William Klein
2009 March 10
This post is for Rachel, Anthony and probably Viet…although I am sure it is of use to everyone else too!
Max mentioned William Klein as a photographer who might be of particular interest to those above and here is an interview with him from the wonderful BBC Four series “The Genius of Photography”.
Hey Rachel,
Just thinking of your terrific blog, and that it might be worth expanding on the award winning NZ film, Shustak, by Stuart Page @ the Docs Rock festival which would definitely interest some of our students.
It will screen again tomorrow 12-30 and Friday 11am at the Hyatt cinema on the Octagon.
Lawrence Shustak who I knew quite well was a highly intersting personage who was working in New York in the 1950’s working with Jazz and other music, and doing a lot of street photography and nudes. He arrived in NZ to take up the HOD position in the photography department of the Ilam school and worked there for about 20 years from the early 1970’s on.
He was a charismatic and remarkable teacher, and also one of the most dissolute and unreliable people ever to teach in that fine school, and it is obvious that Stuart had a loving if detached attitude to his mentor and those around him. The film is highly intelligent, carefully unraveling the frayed strands of artistic and personal life that Shustak left behind (including 2 wives and a number of children) in the States, and the impact this eccentric and highly cultured man had on the Christchurch art scenen and New Zealand in General.
I knew Shustak personally by having worked with him during his participation at workshops in Elam days and figure as one of the personages interviewed in the film (which alone makes it worth seeing naturally!) and I’m in good company with the various people who come to terms with him posthumously.
The film audience was rather thin, I felt, and the film deserves a wider viewing . I shall try to get a copy for the school. I feel we should both be on the lookout for other material to doi with photography, both contemporary and historical to build up our collection a little.
Cheers
MaxO
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