Between a punk and
Picasso: 2019/1998

Leigh Ledare

Leigh Ledare’s essay Between a punk and Picasso: 2019/1998 performs a subject’s point-of-view read of the photographer and filmmaker Larry Clark, revealed through Clark’s controversial opus punk Picasso (PPP Editions, 2003). Equal parts personal inventory and reflection on the dynamics between Clark and his subjects, as well as the various worlds within which they are set, Ledare’s essay traces Clark’s influence on his own practice while addressing the complex social and ethical questions surrounding strategies of personal documentary and self-presentation.

Modeled after INSTEAD, a radical New York-based publication from the late 1940s, Ledare’s broadside couples his essay with previously unpublished photographs of Clark and Ledare — representations that the two artists took turns making of one another at a time when Ledare, then 21 years old, was living with and working for Clark. Offering a rare glimpse into Clark’s private life, these scraps of evidence (much like those found within the pages of punk Picasso) raise fundamental questions about complicity, consent and the collapse of life and art.

PPP Editions, 2019

Limited edition of 100 copies, signed and numbered.

Vertical oblong folio, 14 × 5.25 inches (folded), 28 × 21 inches (unfolded); offset printed recto and verso; housed in multi-colored, oversize envelope with wafer and string closure.

Discounted from $175.