William Klein Without Rules
At the Polka Galerie Paris
There was a time when flirting, as a woman, consisted of smiling demurely over a gloved hand when a pomade-haired fella uttered the words, “You’re a mighty fine dame.” All the kisses in movies were taut, motionless except for a chaste, firm manhandling around the shoulders, and all a woman had to do to be considered scandalous was, frankly, breathe. Mid-century America was no place for being transparent about one’s kinks, but the zeitgeist made for a hell of an interesting time in art. For every suppression, there is an equal and opposite indulgence, and William Klein has made a name for himself exploring every last one.
“I came from the outside, the rules of photography didn’t interest me. There were things you could do with a camera that you couldn’t do with any other medium—grain, contrast, blur, cock-eyed framing, eliminating or exaggerating grey tones and so on,” Klein said. “I thought it would be good to show what’s possible, to say that this is as valid of a way of using the camera as conventional approaches.”
In the spirit of exploration, we invite you to soak in these selections from Paris’s Polka Galerie, where the show “William + Klein: A Retrospective” is on view through April. May they scratch your every itch.
