The photographer, whose work captured and critiqued our lurid interest in crime, remains grimly relevant

Known both for his preternatural ability to show up at the scene of murders, car crashes, fires and other urban calamities, as well as his bizarre distortions of world-famous figures like Marilyn Monroe and The Beatles, the photographer Weegee, AKA Arthur Fellig, was a fascinating study in contrasts. A new exhibit from the International Center of Photography in New York City, Weegee: Society of the Spectacle explores the work and legacy of a man who in many ways was at once of his time and so far ahead of it.

“At the beginning of this project was a kind of puzzling question,” said exhibit curator Clément Chéroux, “it’s as if you had in the same body a Walker Evans and a Man Ray. How could the same photographer do that?”