Larry Clark

Larry Clark, (born January 19, 1943, Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.), American photographer and film director who was best known for his provocative works about teenagers, with drugs and sex often as central elements.

Clark worked on an independent documentary project in Tulsa, recording himself and his teenage friends, who were involved in a culture of drug addiction, uncontrolled sexuality, and violence. As an active participant, Clark was able to invest his images with a powerful immediacy. The photographs were published in 1971 as Tulsa, a book that established Clark’s national reputation. Clark’s work was applauded expressly because it lacked what was then seen as old-fashioned sentiment. He continued to document teenage alienation in Teenage Lust (1983), The Perfect Childhood (1991), and 1992 (1992).

In the 1990s Clark extended his work to filmmaking by directing the film Kids (1995), a fictionalized account of teenagers involved in a skateboarding and nightclub culture in New York City, which was critically acclaimed, though the film’s powerful and candid portrayal of teenage sexuality and drug abuse made it controversial. Clark went on to make other films, including Another Day in Paradise (1998), Bully (2001), Wassup Rockers (2005), and The Smell of Us (2014).