Eye Candy

By David Balzer

HARRY BENSON

LIFE magazine mainstay Harry Benson is one lucky guy. His photographs have energy in large part because his subjects have energy – and, now, they have nostalgia, though it seems as if most of these moments were instantly nostalgic. Liss Gallery presents a selection of prints of some of Benson's finest shots – the centrepiece being Benson's series on The Beatles, whom he captured in New York City in February 1964, on the cusp of their American breakout. Benson's George V Hotel photos are most well-known, and for good reason; they show The Beatles being themselves – as much as they could have been at the time – hiding from rabid fans outside. The photos' monochrome insularity, shifting from utopian exuberance to claustrophobic regret (a pensive Lennon moment, supposedly after his “bigger than Jesus” quip, is fascinating) makes them companion pieces of sorts to D.A. Pennebaker's similarly hotel-bound dissection of Dylan, Don't Look Back. Benson's non-Beatles work is just as dependent on candidness: his goal seems to be to catch big personalities on their own, and then to have us note how much their private acts correspond with their public ones. One of the best examples of this might be his image of Donnie and Marie Osmond eating hamburgers at their kitchen table in the 1970s. It's a creepy, comical sight, revealing the incessant performativity of this shiny, happy duo – and of America, so much so that comparisons to Arbus or Winogrand would not be out of order. Speaking of which, Benson also has under his belt an amazing portrait of Dolly Parton, back-lit, doing her makeup in front of a standing mirror – and looking, for all her tacky appurtenances, like any other reg'lar Southern dame getting ready to go out and do her grocery shopping.

TO NOV 17. TUE-FRI 10AM-6PM. SAT 11AM-6PM. LISS GALLERY, 140 YORKVILLE. 416-787-9872. WWW.LISSGALLERY.COM.

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