(William Klein / New York)
In 1954, after six years of pictorial research in Paris, especially in the workshop Fernand Leger, William Klein returned to New York and embarks on a guerilla complicated love and hate relationship with his hometown. Half distanced abroad, half native revolt, he created a photographic journal stripper. It explores and catalog as does the fiat had no photographer before him the metropolis of the absurd crowds brutalized, stupid parades, normalized violence, crazy buildup urban debris, walls covered with messages Dada. He rejects the obsession of the moment of objectivity and non-intervention and change the relationship between photographer and subject, juggles amateur photography, photo reportage and posed. It employs ultra-fast film, Wide Angle, framings and methods of unusual prints, manages to release the 35mm camera while transforming accident, grain contrast, deformation abstraction into a new visual language.
"Ebbets Field, Brooklyn. Double header: two baseball games for the price of one, setbacks to eat pie, three hot dogs, beer, a score sheet and a range of 50 reactions "
" A graffiti-free subway and joyless, but few users cared flourished, and a blind beggar invisible. "
"The typists after the show. Like the song of Cole Porter: I see the show, Then I go home. I observe that cigarettes Tareyton practice better grammar. Filters have no single filter Can. Iambic scansion, and more. If Winston and Tareyton merged, they could make their rhyming slogan: Tastes good like a cigarette should ", as no single filter Filters Could. And hands in sync. And discussion at the ad agency to decide whether to ash at the end of the cigarette, how long, what consistency, what shade of gray. And the snowman to cover nose and ear, growing coca. And typists themselves, gloves, ring, bracelet, looking suspicious, hairstyles. Anything that can be digested in two seconds. "
" No comment "
"Hanburger to 40 cents" 
"Staten Island, the Midwest over Manhattan. A good little place. Later Twin Peaks? My shadow train to steer the camera. my wife, who brings back her hair. " 
"In front of a cafe restaurant in Long Island, whose message is displayed on almost every tree. suburban surrealism."
} "A Martian 15 meters high to celebrate Macy's. The parade of the Thanksgiving holiday at this time unless overfed media representative may be the highlight of the year. It was the same hype around the new tanks and balloons shock for the last Hollywood blockbuster. The whole town was talking about this event weeks in advance, not about to miss it. I was about ten years when a friend told me she had anarchiste arm to fart dart balloons. Terrified I went without it, expecting to hear all the time awful explosion. "
" "Corner 40th Street and 2nd Avenue.'s All here. Billions, sub, size, degradation, ideology and communication. Right Center, the Chrysler Building, the second largest skyscrapers, far right, the Daily News, shabby buildings, the logo of the Ma Bell phone, SO Esso, a hand painted sign offering parking Weekend at the price of 75cents and friend, bottom right, a poster of Radio Free Europe: "Fight Communism with the dollars of the truth." To me, it was the punctuation mark for bric-a-brac of urban landscape - and a farce. But after all, it was not so ridiculous to imagine that Louis Armstrong and Sinatra could help bring down the walls. "
"The skytrain at eye level. Tens of kilometers of track Urban rail at the first floor. Imagine what it is to grow, live, to die with these rickety old trains under his nose. By the way, trying to decipher the film from the window of accelerated life housing to green walls under the bare bulb. " Text & Photos: William Klein, New York 1954/1955 Edition Marval
For those interested in learning more about the work of Klein, here are two links from the excellent American Suburb X
here a Video Series Contacts where they talk about his work and there
an interview with "Mister Freedom"
