the book Darkroom, published in 1977 by Lustrum Press. Referring specifically to Tulsa he says: "I do a lot of burning and dodging when making a print and then use bleach. There's not a straight print in the TULSA book. when I'm photographing I always try to shoot against the light (refers to the cover image from Tulsa entitled 'Dead, 1970'). The film can't handle this and everything gets burned up, since I'm exposing for the shadows.”
Larry Clark [Tulsa, 1943 –] worked in his family's commercial photographic portrait business before studying photography with Walter Sheffer at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1961 to 1963. He served in the military during the Vietnam War and has been a freelance photographer based in New York since 1966.
During the 1960s, Clark documented the culture of drug use and illicit activity of his friends in Tulsa, and his photographs from those years were published as Tulsa (1971). Considered shocking for its graphic portrayal of the intimate details of its subjects' risky lives, the book launched Clark's career. After Tulsa, he produced Teenage Lust (1983), a series of photographs depicting adolescent sexuality, Larry Clark (1992), and The Perfect Childhood (1993). His work has been included in group and solo exhibitions since the early 1970s, and he was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Photographers' Fellowship in 1973 and a Creative Arts Public Service photographers' grant in 1980. Clark has also produced films; Kids (1994), based on his experiences with New York City teenagers and their culture of drugs, alcohol, and sex, and Another Day in Paradise (1999).