Hustlers

Edition : First / Gottingen / Steidl / 2013 / Softcover. / Near Fine
Folio, 160pp. Boards in Acetate wrap. Numerous Colour plates. Text in English.

Between 1990 and 1992, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, funded by a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, made multiple trips to Los Angeles to scout locations, invent scenarios and to find male prostitutes that would agree to pose for his camera. The last task proved to be the easiest: diCorcia simply used his fellowship money to pay the men whatever price they charged for their most typical service and ultimately prompted a complaint of misuse of government funds. In 1993, 21 selected images were initially exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, marking Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s first solo exhibition. The show, entitled Strangers was accompanied by a museum catalog. Twenty years later, Steidl publishes the series in its entirety. Hustlers is an empathetic yet melancholic poem of the Hollywood dream gone wrong, prescribing to the heavily-staged pictorialism and happenstance of street casting for which diCorcia is most widely recognized.

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