BROOKLYN GANG

After a short period as a freelancer for Life magazine, in 1958 Bruce Davidson was included in the Magnum collective. One of the first projects he carried out was making a photo documentary on The Jokers, a group of teenagers in Brooklyn. He hung around with them on the street, in the park, and on the beaches and boardwalks of Coney Island. The result was an intimate and revealing portrait of youth growing up in the 1950s. At the same time it visualised the bonds of friendship among men and women on the threshold of adulthood, a phase common to people of all cultures. Davidson (b. 1933) would later realise many more similar projects, among them on the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and on the residents of a block in East Harlem. Each time, on the basis of lives rooted in a particular time and place he produced a story with general human appeal, giving a unique modern interpretation to the values of Magnum’s founders. Over forty years after it was made, Brooklyn Gang is still a document that speaks to the viewer.