A photojournalist who captured the seamy side of city life in 1940s and 50s New York, Weegee also had a gift for portraying humanity in all its paradoxes.
“Murder was my business.” That’s how Weegee puts it, in the title of one of the works on display at le Musée Maillol in Paris. A cheque for 35.00 American dollars for the labor of “two murders,” is framed and hung on the wall amongst the collection of his photographs.
Weegee was the pseudonym used by New York photojournalist, Arthur Fellig, given to him by police officers, as a derivative of “Ouija” for his ability to arrive on the scene just minutes after crimes, fires or other emergencies that had been reported to authorities. In 1938, Weegee was the only New York City newspaper reporter to have a portable police-band shortwave radio. But his clairvoyance was sometimes inexplicable, as can be understood from one of his works, where he photographed a transient street person, just minutes before he was hit and killed by a car.
Death is a recurrent motif in the large collection of his photographs of New York street and night life currently on display. Walk through it, and you stumble upon corpse after corpse as you are transported back to New York’s gritty urban life of the 1940s and 1950s. Weegee was a news photographer, who was often called to report on crimes committed, hence the abundance of “stiffs” in the collection. But greater than his swiftness to the scene, was Weegee’s ability to capture the incongruities and ironies of such morbid moments. In the face of death, some grieve, some smile, when caught by a camera.
Weegee also liked to frame his death scenes with the little details in the décor that added irony. A cinema marquee advertising “Joy of Living” hangs over a crowd gathered around a corpse. In another photo, the focus is on the white paint on wooden boards forming the words “New York is a Friendly Town.”
Not all the photographs are about crime scenes. Weegee also documented the virtual apartheid of racist America, as well as less politically-charged scenes of everyday life. Some lighter moments include shots of kids cooling themselves off with a burst fire hydrant’s water on a hot summer’s day. One of his more well-known photographs shows us two ladies heading to the opera dressed in over-the-top glamor of white mink and tiaras as a drunken woman stares them down with contempt. Sometimes his photos are simple documents of the weirdness of life in 1950s America. Weegee photographed a 1953 poster of a nurse exclaiming “Protect the Genetic Future of Your Country. Give Generously to Your Local Sperm Bank.” Overall, the exhibit is a celebration of photojournalism and its ability to say so much using only the essential.
At the Musee Maillol in Paris until October 15, 2007.
This article was published Thursday, August 30, 2007.
