Larry Clark (born 1 January 1943inTulsa, Oklahoma) is an American film director, photographer, writer and film producer who is most well known for the movie Kids. His most common subject is youth on the fringe of society who casually engage in underage drug use, violence or sex and who are part of a subculture like punk or skateboarding that "accepts" these activities. As adolescence is the most vulnerable time in life, Clark intends for his exposure of these teenage social taboos to be jumping-off points for popular dialogue, not only to be of shock value.
In his youth, Clark learned photography from his mother, a baby photographer. He began shooting amphetamines with friends when he was 16. After he attended the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War, he published the book Tulsain1971. It was a landmark work: a photo documentary illustrating his young friends' drug use in black and white. His follow-up was Teenage Lust (1983), an "autobiography" of his teen past through the images of others. It included his family photos, more teenage drug use and young male hustlers in Times Square, New York City.
After publishing other groundbreaking photographic collections, Clark met young writer Harmony KorineinNew York. Together they worked on the screenplay for Kids. His first feature film was released to both controversy and widespread critical acclaim in 1995.
Larry Clark is represented by Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK.
Clark's films often deal with seemingly lurid material but are told in a straightforward manner. His artistry shows through with the moving images as much as with his still ones. Such film directors as Gus Van Sant and Martin Scorsese have, according to Peter Biskind's book Down and Dirty Pictures, been quoted as finding influence in Clark's early work in photography.
However, some film critics who do not find social or artistic value in Clark's work have labeled his films as obscene, exploitative, and even borderline child pornography because of their frequent and explicit depictions of teenagers using drugs and having sex. In Kids, Clark's most widely known film to date, boys portrayed as being as young as 12 years old are shown to be casually drinking alcohol and using drugs. The film received an NC-17 rating for (officially) "Promiscuous Sex, Graphic Language, Drug Abuse And Some Violence."[1] Ken Park is a more sexually and violently graphic film than Kids, including a scene of autoerotic asphyxiation and ejaculation by an apparently young teenage boy (although the actors are all 18 and older). As a result, Ken Park incurs a high burden for a U.S. distributor, and as of 2007, it has never been widely released nor distributed in the United States.
Ken Park became notorious in Australia and the United Kingdom. In Australia, the film was banned for its graphic sexual content, although many consider the ban to have been ineffectual. In response to the ban, a protest screening was held which was immediately shut down by the police. The resulting publicity, coupled with the ease with which the film could be purchased or obtained via the Internet, meant that it was possible more people ended up seeing the film than would have had the film been allowed its inevitable short cinematic release. An Australian film critic, Margaret Pomeranz, co-host of At the Movies (1986-) was almost arrested for screening the film at a theatre.
In2002, Clark spent a few hours in a police cell after punching and trying to strangle Hamish McAlpine, the head of Metro Tartan, the UK distributor for Ken Park. McAlpine was left with a broken nose. The alleged incident erupted from an argument about the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which McAlpine claimed the terrorist attacks were the best thing to have ever happened to America, and violence erupted (according to McAlpine) soon after Clark referred to Arabs with the ethnic slur "sand niggers." Clark dismisses this version: “This is such bullshit, such a fucking lie,” insisting the argument was solely about McAlpine's comments regarding 9/11: “When someone gets up in my face with bullshit like this, I’m not gonna roll over and lick my nuts.” [2]
Now well into his 60s, Clark continues to document teen/youth culture almost exclusively.
