The photography of Joel-Peter Witkin depicts the macabre and thrives with controversy. Narrating a darker, often grotesque, or gruesome view of society for more than 40 years, his photographs leave the viewer restless at least. Portraying dark tableaus and still lifes using subjects ranging from various societal outcasts to rotting corpses and dismembered body parts, Witkin creates photographs that resemble a freak show circus from the turn of the century but are painstakingly constructed and imbued with complex meanings and metaphors behind them. His world is both hauntingly beautiful and grotesque, both fascinating and frightening.