Weegee: Society of the Spectacle - Hardcover

Chéroux, Clément; Young, Cynthia; Bonnet, Isabelle; Campany, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500029121 ISBN 13: 9780500029121

Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2025

Synopsis

Offering a new perspective on Weegee’s oeuvre, Society of the Spectacle presents the photographer’s iconic images alongside lesser-known works.

Weegee’s macabre tabloid photographs of murdered gangsters, bodies trapped in crashed cars, slums consumed by fire, and other poignant records of New York’s nocturnal low life in the 1930s and 40s are the stuff of legend. Lesser-known, however, is the work he created in his later years, when he satirized Hollywood, mocking its fleeting glory, jubilant crowds, and social scenes, and created celebrity portraits that he delighted in distorting using a palette of technical tricks. And herein lies the paradox of Weegee: how can two such wildly different bodies of work co-exist?

Offering the first evaluation of the famed photographer’s career in its entirety, this book reconciles the two sides of Weegee by showing how the ‘spectacle’ was the unifying theme of his work. Over 130 images, some iconic, some more rarely seen, are accompanied by essays that explore the consistent themes throughout Weegee’s career, his documentary and photojournalism work, and his last great series taken on the set of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film Dr. Strangelove.

About this title

About the Author

Clément Chéroux is a French photography historian and curator. He was recently named director of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris; he was previously chief curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

From the Back Cover

Offering a new perspective on Weegee’s oeuvre, The Society of the Spectacle presents the photographer’s iconic images beside lesser-known works.

There’s a mystery to Weegee. The American photographer’s career seems to be split in two. One side includes his sensational photography printed in North American tabloids: corpses of gangsters lying in pools of their own blood, bodies trapped in battered vehicles, kingpins looking sinister behind the bars of prison wagons, dilapidated slums consumed by fire, and other harrowing evidence of the lives of the underprivileged in New York from 1935 to 1945. Then come the festive photographs ― glamorous parties, performances by entertainers, jubilant crowds, openings and premieres ― to which we must add a vast array of portraits of public figures that Weegee delighted in distorting using a rich palette of tricks between 1948 and 1951, a practice he pursued until the end of his life.

How can these diametrically opposed bodies of work coexist? Critics have enjoyed highlighting the opposition between the two periods, praising the former and disparaging the latter. The Society of the Spectacle seeks to reconcile the two parts of Weegee by showing that, beyond formal differences, the photographer’s approach is critically coherent.

In the first part of his career, which coincided with the rise of the tabloid press, Weegee was an active participant in transforming news into spectacle. To show this, he often included spectators, or other photographers, in the foreground of his images. In the second half of his career, Weegee mocked the Hollywood spectacular: its ephemeral glory, adoring crowds and social scenes. Some years before the Situationist International, his photography presented an incisive critique of the Society of the Spectacle.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0500029121
• ISBN 13: 9780500029121
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208