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Larry Fink: Hands On / A Passionate Life of Looking is a 432-page encapsulation of Larry Fink’s master photos accompanied by insightful essays from Lucy Sante, Stephen Shore, Graydon and Ash Carter, Yolanda Cuomo, and publisher Daniel Power. Larry Fink: Hands On / A Passionate Life of Looking offers an unprecedented overview of Fink’s career and his profound influence in the Lisette Model world (under whom he was mentored) on photography and on broader American culture.
Celebrated as a photographer of the people, Larry Fink is known for his impromptu, street-style black-and-white photographs that delve into societal complexities, class divides, and the essence of human connection. Throughout his career, which spanned from the 1950s to his passing in November 2023, Fink documented a broad spectrum of subjects, spanning from the glamorous scenes of Vanity Fair Oscar parties to the streets of impoverished Philadelphia neighborhoods. Throughout his life, he dedicated himself to authentically portraying the human experience across diverse communities.
Larry Fink: Hands On / A Passionate Life of Looking presents a comprehensive exploration of Fink's remarkable career for the first time. Over his lifetime, Fink meticulously stored his images in boxes, where they often remained forgotten for months or even years. However, during the pandemic, Fink dedicated himself to combing through these boxes with the dream of creating a retrospective of his work: photographs and beat-style poetry. This endeavor gained momentum when Daniel Power, founder of powerHouse Books and a longtime collaborator of Fink, photographers Jonno Rattman and Jamie Cabreza, and art director Yolanda Cuomo joined Fink in his archival journey. They unearthed a trove of unseen treasures, resulting in a meticulously curated 432-page testament to Fink's unparalleled creativity alongside his trademark jazz poetry.
Fink’s vast repertoire includes photographs of celebrities like Jay-Z and Meryl Streep, protesters marching down streets, and boxers in the ring (Including a look into his other books, Boxing (1998), Runway (2000), Social Graces (2001), Forbidden Pictures (2004), and The Beats (2014)). This book reaches even further by including non-human subjects like intimate portraits of insects in their natural habitat and dead animals grotesquely displayed. Larry Fink's distinctive signature – his raw and experimental approach, his spontaneity, his interest in class commentary, and his intimate perspective – are presented in a manner unprecedented in his body of work, applied to subject matter viewers have rarely seen Fink tackle. Each image, painstakingly selected, offers a poignant insight into Fink's unwavering commitment to his craft and insatiable curiosity about the world.