Phillip-Lorca diCorcia at David Zwirner Gallery

I first met Phillip-Lorca diCorcia years ago at My Own Color Lab, a rental lab where a lot of art photographers were making their own prints. I liked what he was doing, but only saw his work in bits and pieces, and didn’t realize until later that his career was beginning to take off.

Although I’ve had mixed feelings about the recent spate of staged or semi-staged photography, I’ve always appreciated diCorcia’s hybrid approach–working in the street or landscape, but introducing a theatrical element like lighting or posing of individuals in situ. Sometimes his subjects are isolated, other times engaged with the photographer.

Phillip-Lorca diCorcia at David Zwirner Gallery

DiCorcia’s recent show–Thousand–at David Zwirner Gallery represents 25 years of his work–outtakes, snapshots, tests–some from his various projects, others of family, friends, travel, everyday life. For all that time, diCorcia made medium format size Polaroids, which are placed along a small shelf wrapping around the gallery walls.

It’s the first time I needed reading glasses to see a photo exhibit, and I found myself moving continuously left to right, ocassionally pausing to look at a particular image, then resuming my sideways movement.

Phillip-Lorca diCorcia at David Zwirner Gallery

The images vary from icons of diCorcia’s work to throw-away snapshots and blurry bits of color and light. Seeing all 1,000 images, as I did, is hypnotic, even a little dizzying and disorienting. But I found the process of taking in so many tiny images quite compelling–a life’s work laid out end to end, though not chronologically. Individual images jump out jewel-like and precise. Passages, like music, emerge out of the linearity, blurriness and sharpness alternate. Familiar faces repeat, including diCorcia’s own.