Throughout the 60s, from his home in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, Danny Fitzgerald (1921-2000) operated a studio under the name Les Demi Dieux with his partner and chief model Richard Bennett. (with cowboy hat) Danny considered them all demigods but in the flesh, these Brooklyn boys were members of street gangs. They play cards, smoke cigarettes, and slouch against their Buicks. Occasionally they were photographed in Fitzgerald’s studio, where he shot professional, sensual nudes. The Brooklyn boys exist on a cusp between innocence and street savvy, boyhood and manhood, mortality and eternity. Fitzgerald began photographing the young men he met at Abe Goldberg’s gym on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The models were working-class men 20 years his junior, from neighborhoods and families similar to his own. Later, he and Bennett recruited their subjects on the streets of Brooklyn using Bennett’s gregarious personality and bodybuilder physique as bait. At Steven Kasher Gallery through January 18th, 2014. (Photos: Danny Fitgerald)