ART REVIEWS : A Photographic Tour of Disenfranchised Outsiders

Photographer Danny Lyon was 24 in 1965, the year he joined the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club. A young artist under the sway of the hands-on New Journalism then being pioneered by Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin and Gay Talese, Lyon figured the best way to do a photographic essay on a biker gang was to join one, so he spent the next three years roaring around the Midwest with a bunch of tattooed, beer-swilling dudes. “It was total madness,” says Lyon of the experience today.

It was a creative risk that led to one of the three critically acclaimed books Lyon produced while still in his 20s. “The Bikers,” as well as his books on the civil rights movement (“The Movement”), and the Texas prison system (“Conversations With the Dead”), are hailed today as classic examples of the style of candid, intensely personal documentary photography popularized by Diane Arbus, Robert Frank and Larry Clark.

Like those artists, Lyon brings such empathy and intelligence to the outsiders he photographs that he succeeds in transforming them into universal metaphors of the human condition. His best images have an iconic power that leaves an indelible stamp on the memory.

The subject of an exhibition at the Jan Kesner Gallery in Hollywood, Lyon’s work hasn’t been seen in Los Angeles for more than 10 years, so that makes this comprehensive show something of an event. Including a selection of images from his three books, along with a recent series on stock-car races and demolition derbies, this moving body of work is decidedly out of step with America’s current mood of nationalistic post-war hubris.

Taking us on a tour of disenfranchised subcultures, Lyon studies people who for various reasons found themselves unable to get with the program. Criminals, car fanatics, bikers and racial minorities are depicted engaged in activities revolving around or resulting from their attempts to achieve a sense of power and freedom in a world that didn’t willingly grant them that.

Lyon’s images of the civil rights movement are particularly wrenching (he shot these remarkable pictures when he was just 21). In light of what’s currently happening to black America--hit hard by crack, AIDS and gangs--it’s hard not to feel that the ‘60s civil rights struggles were in vain. Lyon reminds us of the hope, courage and brutality of that era in photographs of the “colored only” signs of the Deep South, a funeral of slain black children, a militant black teen-ager being roughed up by a cop. These images combined with those on the facing wall--of rebellious bikers and broken men wasting their lives in prison--all indicate some kind of unspecified fatal flaw. Lyon refrains from commenting on whether that flaw is in human nature itself, or in the way we’ve tried to organize ourselves as a society. He simply shows us the wreckage. Jan Kesner Gallery: 164 N. La Brea Ave., Hollywood , (213) 938-6834. To July 27. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

Carnival of Decay: Wreckage of another sort is on view a few doors down from Jan Kesner at the Fahey/Klein Gallery; photographer Joel-Peter Witkin, the master of all things morbid and macabre, is back in town with 10 new images. These new pieces aren’t notably different from the work he’s known for--Witkin is still obsessed with the cruel follies of nature and the show is mostly given over to pseudo-classical portraits of physical freaks suffering various deformities (hermaphrodites, dwarfs, amputees, etc.). Some of Witkin’s models are still living, others are dead, and all are quite beautifully photographed. Technically, Witkin is inarguably brilliant, however, the content of his work is another matter.

Thematically, Witkin’s work is a rat’s nest of provocative questions, the first being are these people for real and where does Witkin find them? Yes, his pictures are for the most part authentic and not staged, and one of the ways he finds his exotic subject matter is by prowling morgues around the world. He discovered the material depicted in two photographs here, for instance, at a morgue in Mexico City that’s been described as being mired in unbelievably primitive conditions. While Witkin was there perusing the merchandise, an assistant happened to open a drawer jammed with hacked off body parts and dead babies. Witkin’s response was to arrange this rotting flesh into a classical still life replete with fruit and fish titled “Feast of Fools.”

Needless to say, Witkin could be criticized as sensationalistic, callous, and rather juvenile in his desire to be shocking. Though Witkin insists that he approaches the things he photographs with the utmost respect and that his images have divine properties, they often feel like the photographic equivalent of slasher films. Moreover, his work could be faulted for trampling on the rights of the dead in that the individuals whose bodies (and body parts) appear in these works didn’t agree to participate in Witkin’s grisly tableaux.

The most valuable point raised by Witkin’s gallery of the grotesque is that it poses a very clear challenge to ones spiritual life. If man is indeed a being of thought, emotion and soul above all else, it shouldn’t disturb us to see flesh displayed in such an irreverent manner. That Witkin’s work is so disturbing makes us aware of how very earthbound we are.

Also on view is a series of male nudes by New Orleans photographer George Dureau. Though Dureau has been exhibiting his work for 36 years, this is the first time he’s shown in Los Angeles, so this show is definitely worth a look.

Like Witkin, Dureau is interested in the complex, often tormented interplay of spirit and flesh, and most of his subjects suffer some form of physical abnormality. Employing a formal, unadorned approach to portraiture, Dureau’s work is even harder to take than Witkin’s because it’s not all gussied up in the art historical motifs Witkin employs. Dureau’s subjects simply stare out at us with a mixture of defiance, serenity and rage. Those interested in an easy-viewing experience are advised to stay away from these intensely challenging pictures.

Fahey/Klein Gallery: 148 N. La Brea Ave., Hollywood, (213) 934-2250. To Aug. 3. Closed Sundays and Mondays.