“Weegee: Murder Is My Business” Through September 2.?International?Center of Photography, New York.
Weegee’s photographs are as much about Weegee as they are about crime.
By James Polchin
Weegee strikes again
Body of Dominick Didato, Elizabeth Street, New York, August 7, 1936.
In the fall of 1978, the International Center of Photography mounted the first retrospective of Weegee photographs. Reviews of the show were positive, though the reviews often centered on debates about the artfulness of Weegee?s tabloid images. The?New York Times?critic began with the very conundrum of this tension between art and news photography: ?It is always faintly alarming to see the photographs of Weegee on exhibition at a museum or gallery. They were not made for exhibition but to be reproduced in tabloid newspapers.? Despite this beginning, the review affirms Weegee?s importance in American photography, and argues that his work influenced later artists such as Diane Arbus and Garry Winograd. Continue reading “If It Bleeds”