Photographer Mark Laita's "Created Equal" is a series of portraits of Americans juxtaposed in rather provocative diptychs. Pairings include the likes of marine/war veteran, Baptist churchgoer/white supremacist, pedophile/child, and, seen above, polygamist/pimp. Turnstyle interviewed Laita and presents a selection of the Created Equal photos:
How did this project come about and why did you want to work on it?"Slideshow: Mark Laita's Created Equal"Mark Laita: Created Equal is different from my other work in that it's not politically correct. Perhaps it's a reaction to all the years of working for advertising clients, producing work that was pleasing to look at. Almost all commercial work has a committee or focus group making certain that the end result is "nice." I felt the need to produce something that was raw and real, as life truly is, not just what we aspire to. The more shocking to our sense of what's "right," the better. That's why I sought out the worst pedophile I could find (with a list of the most horrible convictions you can imagine) and a beautiful and innocent little girl (photographed with her mother's consent of the pairing of images). If the viewer cringes from the pairing that's great. I think a lot of us don't think what you see in Created Equal exists in our city, but take a look at your neighborhood's Megan's list website sometime and tell me how "nice" your town is. Every city in the U.S. has sex offenders, prostitutes, drug addicts along with wonderful humanitarians, philanthropists and leaders. I aimed to depict our country as it is, not as we would like to think it is.
Bit on the nose don’t you think?
I find it a bit contrived, mainly because of the way all the figures seem like caricatures. It’s hard to believe these are real subjects and not models, which really detracts from the brutal reality implied by the juxtaposition. Controversiality is also minimised by the repetition.
Meh.
Cool idea. Especially the one that’s basically just an abstract pun. (“Gold Digger”)
Excellent work overall- though I do agree that in some cases, the duality comparison is a bit overtly pandering to both a stereotype and the simplistic first level expectations of the viewer (as Mermaid pointed out: “Garbage Man” is a discredited nobel profession; in this context, only the “garbage” part seems emphasized, seemingly failing to acknowledge the worthiness of the job; defining this person in relation to the unpleasant nature of disposing of an unwanted human life – by pairing with the equally simplified “Abortionist”. This one seems a bit first-year Art School to me, compared with the some of his stronger work).
Far more successful, in my opinion, were the images that had some ambiguity to the relationship, and encouraged the viewer to dig deeper: the ballet Dancer / Boxer for example.
The difference in the photo pair shown here are on the right, the man has multiple women to get more money.
On the left, the man has to have money to have be able to support multiple women.
The one on the right is a scumbag and MAY be a sadist. The one on the left MAY be a scumbag, but is probably a masochist.
The one on the right probably has a bronze colored Cadillac Sedan DeVille.
The one on the left probably has a bronze colored Ford F-150 from the 1970s.
Both own guns.
Ya think?
I once heard a surprisingly convincing defense of polygamy as a means of feminine empowerment— for some, anyway— by a woman who was in one such relationship. If the women involved are actually treated as equal partners (admittedly a big “if”) then you’ve basically got a commune led by several women and one man.
I’ve also seen and read that argument. In theory, it makes sense. In reality, polygamists have a tendency to go for young teenagers for their second and subsequent wives, not adult women who are choosing a lifestyle which will empower them to be equal human beings with men.
Notice that the age of the women in both photos are pretty similar. And the pimp is actually closer to his employees’ ages than the polygamist husband is to his wives’.
I have no doubt that the woman in the interview I heard was probably the exception rather than the rule, but it was an interesting perspective nonetheless.
point taken
And he might be a redneck.
“Woman in Bar” is a mature porn model. My, uh, friend recognized her. Not to say that she wasn’t also in a bar, but she’s pretty used to the camera.
Very provocative. Very thought provoking, at least for those who care to have their thoughts provoked. (Those who don’t care to have their thoughts provoked will probably find some of the photo pairings boring, others obvious, and others offensive.)
I know which one I’d rather be.
“The one on the left MAY be a scumbag, but is probably a masochist.”
You haven’t spent much time around patriarchal birth cults, have you?
“Controversial”? Yawn. Nice enough technically but come on, this is mostly pretty boring.
Very telling.
I think it would make for an interesting infographic to rescale the pictures based on the number of estimated Americans that represent each of them.
I wonder how many of the individuals photographed resent or reprehend the beliefs or worldview of their pairing…or any of the others in the series for that matter.
I wonder who would discriminate against who if one of the others showed up at their workplace, not necessarily in the outfit from the photograph, but perhaps a sticker pasted on their shirt with the label from the picture.
Controversial artwork is controversial.
For my part, I always thought that artists who made an explicit point of saying (internally and externally to their work) that they were trying to be provocative, to outrage, to shatter the comfort zone, to puncture our complacency, etc.– I always thought that they had a special responsibility to have something clear and important to say. If it’s something I don’t like, fine, that’s part of being the poor benumbed sheep that the brilliant artist is trying to wake up. But all too often when you try to get past the “shocking for the sake of being shocking” there’s just incoherent mumbling.
