2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
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print this pageWeegee: Two Truths & A Lie
Jason Tannen
Friday, November 07 - 1:00PM to 1:30PM
Jason Tannen's presentation focuses on Arthur Fellig (1899–1968)—better known as Weegee—the groundbreaking tabloid news and crime photographer who captured the raw pulse of New York City in the 1930s and 1940s. Through an in-depth examination of Weegee's work and the gritty urban environment that shaped it, Tannen's talk presents more than one hundred photographs, including many rarely seen images, alongside contextual materials that illuminate the photographer's world.
Weegee's camera chronicled both the chaos and vitality of the modern metropolis. His lens found equal fascination in the scenes of tragedy and spectacle—murders, fires, automobile wrecks—as in the joyous diversions of urban life: nightclub crowds, parade-goers, and movie audiences. By photographing people at their most vulnerable, unguarded, or exuberant moments, he collapsed the distance between subject and viewer, capturing the immediacy of life under the glare of his flashbulb.
Tannen's presentation also considers Weegee's enduring relevance to contemporary debates on photography as truth. Though operating within the realm of "news" photography, Weegee often infused his images with drama, irony, and theatricality. In his famous photograph The Critic, for instance, he staged an encounter between a destitute woman and two elegant opera patrons—provoking a visual and social confrontation between America's privileged and impoverished classes.
Through such moments, Weegee transformed the city's streets into a cinematic stage, blending observation and orchestration in ways that blurred the boundary between document and performance. Originally printed in daily tabloids and destined for the wastebasket, his photographs endure today for their haunting beauty, immediacy, and unflinching portrayal of humanity.
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Jason Tannen
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