Larry Clark, Berlin

Bill and I were looking forward to the Larry Clark show at the C/O BERLIN, the city's main gallery of contemporary photography. It's housed in the magnificent 19th century post office building, the Postfuhramt, on Oranienburger Strasse.

 We've been following Clark's work since a friend showed us a copy of Tulsa back in the Eighties. This retrospective began with many of the Tulsa pictures.

 Then moved on to pictures from Clark's next book Teenage Lust. Here is a peek at the Teenage Lust room.

The interior space was wonderfully seedy contrasting to the ornate ceramic tiles and Neo-Moorish architecture of the exterior.

 It complimented the Clark's challenging photography perfectly.

 I wish I had been brave enough to document some of Clark's new colour inkjet prints. You'll see them. They were such a relief for me after the "bad trip" of Clark's early work.

We were surprised by the big, open washroom window.

While relieving oneself, you overlooked the busy courtyard behind the museum. This experience seemed very "Larry Clark".

The crowd in the courtyard was attracted both by a chance to sit in the sun and the photography book fair the museum was sponsoring...

Book Days was a festival of small-press photography books.

 It reminded us of our own small-press publishing in Toronto when our motto had been "Fine Books Since 1984". Here the fine books were taking advantage of the private printing and distribution revolution made possible by computers and the internet.

 Hard not to fall in love with the artists

Participating photographers discussed their books on-stage

with the aid of a video projection. 

Afterward we got back to the street through the courtyard of the old postal stables and museum entrance back onto Oranienburger Strasse.