The Bikeriders: Danny Lyon
photo by Danny Lyon
September 4 – October 27, 2012
In the 1960s, Lyon ushered in a new way of seeing: from the inside. The publication of The Bikeriders in 1968 became a distinct, early portrait of the Chicago Outlaws motorcycle club of which he was a member. Published when Lyon was 26-years old, this document proved to be a landmark publication for its juxtaposition of recorded interviews and the photographer’s intimate images of the club.
Since the 1960s Danny Lyon has always been the uncompromising photojournalist: marching against segregation as the first official photographer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); highlighting the destruction of timeworn buildings in lower Manhattan to make way for the Twin Towers with The Destruction of Lower Manhattan; and documenting the inmates of Texas maximum security prisons in Conversations with the Dead. In no small way, Lyon has forced us to acknowledge the people, places, and events often relegated to society’s shadows.
Lyon continues to take on diverse projects including the publication of the recentDeep Sea Diver: An American Photographer’s Journey in Shanxi, China (2011). The subject of over 50 solo exhibitions, with retrospective exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2007-8) and The Menil Collection (2012), Lyon is also an accomplished documentary filmmaker with more than a dozen films to his credit, one of which, Murderers, will be screened at Tucson’s Center for Creative Photography.
Reception: Saturday, September 8, 7-10pm, Etherton Gallery
Film Screening: Friday, October 5, 6pm, Center for Creative Photography
Book Signing: Saturday, October 6, 1-5pm, Etherton Gallery
Read more next month, in the October issue of Zocalo.
