Exhibition Talk: Lucy Sante on Larry Fink
Event Details
Join acclaimed author Lucy Sante for a special talk exploring Larry Fink’s role as a social photographer, examining both his social engagement and his commitment to documenting society. People and their
Event Details
Join acclaimed author Lucy Sante for a special talk exploring Larry Fink’s role as a social photographer, examining both his social engagement and his commitment to documenting society.
People and their interactions were central to Fink’s work. Over a career spanning more than sixty years, he photographed debutante balls, Oscar parties, demonstrations, boxing matches, and his neighbours in rural Pennsylvania—all with bold framing and masterly chiaroscuro, and with urgency, immediacy, and deep human feeling.
Lecture Room: IMA-307
Enter via: The Image Centre
33 Gould Street, Toronto
Free admission, registration required
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Larry Fink: Social Graces & Runway.
With support from Muus Collection.
Please have your Eventbrite registration and valid ID ready upon arrival. The name on your ID must match the name on your ticket or registration. All bags may be subject to inspection by gallery security upon entry.
About the Speaker
Lucy Sante is the author of Low Life, Evidence, The Factory of Facts, Kill All Your Darlings, Folk Photography, The Other Paris, Maybe the People Would Be the Times, Nineteen Reservoirs, Six Sermons for Bob Dylan, My Heart & I Agree, and I Heard Her Call My Name, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Her other honours include a Whiting Writers’ Award, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Grammy Award (for album notes), an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography, a Windham-Campbell Prize, and Guggenheim Fellowship and Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers fellowships. She recently retired from Bard College after 24 years teaching about writing and the history of photography.
About the Exhibition
Larry Fink: Social Graces & Runway
Curators: Gaëlle Morel and Sidney Haqq
Drawn from the collection of The Image Centre, this exhibition presents prints from two series by photographer Larry Fink: Social Graces and Runway. Shot between 1974 and 1982, Social Graces exposes America’s class divide by contrasting Manhattan’s urban high society with Pennsylvania’s rural countryside. Runway, photographed from 1993 to 1999 in Paris, Milan, and New York City, reveals the behind-the-scenes world of fashion shows and designer showcases, highlighting the chaotic operations and performative nature of fashion runways. Both series are defined by black-and-white tonalities and the artist’s signature use of flash.
Artist Bio
Known for picturing both the wealthy elite and the working class, Larry Fink (American, 1941–2023) studied with photographer Lisette Model at the New School for Social Research in New York City. His photographs have appeared in Vanity Fair, W, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker. His first book, Social Graces (1984), was followed by Boxing (1997) and Runway (2000). A professor at Bard College (Red Hook, NY) between 1988 and 2017, Fink was awarded two John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships (1976, 1979) and two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships (1976, 1978). He was the recipient of the International Center of Photography Infinity Award for Art in 2015. His photographs can be found in the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris; the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York City; and the San Francisco Museum of Art. The Larry Fink Estate is held by the MUUS Collection, Tenafly, NJ.