Philadelphia
Going back to Smokin’ Joe Frazier and beyond, boxers from the city of Brotherly Love have been renowned for their truculence and toughness. And of course, there was “Rocky.”
Larry Fink: The Boxing Photographs
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Through Jan. 1, 2019
Therefore, it is fitting that this brilliantly gritty exhibit, “Larry Fink: The Boxing Photographs,” would appear at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Boxing is black and white, and so are the approximately 80 prints in this show that was organized by Peter Barberie, the museum’s photography curator.
Mr. Fink (b. 1941) was not originally a boxing photographer. However, in 1986 he was commissioned to tote his cameras to the Catskills in New York to photograph Jimmy Jacobs, manager of Mike Tyson. Quickly captivated by the circus of violence, he would continue documenting it through 2004. Mr. Fink explained his fascination with the sport in the introduction to “Boxing: Photographs by Larry Fink” (1997): “I found a world so rife with anecdote and pathos, so full of contradictions as to be a world within itself.”
With the exception of a shot of Don King (“Don King, Tyson vs Ruddock Fight, Las Vegas, Nevada, March 1991”) and a fuzzy photo of a young and victorious Mike Tyson (“Mike Tyson and Jimmy Jacobs, New Paltz, New York, February 1986”), arm extended as if to say “I told you so,” the boxing elite are mostly boxed out of this display. Instead, Fink’s lens turned to the working class of the bruising business. At Philadelphia’s Champs Gym and the legendary Blue Horizon, an arena in which double- and triple-A fighters struggled to make it into the big leagues, Mr. Fink descended into the steamy engine room of boxing.
In his exploration, he discovered “a deep fraternity” peopled with boxers, trainers, referees, ring-card girls, writers, promoters, attending physicians, and fans. Judging from the photos, it is as though Mr. Fink were trying to gather up the entire fistic community within his penetrating gaze.
Mr. Fink corners the bloodlust of bug-eyed fans, some with jaws agape and others with O-shaped mouths, most likely as they watch a fighter kiss the canvas from a big punch (“Blue Horizon, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 1990” and “Blue Horizon, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 1994”). There is the ref, the arbiter of mayhem, between bouts, looking tired and with his big hands resting on the ropes (“Blue Horizon, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 1989”). Social anthropologists have frequently commented on the erotic element of the fight game. Mr. Fink tips his hat to this theme with a sensual image of the shapely leg of a ring-card girl slipping between the ropes (“Ring Girls, Madison Square Garden, New York, New York, May 1996”. Mr. Fink’s visual narrative is largely devoid of brutality; nevertheless, it pulsates with the high tension of the sport that, Joyce Carol Oates astutely observed, nobody plays.
In general, boxing photographers concentrate on nailing a crushing shot of a fist meeting a concussively twisted face. There’s not much of that here, only a singular print in which the fighters are actually exchanging punches (“Blue Horizon, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 1990”). But even that image is snapped from a bird’s-eye view, muting the force of the action.
Make no mistake about it, boxing is an advanced workshop in wolf-like emotions. Especially for the beginners not yet cozy with violence, the weight of constantly grappling with your doubts and fears gives fighters a weary sloth-like appearance that is collared in many of Mr. Fink’s pre-fight shots.
There is a photo of a young, crew-cut boxer about to start his walk down the dark alley to the klieg lights of the ring. Priest like, the trainer at his side is dutifully watching his boy’s every move. Wan and with a thousand-yard stare, you might think the kid was going to his execution (“Allentown Hotel, Allentown, Pennsylvania, April, 1995”). However, when the bell tolls there will be a metamorphosis and his sinewy body will snap to life.
The image that struck me in the solar plexus was that of a lightweight who has just exited the ring. His arms are wrapped around what could be his dad or trainer. The young boxer’s eyes are tightly closed. His turned head is nestled, baby-like, on the huge man’s chest. The big guy has a whisper of a smile on his lips, but it is hard to discern whether he is sharing a jubilant moment of relief after a victory or comforting a young warrior who just learned about the low ceiling of his pugilistic prospects (“Blue Horizon, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 1991”).
Pacing back and forth reflecting on Mr. Fink’s study, I overheard an enthusiastic visitor proclaim that Mr. Fink is the Ansel Adams of boxing. At first, I shrugged off the comment as hyperbole, but there is something to it. There is an Adams-like timelessness and quietness in Mr. Fink’s remarkable record of his sojourn into the hurly-burly of the gloved game.
—Mr. Marino, a professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College and a longtime boxing trainer, is the author of “The Existentialist’s Survival Guide” (HarperOne).