Collection comprises photographs from six bodies of documentary work by Vince Cianni, New York-based photographer and author. Subjects focus chiefly on American culture, exploring wedding rituals, skateboarding and youth culture, urban decay, street photography, shopping mall society, men in shelters, and gays in the military. There is also a series on kickboxing in Cambodia, and a large set of oral history interviews with gay men and women in the U.S. military. Most of the prints are gelatin silver, but there are also some in color.
Accession 2007-0072 houses a series of 224 black-and-white photographs depicting roller blade and Hispanic American youth street culture in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, taken by Cianni during the 1990s and into 2001. Fifteen of the prints appear in Cianni's book, We Skate Hardcore: Photographs from Brooklyn's South Side (2001); and 68 prints are unpublished. Photographs are captioned and signed on the back. Also included are photographs of urban life in the Bronx, NY; and from the baby shower (Queens, NY) and wedding (Fairborn, OH) of a young couple who appear in other images from this series. Finally, the series houses the maquette for Cianni's book (version 1, 2000), and the printer's dummy (versions 2-3, 2001-2004).
Accession 2007-0200 contains 65 black-and-white prints and photographic collages of East Berlin, the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Berlin, 1990. Prints range from 8x10 to 16x24 and are captioned and signed on back by the photographer.
Accession 2008-0048 contains prints from the Poughkeepsie Mall Series (Poughkeepsie, NY, 1980s) and the Providence House Men's Shelter Series (Newburgh, NY, 1983). Forty-four black-and-white photographic prints: one 5 5/8 x 8 ½; one 5 7/8 x9; and forty-two 11x14 prints. Poughkeepsie Mall series: twenty-two 11x14 prints, 1980s. The images depict youth culture, African American culture, and urban decay.
Accession 2008-0300 contains 184 prints of weddings, including some transexual weddings, taken by Cianni during the 1980s. This series includes Cianni's MFA project, Wedding Rituals, a group of twenty-four 20x24 prints and one 16x20 print. Photographs in this series are in both color and black-and-white; many are captioned and signed on the back by the photographer.
Accession 2008-0303 contains an additional 23 8x10 duotone and gelatin silver prints from Cianni's book We Skate Hardcore: Photographs from Brooklyn's South Side. These prints include portraits and other images of Hispanic American youth roller blade culture in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York during the mid-1990s.
Accession 2009-0243 houses forty-two black-and-white photographs of Muay Thai style of kickboxing competition in Siem Reap, Cambodia, 2004: thirty-six 8x10 prints and six 16x20 prints.
Accession 2010-0187 includes forty-seven 8x10 black-and-white prints from the We Skate Hardcore series. The gelatin silver prints are signed on verso and date 1995-2003, with bulk dates 1995-1997.
In addition, the collection contains digital video, stills, and image scans, and oral history recordings, all relating to his documentary photobooks We skate hardcore and Gays in the military. Original media formats are closed to use. Most files have been mounted to the library server; for access, please contact the Rubenstein Library.
Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
Processed by Meghan Lyon and Katy Terrell, January 2009.
Encoded by Meghan Lyon and Paula Jeannet, February 2009.
Updated by Meghan Lyon, June 2011.
Updated by Craig Breaden, May 2018 and Paula Jeannet, October 2018.
Materials may not have been ordered and described beyond their original condition.
Accession(s) described in this collection guide: 2007-0072, 2007-0200, 2008-0048, 2008-0300, 2008-0303, 2009-0243, 2010-0187, and 2013-0161.
