Boogie: Bleak Street Lifes (PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about "Design a... - The Diigo Meta page

• 28 Jan 08
  

  Yule Heibel

  Interview with "Serbian photographer Boogie [who] grew up in the war-torn region of former Yugoslavia, documenting protests and the disturbing portraits of skinheads. After moving from Belgrade to Brooklyn in 1998, he started observing New York’s bleak street side of life with monochrome shots. Distinctively, his work isn’t emphatic. He doesn’t judge. He is more reporting on a not so distant universe with a fine eye for detail - and a lot of guts. He showed PingMag his depiction of Brooklyn gang life and junkies." Boogie notes: "'This whole life is a bunch of choices you make and they just made a couple of wrong ones,' says photographer Boogie about his series on junkies in Brooklyn."

  boogie brooklyn drug_addiction gangs interview nyc photography ping_mag street_life

  • They liked me and I never judged them. Because who am I to judge anyone? That junkie, or a gangster, it could’ve been me and you. This whole life is a bunch of choices you make and they just made a couple of wrong ones.
    
    It came to the point where I would just go to their houses, hang out, and they were doing whatever they would do, had I not been there. It’s the moment every photographer lives for - when you become a fly on the wall…

    • 

      Yule Heibel on 2008-01-28

      I guess one question might be whether society is "allowed" to make choices for them by demanding they go into rehab, or whether their right to choose (which inevitably includes stealing and degradation of others to support their habit) is paramount. It's alright for an artist like Boogie not to judge, but that's not an option for people who are victims of the junkie's crimes. Maybe we won't have an acceptable answer until the proposed vaccine against drug addiction is on the market...?

Public Stiky Notes

• 
  Yule Heibel on 2008-01-28
  I guess one question might be whether society is "allowed" to make choices for them by demanding they go into rehab, or whether their right to choose (which inevitably includes stealing and degradation of others to support their habit) is paramount. It's alright for an artist like Boogie not to judge, but that's not an option for people who are victims of the junkie's crimes. Maybe we won't have an acceptable answer until the proposed vaccine against drug addiction is on the market...?

Would you like to comment?

Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.