Larry Fink – Feeling the Experience
Opening: Saturday, 15 March 2 pm // Galerie Bene Taschen, Cologne
I´m not specifically involved with the event in front of me. I`m involved with what it looks like, what it feels like, what it smells like, what it offers to me and how it makes me feel. And through those feelings of the experience, I make the photograph. (Larry Fink, März 2021)
Larry Fink, who died in 2023, worked as a photographer for over 65 years. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum in New York, among other prestigious institutions, and his archives was acquired by MUUS Collection in 2024. Until April 13, 2025, the Sarasota Art Museum in Florida is presenting a comprehensive exhibition featuring the work of Larry Fink as well as that of sculptor Martha Posner, who was his partner for over 30 years. Meanwhile, the Bene Taschen Gallery is pleased to present a selection from his series Social Graces, Somewhere There’s Music, The Vanities, and Boxing under the title Larry Fink – Feeling the Experience from March 16.
Fink gained his first photographic experience in New York, later moving from Brooklyn to Pennsylvania. He attended the New York New School for Social Research, which awakened his interest in sociological perspectives. His references to jazz music also have an early origin. Jazz accompanied him since his early childhood. He himself played the piano and harmonica. The pictures from the series Somewhere There’s Music bear witness to the encounters between photographer and musicians. Jazz legends such as John Coltrane and Fink’s great idol Jimmy Rushing, whom he met back in 1957, stood in front of his camera.
From the end of the 1980s, he photographed the international boxing industry and covered Mike Tyson and Jimmy Jacobs, among others. His series Boxing shows many iconic moments from legendary boxing matches.
Fink has always explored socio-psychological and political themes, capturing the relationships, frictions, and developments between the working class and the upper class. As an invited guest or official photographer, he documented social elites at parties and galas in The Vanities, always positioning himself as a silent observer, outside the action. In sometimes intimate moments, he captured the interactions of the guests–sometimes a glance over the shoulder–sometimes a smile or an unposed gesture.
In Social Graces, these works are juxtaposed with photographs of the Sabatine family from Pennsylvania. During a visit to small-town Martins Creek, he documented family gatherings on various occasions, such as an eighth birthday. His photographic work covered a broad and contrasting spectrum, ranging from everyday family scenes to elite events. Fink thus created an image of society that connected different social groups without prejudice. His life’s work is also a mirror of his image of society. For him, the focus was always on people.
Most important thing or perhaps a very important thing is that my parents were very supporter of the arts, they were very much left wing family. So they think what I do photographically would be situated with social concerns. But jet at the same time with the deeper concerns of beauty. (Larry Fink, März 2021)
