Armed Robbers, Oklahoma City

Larry Clark

1975, printed 1981 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

A child of Eisenhower’s straitlaced and conformist 1950s America, Clark saw the camera as a way to "turn back the years" and photograph a younger crowd doing the kinds of things he either did or wanted to have done when he himself was a teenager—shooting drugs, shacking up with prostitutes, and committing all manner of crimes. Because of the nature of who and what he was photographing, almost all of Clark’s work from this period would become memorial in nature. This double portrait makes manifest the dangerous allure that is often attached to portrayals of criminality.

Artist

Larry Clark

Date

1975, printed 1981

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1994