Stacy Kranitz
From the Study on Post Pubescent Manhood
From the Study on Post Pubescent Manhood. I have focused my gaze on a specific group of young men that I befriended at a dystopian compound in Rutland, Ohio.
I went searching for displays of violence that function as catharsis, as a part of a larger body of work that explores subcultures that self-consciously dramatize violence through rituals, habits, and pastimes. In performing these behaviors in front of the camera, the participants implicate the photographer and viewer as consumers of that violence.
This is where my work is the most comfortable, not as documentation but rather as an exploration of the ethical boundaries of representation and the subversion of the photographer’s “role”.
The photographs culminate as an unwieldy archive.
I think maybe if I have enough evidence that violence can function as an emotional release I can validate behavior that might at first glance seem unbecoming.
Dear Dave, 15
