Julian Wasser | Pop and Burn
November 29 – January 17, 2026
Opening Reception: December 6, 4–6pm
Julian Wasser’s hero was the legendary and self-proclaimed, “Weegee The Famous.” As a young man, Wasser had the opportunity to ride with this unflinching press photographer while the “giant” was in Washington D.C. to promote a book. Although Wasser thought he was a “fat, dirty slob,” he also recognized him as the world’s best photographer of crime scenes and street tragedies, a genre he practically invented, and whose nickname came from the word, Ouija, because he seemed to be in the right place even before an event happened. In the 1960s, Wasser came to Los Angeles and made his own mark as TIME Magazine’s lead West Coast photographer, being, like Weegee, everywhere things were happening, like the Watts Riots, MLK speeches, the Manson murders, the heart of the seminal art scene, the ubiquitous movie culture, Sunset Strip clubs and music, and the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel on the night of RFK’s assassination. He photographed everyone from Marilyn Monroe to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and was in the studio when the Stones were in LA to record “Satistaction.” He even got an assignment for an author he had not yet heard of, named Joan Didion. Julian’s pictures of that session are still used on Didion’s paperbacks.
Julian Wasser passed away in 2023, a couple months shy of his 90th birthday. The exhibition, “Pop and Burn” at Craig Krull Gallery celebrates our long relationship with this hard-boiled, unfiltered and often cranky photographer who drove his ‘65 Mustang convertible, kept his press pass around his neck, and followed news leads with pagers on his belt till smart phones changed the way we do everything. “Pop and Burn” is the snap and sizzle of the old cameras and flash bulbs that Weegee used, and that Wasser started with. It is the signature poof and glare in the face of the newsworthy. Wasser not only inherited Weegee’s gift of timing but, I believe, he took his bold tabloid look to a new level. Wasser’s images are often high contrast, with deep blacks and bright whites, like bold newspaper headlines with striking compositions that are stunning given his split-second decision making. “Pop and Burn” is also a reference to the Pop culture in which he was immersed, photographing the Jackson 5 when they were children, and the often-tragic burn of life in the limelight. But many of the images in this exhibition are of unknown young people at nightclubs, working in dress shops, drinking soda pop, blowing big chewing gum bubbles and smoking cigarettes. In fact, the working title of this exhibition was simply Bubble Gum and Cigarettes, but the image of Aggie Underwood, the tough, hard-nosed editor of the Herald-Express shooting her pistol at the news desk, with smoke rising from the gun, required a more dynamic approach.