Shustak

World Premiere

Born to Jewish immigrant parents in New York’s Bronx in 1926, Laurence Shustak trained as an apprentice toolmaker, going on to serve in the US army during the final stages of World War II and later working as an interpreter helping in war crime trials in Germany.

In the mid 1950s, Shustak turned his hand to the study and practice of photography and design. He combined photography with his passion for jazz; shooting images for many jazz and blues record covers. His work soon featured in magazines and exhibitions and he began teaching and running photographic workshops for the New York School of Visual Arts and Time-Life Inc.

He moved to New Zealand and established the Department of Photography at the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Art, bringing with him cameras and ideas, zeal, and a personal vision that drew on the unfolding utopian philosophy of Buckminster Fuller together with the latest media understandings of Marshall McLuhan. At the age of 77 years, Shustak died May 13, 2003.

A student and graduate of the School of Fine Arts, Stuart Page, received Creative NZ Funding for the production of this tribute to Shustak. Page punctuates his footage with Shustak’s own original prints and archival material. Page combines his own mix of unconventional ‘talking head’ interviews with animated photos and words scanning his former teacher’s career from stunning Harlem social photo essays to provocative fish eye nudes, and from stark black and white 16mm shorts to lush Polaroids.