A half-century of social change in America, documented in the writings of Danny Lyon, photographer and author of The Bikeriders and The Destruction of Lower Manhattan
Hbk, 6.5 x 9.25 in. / 396 pgs / 16 color / 57 bw. | 2/2/2021 | In stock $35.00
Published by Karma Books, New York. Edited with introduction by Randy Kennedy. Conversations with Hugh Edwards, Nan Goldin, Susan Meiselas.
“From the beginning, even before he left the University of Chicago and headed south to take up a position as the first staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Danny Lyon dreamed of being an artist in language as well as in pictures,” writes Randy Kennedy in the introduction to American Blood. In 1961, at the age of 19, for example, Lyon penned a brutally satirical article for a student mimeo magazine in which he argued for the deterrent power of prime-time televised executions (“the show would open, no doubt, like a baseball game, with a rendition of the National Anthem”).
Lyon is widely celebrated for his groundbreaking work in photography and film. Less recognized is the extensive body of writing that has broadened and reinforced his reach, in both the pages of his own publications and in others as varied as the Los Angeles Times, the New York Review of Books, Aperture, civil rights publications, underground magazines and Lyon's blog.
This 400-page volume spans republished and previously unpublished texts from nearly six decades of his career, comprising a vast, meticulously archived history of American social change. Also included are conversations between Lyon and Hugh Edwards, Nan Goldin and Susan Meiselas. As Kennedy writes, Lyon’s collected writings, “remarkable as both artistic and moral models, remain far too little known, especially for an author who has seen what he has seen and possesses the rare ability to write about it as he speaks; Lyon is a world-class talker, funny, wise, sanguine and indefatigable.”
Danny Lyon (born 1942) is one of the most influential documentary photographers of the last five decades. His many books include The Movement (1964), The Bikeriders, The Destruction of Lower Manhattan (1969), Knave of Hearts (1999), Like a Thief’s Dream (2007) and Deep Sea Diver (2011).
Published by Aperture. Introduction and interviews by Danny Lyon.
First published in 1968, and now back in print for the first time in ten years, The Bikeriders explores firsthand the stories and personalities of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club. This journal-size volume features original black-and-white photographs and transcribed interviews by Lyon, made from 1963 to 1967, when he was a member of the Outlaws gang. Authentic, personal and uncompromising, Lyon’s depiction of individuals on the outskirts of society offers a gritty yet humane perspective that subverts more commercialized treatments of Americana. Akin to the documentary style of 1960s-era New Journalism made famous by writers such as Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe, Lyon’s photography is saturation reporting at its finest. The Bikeriders is a touchstone publication of 1960s counterculture, crucially defining the vision of the outlaw biker as found in Easy Rider and countless other movies and photobooks. Danny Lyon (born 1942) is one of the most influential documentary photographers of the last five decades. His many books include The Movement (1964), The Destruction of Lower Manhattan (1969), Conversations with the Dead (1971), Knave of Hearts (1999), Like a Thief’s Dream (2007) and Deep Sea Diver (2011). Widely exhibited and collected, Lyon has been awarded Guggenheim Fellowships twice and National Endowment for the Arts grants ten times.
PUBLISHER Aperture
BOOK FORMAT Hardcover, 6.25 x 9.25 in. / 94 pgs / 48 duotone.
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 5/31/2014 No longer our product
DISTRIBUTION Contact Publisher Catalog:
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9781597112642TRADE List Price: $35.00 CDN $40.00
Danny Lyon: The Bikeriders