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Starstruck
Photographs from a Fan
by
Gary Boas
8" x 8", 300 Pages
Selected
by Artforum Magazine as "Best of 2000"
Essays
by:
Carlo McCormick
Michael Musto
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Starstruck
unearths the spectacular photo archives of one of the most
obsessively devoted fans of our time.
Beginning
in 1966 at age 15, Gary Boas would travel from his small town
of Lancaster, PA to New York City, where he would sit for
hours outside the theaters, parties and restaurants and wait
in hopes of photographing famous people. Using his Brownie
Bullseye camera, he captured everyone from silver screen goddesses
and Broadway legends to forgotten local beauty queens; from
rock stars to politicians; porn stars to the Pope. Boasıs
obsession continued, uninterrupted, for the next 35 years.
In
1999, on a visit to Boas's home in Lancaster, the editors
of Dilettante Press discovered rows of meticulously assembled
scrapbooks lining the sagging bookshelves of Boas's bedroom.
The albums revealed a vast personal archive of over 50,000
images of famous people. This discovery resulted in an internationally
acclaimed photo exhibition and the book, Starstruck: Photographs
from a Fan.
Culled
from Boas's images from the 60s and 70s, Starstruck unearths
never-before-seen candid moments of the most famous superstars
of the era, alongside many forgotten and cult personalities.
Combined with Boas's own insightful and astonishing stories
of his interaction with the stars, Starstruck documents, with
a refreshing vitality, a bygone era of glamour, fashion, and
pre-paparazzi innocence. The result is fascinating portrait
of contemporary American culture, taken from the remarkable
perspective of an unknown fan.
Starstruck
features essays by Paper Magazine Senior Editor Carlos McCormick
and Village Voice correspondent Michael Musto
*Selected
by Artforum Magazine as "Best of 2000*
Check
out Gary Boas' artist
profile page.
"Remarkable...compulsively
absorbing"
- Ken Johnson, New York
Times
"Starstruck
unexpectedly celebrates the beauty of the amateur-one whose
vocation is not driven by a hunger for money, but by love.
The book is a breath of fresh air"
- Warren Beatty
"Really
fabulous...I could not put it down.I didn't expect it would
be such a great read, as well as, of course, being a profound
social and cultural document."
- Ken
Coupland, Graphis
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