In other words, if you’re going to condescend to tell people what The Real Truth Is, you’d better have a clearer look at it than they do.
All I see here is a sort of photographic standardized test question, or maybe a riddle. Can I figure out in what sense A is “equal” to B? I dunno, I guess. If his larger point is that no one subset of the population is much “better” in whatever sense than another, then I can’t say I’m blown away by the profundity, or that it justified the whole “look at me, I’m being provocative” aspect.
Some more: http://www.marklaita.com/ce.html
Thanks for the link. I really dig the chef/cook diptych and the fur trapper (again- Those still EXIST?!). Most interesting was noticing the left hands of the Beauty Queen/Topless dancer.
Good work. . .I like gold digger/bargirl.
“It’s hard out here for a. . .polygamist”
garbage man= discredited noble profession
I wouldn’t mind being either man. Wait to polygamist have threesomes?
Polygynists don’t have threesomes. Who does? Awesome, interesting, sexually-empowered, feminist men. So, you know, good luck with that.
Just the fact that he uses the term “Abortionist” shows he has a certain POV. He’s a facile idiot.
Do you think it is possible that the artist wanted to condense “Doctor who preforms, among other things, abortions” to just one word?
Yeah, that’s why we refer to urologists as castraters and vascular surgeons as amputators.
Very nice work.
The polygamist/pimp image is sort of the Platonic ideal for a flyer I did a while back — or at least as it would have been, had my photographer not been an idiot and had Laita’s polygamous patriarch been a leather daddy.)
Whew! I like! Makes my hair stand on end and me shiver.
Prospectors still exist?
For just a split second I thought it was polygamy/polyandry, and that the “Created Equal” was about sexism, but alas no. Still cool though.
Polygyny = many females. Polygamy just means more than two, and can be of either sex. I try to use the more specific term whenever possible as it is far more descriptive, although actually I think most people just think I don’t know how to pronounce polygamy correctly *sigh*
Yeah, this is some pretty trite work.
OK, checked out the link and saw the abortionist/garbage man comparison. What the hell? That’s just assholerery.
Agreed. I don’t see a clear message throughout, which wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t presented as though it were there; “created equal” has us looking for equivalence with each pairing, or an ironic upsetting of the notion. I don’t see it.
It’s interesting to see your strong reaction towards the abortionist/garbage man juxtaposition. Where does it come from?
I’m not asking to be sneering, I’m genuinely curious because I think that this photo’s statement will be one of the most controversial out of the set, for many reasons:
A: The knee-jerk judgement towards waste disposal work being very menial lowly and dirty.
B: The imagery of aborted babies being seen as ‘garbage’.
C: The notion that both abortionists and garbage men may be equally necessary.
D: The notion that both abortionists and garbage men may see their work as respectable, despite society’s views of them…
I wonder what the artist’s own thought was when he chose that particular combo. But I think that overall, he did a great job for the thoughts he will generate in viewers, on many different topics.
Sex Pistols – Bodies
“OK, checked out the link and saw the abortionist/garbage man comparison. What the hell? That’s just assholerery.”
I thought it was perceptive comparison, and one that has further merit in its potential to make both pro-lifers and pro-choicers uncomfortable…for different reasons, of course.
Where’s Mother Teresa/Glenn Beck?
Not that much of a difference between Mother Theresa and Glenn Beck.
At least the pimp knows how to operate a condom.
The religious zealot knows how the sin-bag works, but would never put that devil sheath on his monkey unless Gawd told him to do it.
It strikes me that this photography project is “art” for all the right reasons — basically, it forces the viewer to think about the world around them, perhaps in a new light.
But I don’t think it should lead to the viewer necessarily adopting a dismissal of morals, simply because different communities treat morality in different ways. Rather, I would submit that different communities adopt behaviors that might be immoral, for very different social/economic reasons, and we should be willing the readily judge ALL of them.
I would also suggest that pairing a polygamist husband with wives with pimp and hos, and then a paedophile and young girl, is watering down the message of the collection, and conveys the impression that the pairings are more an effort to “shock” the audience, than to convey a particular interpretation to the pairings that has any significance to the collection at large. That’s certainly the artist’s prerogative, but I don’t think it’s as impactful, frankly.
interesting photos. distracted by the fact that they were all different sizes in the viewer. perhaps it was done intentionally to make me stop and consider each one individually instead of quickly flipping through them.
Robert Frank did this decades ago in a more subtle way. And the idea retains its power. Not a slam on Mr. Laita – really like his work and the comments he provokes with it.
Are there really, actually pimps who still look like this? Or is this someone dressing up in the role of a pimp? He even has a cane, ferchristsakes.
@sbarnes2: what, exactly, do you find offensive about the abortionist/garbage man comparison? They’re both people paid to do the unpleasant task of getting rid of things that people don’t want.
Yep, and they’re both people with a stigma attached to their work too.
As far as I can tell, pimps and prostitutes dress like pimps and prostitutes mostly so that you can tell they are pimps and prostitutes. (I’m speaking of the streetwalker type here, not call girls.)