Real People, Contrived Settings

In the early 1990s, the photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia made five trips to Los Angeles to pick up male prostitutes in Hollywood. Cruising down a seedy stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard, where young men loitered suggestively by the curb, he would slow down in his rental car when he saw a likely prospect.

Once the man approached, Mr. diCorcia would make a proposition. He offered to pay the going rate, but instead of sex, what he wanted was a photograph. Usually, the hustler agreed. They drove together to a setting that Mr. diCorcia and his assistant had chosen and prepared. There, the pictures were taken, the money was transferred, and the two sides went their separate ways.

When the Museum of Modern Art exhibited 25 of the photographs in 1993 under the title “Strangers,” each was labeled with the name of the man who posed, his hometown, his age, and the amount of money that changed hands. (The photographer could vouch for only the sum, usually $20 to $30.) Mr. diCorcia, now 61, would have liked to call the show “Trade.” Gay slang for a male prostitute, “trade” is also a straightforward description of what was going on.

“They give you something, you give them something,” he said in a recent interview.

Two decades later, the series has become known as “Hustlers,” and under that title a much fuller selection (about 80) of the pictures is about to be published in a book by Steidldangin and will be exhibited next month at the David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea.

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