Camera Night at the Ivar
October 20 - November 25, 2012

PHOTO BOOK COMING SOON

"It's cold out there. Colder than a ticket taker's smile at the Ivar Theatre on Saturday night" Tom Waits - Nighthawks at the Diner

drkrm is pleased to present Camera Night at the Ivar, a group exhibition featuring rarely seen images from the Ivar Theatre in Hollywood.

"Since most strip clubs expressly prohibit candid photography, Camera Night was a unique opportunity. The scene drew photographers from all over, many with national reputations. Collected in this show alone are Norman Breslow, Bill Dane, David Fahey, Anthony Friedkin, Michael Gurske, Ryan Herz, and Paul McDonough. Judging by the number of shooters visible in the photos (Winogrand can be seen lurking in the background of several) that was just the tip of the iceberg.

I suppose one could get similar photographs paying a studio model to expose herself, but the resulting photos wouldn't be much different from common porn. What separates the Camera Night photos from such pictures is that they depict not only the strippers but the crazy voyeuristic scene surrounding it, a sort of sociological study of shared sexual experience, ritual observation, and male fantasy.

Photographers cluster around the vaginas like paparazzi around celebrities, some mere inches from the origin of the world. Many in background also peer through cameras. Some men in the audience stare bug-eyed. Some masturbate. A few look bored. Some manage to do all at once. The scene feels real. The photographs feel real. It's an authentic look inside a fleeting moment in history. Then as now,"
--Blake Andrews

__________________________________________________________

"Hollywood’s Ivar Theatre Camera Nights were a big draw for the lurid school of L.A.-noir photography. The drkrm gallery exhibit includes prints by Bill Dane, Paul McDonough, Anthony Friedkin as well as Garry Winogrand, the latter whose Ivar portraits have hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

By the late ’60s The Ivar descended into a full-nudity strip joint — one of the last standing burlesque houses in the U.S. Stuck smack in central Hollywood. it was an eyesore into the backyard of Paramount, Goldwyn and the former Columbia studios. The last bastion of the desperate female, a twenty-minute tour of the Ivar’s sordid stage was a quick route to copping money for dope. Cleaner than hooking, it fetched less than $10 in the late 70s.  

So what’s the difference between the “Camera Night” photos and ballet photography by renowned dance photographer, Gene Schiavione? Ballerinas parade their bodies before audiences — but the intent and context differ. To my eye, the Ivar material, because it ropes in not just the performers but the audience as well, operates at a higher plane. The ballet photos, devoid of context, represent a purer objectification of the female body. For a pure exploitation I’d point to the ballet shots. But that doesn’t make the Ivar stuff easy to see."
--Debra Levine Artsmeme.com

__________________________________________________________

"One night a week was "camera night" and I used to enjoy shooting photographs of the strippers there with my Nimslo 3D camera. My eyes would water from the perpetual reek of Pinesol and I had to make sure to toss plenty of one dollar bills onto the stage or "Mister Cannonball", the Ivar's 500 pound black bouncer would gently tap me on the shoulder.

These were the ugliest strippers I have ever seen! Ghostly pale, bruised Hollywood street walkers with black eyes, broken teeth and arms covered in track marks and tattoos . The audience for this spectacle was 7 or 8 Japanese businessmen in beige raincoats nursing warm half empty glasses of beer. "
--Larry Wessel

____________________________________________________________

"That's the place I experienced my first queef."
--Gary R.

____________________________________________________________
.

back