Larry Clark, RETURN, 2024

Larry Clark was 16 years old when, in 1962, he and his friends began using Valo, a nasal inhaler that contained an enormous amount of amphetamine. After leaving Oklahoma to study photography in New York and after two years of service in Vietnam, Clark returned to Tulsa where he switched from amphetamines to heroin. Here began his photographic practice, twisting the documentary tradition of the time: he turned his camera toward himself and his circle of friends, producing a series of raw, intimate photographs that chronicle the disintegration of the American dream.

Clark’s images reveal the “invisible” lives of suburban American teenagers living a transgressive and outlaw lifestyle, committing armed robberies and burglaries to obtain drugs. A small number of these photographs found an outlet in 1971 in Tulsa, a milestone in contemporary photography.

Fifty years later, Larry Clark has returned to his archive of prints, processing a powerful vision of his 1962-1973 work to produce his new book RETURN, as shocking today as it has ever been, especially at a time when opioid addiction in the United States is more prevalent than ever.