Photography: Freeze-Frames

The Galella retrospective, which was organized by Margery King, an associate curator at the Warhol Museum, runs through Sept. 1. There are no plans for it to travel; maybe curators at museums not dedicated to an artist as starstruck as Warhol have a hard time imagining their walls filled with pictures that have titles like John Derek and Linda Evans at Sonny and Cher's Opening at the Century Plaza Hotel. Warhol knew Galella and revered him as a fellow traveler in the life devoted to pursuing stars. But Warhol was at the same time a celebrity himself. He had invitations to all the parties--and gave quite a few of them. Galella was the guy who had to hang around outside expensive restaurants, then chase the well-fed celebrities to their waiting limousines. What the two men had in common was anger. While it may be true that Warhol used to kiss the Manolo Blahnik boots of the stars, in some of his Polaroids of the famous at play you sense the same undertow of loathing you find in his silk-screened portraits of Marilyn and Liz. Likewise with Galella. His pictures can remind you of Susan Sontag's observation: "To photograph someone is a sublimated murder."

Which brings us to Galella and Jackie. For years, he pursued her everywhere. (Everywhere, indeed--one of his pictures is called Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Leaving a Store in Peapack, N.J.) Jackie was his white whale, his pearl of great price, his Holy Grail. The chase ended up in suits and countersuits between them. The last court battle, in 1982, concluded with Galella's agreeing never again to photograph Jackie, Caroline or John Jr. In adulthood John allowed Galella to photograph him at public functions.

Looking over the pictures of Jackie dodging, ducking, literally running from Galella, you feel a twinge of guilt about all this, the way pictures of a slaughterhouse get you to entertain thoughts of vegetarianism. The death of Princess Diana also made paparazzi a dirty word for a while. The profession has recovered, but Galella thinks that the golden age of the paparazzi is behind us. In terms of sheer numbers, the breed has multiplied tenfold since Galella started in the mid-1960s. But the stars and their handlers have fought back, punishing publications that run unflattering pictures by denying them access.

So we are moving toward a world in which the star's image is controlled more tightly than a Stalinist party congress, a world in which the ideal picture is Jennifer Lopez making an entrance at the Grammys, a formula as carefully stage-managed as a perp walk. Either that or it's some spread of the stars at home, full of bogus informality and contrived intimacies. See enough pictures of some starlet flipping a flapjack, and in no time, you're longing to see Sean Penn giving you the finger. When you're ready, Galella has quite a few of those.