Teenage Lust. an Autobiography By Larry Clark

by Larry Clark

In Teenage Lust, Larry Clark returns to Oklahoma and the frank autobiographical material of his first book Tulsa (1971). This time he focused on the next generation, local teenagers, some of whom were the younger brothers of his old friends, whose lives were just beginning to spiral out of control through amphetamine use and petty crime. ‘Teenage Lust is a scrapbook whereas Tulsa is a movie,” he told [Mike] Kelley. The needles and guns that had been Tulsa’s key motives are reprised here, along with the seedy glamour of the addict turned outlaw. But Teenage Lust is also about innocence and its loss, subjects that would become central to Clark’s work in subsequent years, perhaps most successfully in his first feature film, Kids.’ Roth A., The Book of 101 Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century pp.244-5; Auer, M. and M., 802 photo books from the M + M Auer collection p.648.

Genres: Photography, Art

Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Larry Clark is an American photographer and filmmaker known for his raw and unfiltered depictions of youth culture. Often controversial, Clark’s black-and-white images unflinchingly capture overt sexuality, drug use, and violence, as seen in his iconic photobook Tulsa (1971) and his debut feature film Kids (1995). Clark is able to achieve a level of vulnerability and intimacy with his subjects. As he explains, “I am a storyteller. I've never been interested in just taking the single image and moving on. I always like to stay with the people I'm photographing for long periods of time.”

Born on January 19, 1943 in Tulsa, OK, Clark studied at a commercial photography school after working as an assistant to his mother, who worked as a portrait photographer of children. His large-scale retrospective “Kiss The Past Hello” was exhibited at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2010, and he has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Galerie Urbi et Orbi in Paris, the Taka Ishii Gallery in Tokyo, and at the International Center of Photography in New York. Clark currently lives and works between Los Angeles, CA and New York, NY. The artist’s works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland, among others.

Reviews

[Christina knox]

this book makes me so uncomfortable. fucking brilliant. i think you might get arrested if you made this in this day and age.

[Chris Molnar · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the internet you get lots of phonies trying to fake affectless cool or immediacy, their toadies pushing you to accept it, forced shock that doesn't even shock it's so remote from the emotional vocabulary of lived experience, little worlds of fakes faking to each other that nobody even notices for the most part. I think it hurts art the way that anybody can get a platform, it's all so devalued, nobody's stepping outside their comfort zone, everything is a comfort zone, no one is dying to be heard or trying to find the unheard, and really why even engage with any of it.

Not here, this is the opposite, the peak, Larry Clark’s magnum opus, photos + lengthy text, more than Tulsa even this is the most affecting yet totally unjudgmental unsentimental look at defiant dirtbagdom, aimless sensory hunger (maybe something that doesn't exist anymore now mediated by screen), a scream from below, Clark’s own circuitous muse strengthened and made legendary by his failures and side trips and appetites mentioned here briefly and unforgettably. An anti-comfort zone, hard to live and produce and impossible to sell or keep in print but Necessary all the same.

The movies can obscure how epochal an artist he is (though there is plenty good about them too), but he could easily be the most important photographer of the 20th century. His ability, inextricable from his vices and personality, to find and be present for moments that capture something deep and true about being alive that you can't find anywhere else. All of them influencing whole schools of aesthetic and thought, most of which have no idea they are a copy of a copy of one scummy burnout bohemian's early career. How they tell the story of the way life really feels - to me at least - not some kind of pretty narrative but brief overwhelming emotions that make everybody's wasted years worth it, something which in the moment at least I believe that photography is the only way to grasp.

[rndgmoat · Rating 5 out of 5]

The UW-Milwaukee Library fortunately had a copy of this rarer Larry Clark book when I attended. I was a huge fan of his movies, so I made a beeline to check it out. This is a rawer, more distilled version of movies like Kids and Bully. While many find his photography controversial for the subject matter, I'm a huge fan of his documentary style. Rather than being exploitative, I discern empathy and a desire to take these fucked up kids' deeply felt personal drama at face value. Highly recommended work.

[Dave Naz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a bk of photographs and some text by Larry Clark, who went on to make the movie "Kids." I've never seen "Kids."

It may or may not be legal to own this bk. In any case it is powerfully evocative. There is a part of me who wants to be on angel dust with all of these pretty, horny sociopaths.