“I was born a communist,” says photographer Larry Fink, who turns 80 in March. The self-described “Marxist from Long Island” who first rose to critical acclaim with Social Graces, a series of work that contrasted life in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania, where the artist has lived since the 1970s, with scenes of New York’s upper crust that same decade. Exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1979 and first published as a monograph by Aperture in 1984. the work catapulted Fink to the forefront of the photo world, despite the fact that he eschewed career ambitions in favor using photography to achieve political goals.
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“My mother was a communist. She was an organizer, and she had no fear. She was a bourgeois also. She loved mink stoles. My father was a kind, patient man with a stamp collection. My folks had some money so they used to drive around in a Studs Bearcat, go to Florida, and hang out. They liked leisure, parties and jazz music so my upbringing was a contradictory one,” Fink remembers.
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“My sister Liz and I were brought up believing there was the beginning of a new world at the end of the old world, that all of the old cruelties [of capitalism] would dissipate in time. They wanted to get rid of class and thought everything would purify. They were wrong but that’s beside the point. They were right in thinking that they could.”
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