Boxers

Boxing offers those working class men who learn the sport a slim chance of realizing the American dream. But the price for social standing and above average income is often broken bones and chronic health problems. In contrast, in Assisi, in the center of the Italian boxing world, boxing is about athletic competition and the art of the sport. Boxers intersperses Carol Huebner Venezia’s photographs from these two contrasting environments. In the U.S., her subject is Brooklyn’s Gleason’s Gym, the oldest and most famous boxing ring in the world, training ground for such literal heavyweights as Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Jake La Motta and Mike Tyson. Venezia shows neither stars nor spectacular matches—her work captures the intense atmosphere of the gym, and the lives of these modern warriors, idealized, honored, and ultimately discarded.