Hollywood Posters Are Art to Photographer

For the last 3 1/2 years, photographer Don Weinstein has been on the artistic equivalent of a scavenger hunt.

Weinstein, who owns a custom photo lab in Hollywood, scours the streets there, keeping tabs on the posters that go up on buildings and construction sites.

Almost all the posters advertise some form of entertainment: movies, rock bands, records, magazines. Weinstein takes mental notes as they go up and keeps track as they are battered by weather, dirt and graffiti.

When the moment is right, he swoops in with his camera. The resulting pictures are fascinating. Like much good photography, they combine a fine art sensibility with a journalist’s look at contemporary society. Often the photographs look like collages, for the posters of Hollywood are plastered one on another, only to peel and tear away like layers of decaying skin.

Weinstein’s works are well worth the trip to the Pierce College Art Gallery, although finding the gallery is only slightly easier than nosing out art on the streets of Hollywood. It is in a low building near the top of a hill in the center of the campus. Weinstein said he is pleased to have a show at the school because he studied photojournalism at Pierce in the mid-1970s.

Many of the photos evoke emotion. One such is of Marilyn Monroe. The late actress has been the subject of so many posters and paintings, it is difficult to imagine a fresh treatment of her. But Weinstein’s shot makes Marilyn a haunting apparition as she looks out from behind graffiti and streaks of dirt.

“The subjects are very difficult to find,” said Weinstein. “The Marilyn one is a good example. The poster is the cover of an L.A. Style magazine. They plastered it all over. I waited and waited for something interesting to happen with one of them, but it never did. Then the posters disappeared.”

Six months later, he came upon the weathered Marilyn.

Juxtaposition is a key element in the works. One has a wane, lonely man appearing to watch a voluptuous chorus girl. In truth, the characters are from two different movie posters. Another shows part of Madonna’s face and, on an adjoining poster, the words “rock ‘n’ roll” in Japanese.

Weinstein said he composes the works in the camera, sometimes zeroing in on a small area. He usually takes just one shot and does little darkroom enhancement. The photographs are startling in their sense of dimension. Often the rips seem to be in the pictures themselves, not in the posters that were photographed.

Weinstein said posters come and go more quickly than ever in Hollywood, making it increasingly difficult to find subjects.

“Sometimes I’ll find posters piled up 20 layers thick,” he said. “We’re a throwaway society, and that’s something I try to get across.”

“Posters and Portraits,” a show by photographer Don Weinstein will run through March 13 at the Pierce College Art Gallery, 6201 Winnetka Ave., Woodland Hills. Gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 6 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays. For information, (818) 347-0551.