Review: Love Child

Love Child

Guy Pitchon
Xhibition
Street: 03.27

Love Child is a photo journal dedicated to the skate culture of Israel. However, the photography does not showcase skateboarding—nobody lands any tricks, and very few capture moments of the act of skating itself. Instead, it documents the lifestyle of your everyday Israeli skate scumbag. Indeed, bud-smoking abounds (apparently the word bong translates to “bung” in Hebrew) in the various portraits seen in the book—so much so that it took a glance over the press release to reveal that these kids were Israeli and not American. Therein lies the power of Pitchon’s photography. In the various images of curb-chilling, the bloody faces in the aftermath of a slam and homeless people camping out near some jersey barriers, the universal nature of (some types of) youth shines through. The name Love Child was reportedly chosen because of its euphemistic associations with the word bastard. Guy Pitchon uses the brutalism of blood and sweat to illustrate a disaffected youth where there are no parents and nowhere to call home. Pick this up. –Jordan Deveraux