| Maker(s): | Faurer, Louis
| | Culture: | American, 1916-2001
| | Title: | NY, NY, ca. 1948
| | Date Made: | 1948 (print, ca. 1981)
| | Type: | Photograph
| | Materials: | gelatin silver print
| | Place Made: | United States, New York
| | Measurements: | Sheet: 11 in x 14 in; 27.94 cm x 35.56 cm; Image: 18.7325 cm x 27.94 cm; 7 3/8 in x 11 in
| | Accession Number: | AC 1986.115
| | Credit Line: | Gift of Leonard A. Fink (Class of 1952)
| | Museum Collection: | Mead Art Museum at Amherst College
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Description:
5 men in front of movie posters: man at left in overcoat smoking, 2 men in short jackets in center, another man in profile at right
Label Text:
Faurer’s NY, NY, ca. 1948 communicates a sense of anxiety typical of film noir. The texts in this photograph, when read as Surrealist found objects, function as omens of violence and underscore film noir’s portrayal of the city as dangerous.
Faurer’s photographs often position the viewer as part of the crowd or in the room. This intimate viewpoint reflects the how the street photography of this period tended to be more personal than that of the previous decade, and it offers a visual counterpart to the voiceover of film noir. Such forced intimacy invites the viewer to share in inside knowledge and seems to recruit the viewer to complicity in an impending crime.
In NY, NY, ca. 1948, a movie advertisement portends an “Act of Violence,” perhaps to be perpetrated by the young man at center, who holds one hand before him in a loose fist. He may only be grasping a small object, but an undercurrent of unease in the photograph suggests that his gesture may be intentionally menacing. A crisscrossing network of gazes links the several men in the room, implying that the danger we sense could come from any one of them.
MD, PHOTOdocument exhibition, March 30, 2012-July 22, 2012
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+1986.115 |
