joel peter witkin witnessedd, a car accident outside his home when he was just a child.
It happened on a Sunday when my mother was escorting my twin brother and me down the steps of the tenement where we lived. We were going to church. While walking down the hallway to the entrance of the building, we heard an incredible crash mixed with screaming and cries for help. The accident involved three cars, all with families in them. Somehow, in the confusion, I was no longer holding my mother's hand. At the place where I stood at the curb, I could see something rolling from one of the overturned cars. It stopped at the curb where I stood. It was the head of a little girl. I bent down to touch the face, to speak to it -- but before I could touch it someone carried me away".
he claims that his vision and sensibility in his work are influenced from this witnessing.
these pictures i desided to post are not his roughest pictures, i think it is not appropriate to post them on a blog because people should be able to choose if they want to see them.
the thing that i like so much about his photos is the feeling i get looking at them, i cant really describe that but there is just so much sensibility in these photos i can feel the sadness in some of the people just because they are different. i also love these types of photos: black and white photos that some of the print has been bleached out. Witkin uses often dwarfs, transexuals and hermaphrodites. he likes to go to "freak shows" in coney island and has used the people in these shows in his works.
i have never thought about what freak show really means so i did a little research. freak show is a exhibition with "freaks of nature" like people or animals who are physically unusual. People who are unusual too large or small, those with both male and female secondary sexual characteristics or people who have trained their bodies to do unusual things like swallowing sword or eating a fire!
i understand that being different from "everybody" else makes these people often depressed and feeling like an outsider. and it is no wonder when they are called freaks!
