Occupy Wall Street’s gallery debut is today, only protesters say
they had no part in it.
Fort Greene photographer Andrew Piccone’s show “Faces of Occupy Wall Street” opens at the Frontrunner gallery in TriBeCa tonight.
The portraits of some 26 protesters will be sold for $200 a print, but Piccone, 24, said he hasn’t spoken to a single one of his subjects.
“I didn’t interact with them or tell them what I was going to do with the photos,” Piccone said. “I liked my role as a voyeur.”
Some Occupiers say they feel violated. Eric Cartar, 30, from New Orleans, called Piccone’s exhibit “disingenuous.”
“All the energy in this park is against being commodified,” said Carter. “He’s just missing the point.”
Protesters told Metro that they understand they are occupying a public park, but wish Piccone would have been more transparent about his intentions.
“It’s his first amendment right” Camille Raneem, 21, a Hunter student, said. “I don’t think it’s morally right.”
Raneem said she’s been photographed hundreds of times since the occupation began and finds the barrage of cameras “harassing.”
“They photograph you while you’re waking up,” she said. “You feel like an animal in a zoo.”
Piccone’s say
Piccone says that he doesn’t identify with the Occupy protesters.
“I would not consider myself a participant in the protest,” he said to Metro. “There are certain things I agree with, and certain things I might not.”
“Faces of Occupy Wall Street” is the budding photographer’s first show.
When told of protesters’ fury over his exhibit, Piccone said he now plans to donate “a portion of the profits” to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Follow Emily Anne Epstein on Twitter @EmilyatMetro.
