OUR brutjournal WITNESS TO HISTORY: LA, LA, LA, LA, LAPPING UP LUIGI

A TABLOID NEWS PHOTOGRAPHER WHO IS ALSO A PAINTER CAPTURES A UNIQUE MOMENT OF OUR HEAD-SPINNING TIMES

by Edward M. Gómez

NEW YORK — The photographer Steven Hirsch, who for many decades has shot casual street scenes and so-called hard-news pictures for New York’s scandal-loving tabloids, is also a painter — and a regular contributor to brutjournal of his documents, in paint, of the rarefied world whose peculiarities and protocols his camera observes.

Photo by Steven Hirsch: Luigi Mangione arriving for his arraignment at a courthouse in downtown Manhattan, New York City, on December 23, 2024. ©2024 Steven Hirsch, all rights reserved. Used by permission of the photographer.

That’s because, when he’s not roaming New York’s mean streets looking for colorful, unexpected subjects, he spends much of his time in the dreary, dingy corridors of downtown Manhattan’s criminal courts, where he has become a master, detail-capturing witness — our own Hogarth-meets-Delacroix chronicler — of the perp walk, the rattling of handcuffs, the courtroom outburst, and the follies of Uncle Sam’s incorrigibly inept criminal justice system.

Hirsch was in the court building on Monday, December 23, 2024, when Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspect in the early-December, fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, showed up with his attorney to be arraigned before a judge. Describing the event, ABC News reported that Mangione “entered the Manhattan courtroom in shackles and under heavy guard” and that he “was dressed in civilian clothes, wearing a maroon sweater over a light-colored shirt and a pair of chinos.” Mangione faces state murder charges, including murder as an “act of terrorism,” and separate federal charges.

Another photo by Steven Hirsch of Luigi Mangione arriving for his arraignment at a courthouse in downtown Manhattan, New York City, on December 23, 2024. ©2024 Steven Hirsch, all rights reserved. Used by permission of the photographer.

Hirsch photographed the arrested, accused young man as he made his way with a police escort to the arraignment courtroom. Later, at his painting studio, the photographer-artist made a new painting based on his photos, which we’re reproducing here, along with some of his news photos.

Hirsch told us, “It was very weird photographing Mangione when he was walked down the hallway in handcuffs and chains, with maybe 10 to 15 police officers escorting him, on the way to his court appearance. I got the feeling that he was some sort of martyr on the way to his execution. I thought I had seen this before. It had vibes of the walk of Lee Harvey Oswald [, the so-called lone gunman who assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963].”

Steven Hirsch, “Luigi Mangione,” 2024, acrylic paint on paper, 24 x 18 inches (60.96 x 45.72 cm). Original artwork and photo ©2024 Steven Hirsch, all rights reserved. Used by permission.

Since the “unaliving,” as numerous social-media posts have put it, of Thompson on December 4, mainstream news media and social-media platforms have erupted with expressions of support for or condemnation of Mangione’s alleged action. Many of those who have not chastised him and even many mainstream-media talking heads have called attention to the young man’s fashion-model good looks and to his emerging status as a kind of contemporary, social-justice-seeking Robin Hood.

About photographing Mangione at the courthouse on his arraignment day, Hirsch also noted, “The moment seemed so solemn, and he was so recognizable after seeing so many photos of him in the media that it felt like I knew him, but at the same time, video lights and flashes were going off at a machine-gun pace. It all seemed like a circus in which Mangione was the main act. It was very surreal.”