The ridiculous thing is that all of this material can be found on the Internet. What can't be found is the quality of the design and the beauty of the stills on exhibit from the two cult series on American adolescence Tulsa and Teenage Lust. From any viewpoint, and even in the words of detractors, this investigation of lost time and the re-enactment in the 80's of materials and scenes from the '60s and '70s is the heart and the key to understanding the evolution of the creative inventor of the "heroin-chic" style, who is, paradoxically, the only person who did not benefit commercially from the trashy use (yes, this is pornographic) that the fashion industry made of it during the '90s. And even Liberation did not have the courage to publish; immediate fines would have been levied for handling these bipolar syndrome clichés that emerge raw from the bathroom into reality. The beauty emanating from the images of the empathetic frequentation of New York adolescents and prostitutes is emotionally intolerable.
In interviews, Clark continues to talk about the lost adolescence denied him by a conflicting relationship with his father and about his need to reclaim a period of his life which now extends into the chastity of his most recent production; the Jonathan Velasquez series demonstrates this desire to be subjectively understood by youth. Now, while continuing along the razor's edge amidst allegations regarding his compulsive obsession, the space between the Hollywood machine and the cinema of syrupy teen movies become the true bitter and dramatic nothingness in which the essence of adolescence is never represented. The void permeated with drugs, violence, sex and death fills Larry Clark's lens and frames. What is inebriating is the distance obtained for the spectator ; the close proximity is an elegant and extraordinary tête a tête with his subjects, far from the 'stalking' of Gus Van Sant (Elephant or Paranoid Park) – a dangerous rendering that ritualised the great American myths. Then there is the almost idiotic joy taken in drug use, stranglings, dangerous games with guns and syringes; this is neither Drugstore Cowboy nor the fierce pain of Nan Goldin but rather the bliss of the underground; it is something from the '70s that can still be revendicated. Perhaps, most recently, only the characters in Bertolucci's Dreamers have taken on such sweetly extreme poses and forms. Clark is still a manipulator of adolescence. He directs and reorganizes it in Kids, Bully, Ken Parker or in the most recent Wassup Rockers, but he almost dreams of substituting them and being able to stop time.
Only the disorder and dysfunction that comes with the most creative era in the history of our species can displace classicism or remodel mannerism. That is why, despite the censorship, the Paris exhibit is essentially a show for adults – a beautiful show for adult voyeurism. It is significant that a number of photos from his parents' studio (mainly his mother's) – Lew Clark Photography specializing in portraits of babies and pets – is the real introduction to the exhibition ; as is the Parisian indifference to the skaters who continue to perform their tricks on the parvis of the Musée d'Art Moderne ignoring the censorship and the useless artifacts in this fascinating exhibition that risks attaching non-reflective glass to the innocent anxiety of their existence. Ivo Bonacorsi
