You Killed Me First

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Nightmarish scenarios of violence, dramatic states of mind, and perverse sexual abysses – the films of the Cinema of Transgression that were consciously aimed at shock, provocation, and confrontation, bear witness to an extraordinary radicality. In the 1980s a group of filmmakers from the Lower East Side in New York went on a collision course with the conventions of American society. Transcending all moral or aesthetic boundaries, the low budget films reveal social hardship met with sociopolitical indifference. Sometimes shot with stolen camera equipment, the films contain strident analyses of life in the Lower East Side defined by criminality, brutality, drugs, AIDS, sex, and excess. On view at the  KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin, until April 9, is the first exhibition on the Cinema of Transgression.

The Nudes of Lord Lichfield

Thomas Patrick John Anson, 5th Earl of Lichfield (25 April 1939 – 11 November 2005) was an English photographer. He inherited the Earldom of Lichfield in 1960 from his paternal grandfather. In his professional practice he was known as Patrick Lichfield. Β This above image, taken in 1990, features a model looking acrossΒ Central Park from the balcony of Rock Hudson’s former flat.Β Lichfield was an internationally renowned photographer who worked Β for all the major magazines, exhibited worldwide, and published several books during his career. The National Portrait Gallery dedicated a retrospective exhibition to the first Β twenty years of his work in 2002. His great break was when he was summoned by Diana Β Vreeland, the doyenne of fashion editors, to photograph the Duke and Duchess of Β Windsor, and given a five year contract with American Vogue. In 1981 he was appointed Β official photographer at the wedding of his cousin, The Prince of Wales, and Β Lady Diana Spencer. Β He is lesser known for his nude work which will be exhibited for the first time at the Little Black Gallery in London from April 24 to May 26.

Places, Strange & Quiet

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This April, the Falckenberg Collection will present an exhibition of photographs by the internationally renowned filmmaker and artist Wim Wenders (b. 1945). Bringing together almost 60 images, taken from 1983 to 2011, this show entitled Places, Strange and Quiet will feature many photographs not yet exhibited in Germany including several very recent works. On view from April 5 to August 5, 2012 at The Falckenberg Collection, Hamburg-Harburg.