30 May 2013
There would have been no Weegee (the Famous) without Murder Inc., without the Syndicate, without the noise of the rotary presses that churned out at least eight papers each day for the newsstands of New York in the thirties. He had a nose for news, for framing, but for business too. He took a lot of pictures (over 5000 homicides, he would confess), and wrote as much. In 1938, at the time when Orson Welles’s radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds was broadcast by CBS, he already had a two-way radio tuned to the police band so that he could always be in the right place at the right moment. Driving around with a portable darkroom in the trunk of his car, he was a friend of Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano, but also had good relations with the MoMA, which bought his pictures and celebrated them in two joint exhibitions in 1943 and 1945, after the first legendary public show that Weegee curated himself at the Photo League in 1941, Murder is my business. It is said that he laid the foundations for tabloid journalism. The journalism of that time is dead, but in addition to Weegee’s talent, his myth has survived: “we have beauty and we have ugliness. Everybody likes beauty, but there’s an ugliness,” he declared. The circle is closed.
Weegee. Murder is my business
Fondazione Palazzo Magnani
A cura di Brian Wallis
Reggio Emilia
3 maggio – 14 luglio 2013
Weegee, Anthony Esposito, con l’accusa di “Assassino di un poliziotto”, January 16, 1941 / Anthony Esposito, Accused “Cop Killer,”, 16 gennaio 1941. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.
Weegee, La moglie del morto arriva… e crolla / The dead man’s wife arrived… and then she collapsed, ca. 1940. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.
Weegee, Veduta della mostra Weegee: Murder Is My Business II presso la Photo League, New York / Installation view of “Weegee: Murder Is My Business II” at the Photo League, New York, 1941. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography
Weegee, Veduta della mostra Weegee: Murder Is My Business presso la Photo League, New York / Installation view of Weegee: Murder Is My Business at the Photo League, New York, 1941. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.
Weegee, Installation view of Weegee: Murder Is My Business at the Photo League, New York / Veduta della mostra Weegee: Murder Is My Business presso la Photo League, New York, 1941. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.
Weegee, Veduta della mostra Weegee: Murder Is My Business presso la Photo League, New York / Installation view of “Weegee: Murder Is My Business” at the Photo League, New York, 1941. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.
Weegee, Cappelli in una sala da biliardo, Mulberry Street, New York / Hats in a pool room, Mulberry Street, New York, ca. 1943. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.
Weegee, Omicidio nell’East Side / At an East Side Murder, 1943. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.
Weegee, L’omicidio per mano di Ruth Snyder modello in cera, Eden Musée, Coney Island, New York / Ruth Snyder Murder wax display, Eden Musée, Coney Island, New York, ca. 1941. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography
Weegee, Il corpo di Dominick Didato, Elizabeth Street, New York, August 7, 1936 / Body of Dominick Didato, Elizabeth Street, New York, 7 agosto 1936. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.
Weegee, Rapinatore ucciso, 24 novembre 1941 / Hold up man killed, November 24, 1941. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.
Weegee, Una ragazza salta da un’auto in corsa e viene uccisa, sulla Park Avenue / Girl jumped out of car, and was killed, on Park Ave., ca. 1938. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.
Weegee, Omicidio / Murder, ca. 1940. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.
Weegee, Agente di polizia e assistente recuperano il corpo di Morris Linker, autista di ambulanza del Reception Hospital, dall’East River, New York, 24 agosto 1943 / Police officer and assistant removing body of Reception Hospital ambulance driver Morris Linker from East River, New York, August 24, 1943. © Weegee/International Center of Photography. International Center of Photography.