American Mythology: Theo Wenner ’09 on the Year He Spent Photographing the NYPD’s North Brooklyn Homicide Squad in Interview

The detective, as a figure, looms large in the “American mythology,” says Theo Wenner ’09, speaking to Interview about his new book of photography, Homicide. “It’s like a Western, or baseball,” Wenner says. “I wanted to see what it looks like now. Does it actually exist like you think it does? The way they dress, the way they talk?” In creating Homicide, which visually documents a year spent alongside the NYPD’s North Brooklyn Homicide squad, Wenner says his studies with Stephen Shore at Bard informed his approach to this work of photojournalism. “It’s not one single thing that Shore imparts on you. You start to realize the importance of objects,” Wenner says. Objects, Wenner says, can be more true than a portrait, which captures a projection of how someone wishes to be seen. Objects, by contrast, are “unbiased,” especially when it comes to the grim subject matter of Homicide. “You’re staring at the person’s face and it’s like they got caught mid-sentence, the eyes open and looking off into wherever, there’s like a yellow M&Ms wrapper next to the victim,” Wenner says. “Those little details take on so much significance.”

Post Date: 06-28-2022