LARRY FINK – SOCIAL GRACES

Posted on 2024-10-21

Larry Fink’s Social Graces series contrasts two social worlds that seem a world apart: those of Manhattan high society and Pennsylvania farm country. In the city, coiffed and bejeweled patrons of the arts dance and drink at gallery openings, benefits, and the famed Studio 54 nightclub; in Martin’s Creek, Pennsylvania, a farming family and their circle celebrate birthdays and graduations, gathering at the roller rink and the Legion. The dress and comportment of Fink’s subjects, and the environments in which they exist, diverge as one might expect. What they share is a desire to be seen—to be photographed. “People like to have their pictures taken,” Fink wrote. “It is a profound aspect of our culture, this compulsion for proof. It allows me to wade into a party.”

Opposite – Russian Ball, New York City, November 1976

Exhibition runs through to October 27th, 2024

Johnson Museum of Art
Cornell University – 114 Central Avenue
Ithaca
NY 14853

museum.cornell.edu