“People like to have their pictures taken. Some will endure the pain of blindness because recorded information is more important to them than actual experience. It is a deep part of our culture, this compulsion to find evidence. It lets me into the party. Once they are inside, it creates a physical relationship between me and them; purpose and places to exchange your photos. If I’m walking around in a tuxedo and touching my toes, I’m a cool guy. When I walk in Martins Creek, I am the belly of the land,” wrote American photographer Larry Fink in his book, Community Gifts.
Fink had a rare quality because he was able to mix in places usually occupied by the social and economic classes, and no one would notice. So in his series of photographs, “Social Graces” – which brought him fame and international recognition – the collection covers Fink’s time documenting the crème de la crème of Manhattan society in the 1970s in the famous galleries and Studio 54, and the life of his neighbors (the Sabatines) in rural Martins Creek, Pennsylvania.
A selection of images from Community Gifts currently on display at Galerie Julian Sander in “Larry Fink. A hard cookie. Early Prints From the Collection of Gerd Sander.” In an inviting space on a bustling city street in Cologne, Germany, gallerist Sander—who knew Fink firsthand since his father, Gerd, represented him in New York City—has put together a robust collection that reflects Fink’s legacy throughout the year. past November 2023. The show honors him as a visual storyteller while honoring the vivid connection that Sander and his family share with him.
For example, a portrait of Larry Fink hangs on the side of the main space, near the gallery’s office space. Gerd Sander shot Fink in black and white—revealing nothing, sitting in front of an American flag with his hands in his pockets. Perhaps the casual viewer might miss these details, but their symbolic presence in the gallery is a testament to how personal the exhibition is—not to mention how the image itself and its setting reflect the photographer Fink’s professional career. He was able to navigate interactions while keeping his distance.
Larry Fink was born in Brooklyn in 1941 to Bernard Fink (lawyer) and Sylvia Caplan Fink (activist) and grew up on Long Island. He studied at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, where Lisette Model became one of his mentors. “Photographs begin with the photographer’s imagination, his understanding of life and himself in the picture,” says Model. Fink seemed to take these words to heart.
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Fink wrote that Community Gifts he was born out of “… anger at the privileged class—its abuse, profiteering and unfulfilled lives.” However, he highlighted that the images “…were created in a spirit of sympathy. Emotional, physical, physical empathy. This work is political, it is not related to politics.”
If one looks closely at the many frames in the gallery space, the similarities between the classes become apparent: a common thread of joy, sadness and isolation emerges. These people may have lived different lives, but their global experience comes from these moments: parties, conversations and cigarettes. The first print to hang in the exhibition, Jeanne Sabatine, New Year’s Eve1979, shows a sly, happy woman staring off into the distance, at the end of a party with her party hat on. It sets the tone for the show.
When asked about the image that embodies the spirit of the show, Sander suggested “a picture of two girls with a boy facing the left side of the frame (Second Hungarian Ball, Hotel Pierre, NYC1978). These beautiful girls are having fun and having fun with this scary, unexplained danger of this would-be good guy. They can also be quite challenging. It is not clear. There is nothing to give you any kind of context about him except that his face is a small stone of his head in the picture. “
Sander can attest to Fink’s familiarity with filming what was happening before his eyes. After all, Fink has known him since he was a child. When he met with the Observer, he talked about a picture of himself as a baby sitting on a photographer’s lap, and Fink’s innate sense of being watched is one of the qualities Sander can remember well.
“Look at the body and the body,” Sander said. “These small parts are important in creating an image, but also in studying people. I watched him at various events we attended [at] together. He would come in, and lean back first, survey the room, look at the people, start a conversation with one, enter into a conversation with the next, choose some kind of anecdote, make people laugh.” He added, “No one really knew: Was he a hippie? Was he a singer? Was he a hedge fund manager in dirty clothes? What is the story about this boy? Then he started filming.”
While “Larry Fink. The Tough Cookie” contains part of Fink’s archive—for years, he’s worked the Vanity Fair Oscar party with his signature lighting and his photo has appeared in the pages of GQ and the New Yorker—Sander recently announced that MUUS found his place.
“Larry’s work needs to be seen because it represents a real moment in American history,” she said. “After he passed, there was this phase where on Instagram there were tons of pictures that people had taken that looked like pictures of Larry Fink.”
So, acclaimed film director Sofia Coppola expressed her desire to see “Tough Cookie” on Instagram. With his attention to detail in his cinematic storytelling, he sees a creative spirit when he sees one—and one that wrote American history with a focused eye.
“Larry Fink. A hard cookie. Early Prints From the Collection of Gerd Sander” is on view at Galerie Julian Sander until November 30.
