Artist Statement?

There is a great quote by Fellini: "Don't tell me what I am doing, I don't want to know". Consequently, don't ask me what I am doing, I don't want to know. But it just so happens that everyone wants to know, present company excluded. Me don't need to know. Experience trumps reason. I like standing on a summer day in the San Joaquin valley and feeling the sun's rays; the way I loved light when I was six years old but did not need to think about it or profit from it.

I am often accused of being a portrait photographer. A bit like accusing your reflection of being a mirror. My people may be staring at the camera but they are not portraits. They are not staring at you, I am.

A pleasant and easy manner.

My favorite photographers are robots. Cassini, Spirit, Opportunity, Stereo A and Stereo B, are beaming back billion dollar babies of Saturn and its moons, Mars and the Sun. I keep a large collection of these images, all available on NASA's website. When I need a picker upper I gaze upon them to quickly regain a pleasant and easy manner.

Henry Wessel et al.

Henry Wessel whose work I have only just come across caught my attention. He seems to have had a great deal of influence as a mentor and teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute and beyond. His work is better viewed in person, and you can still do that at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, until April 22nd, which is today. I tend not to discuss other photographers' work as I would rather leave those ruminations to others.

Another artist of note is Jeff koons, recently featured in the New Yorker. I have always liked Jeff Koons's work primarily because it is humorous. "Fine" art is for the most part singularly uh-humorous but Jeff Koons is one of the few exception to that rule. Humor, is considered lightweight and unworthy of a great deal of attention because it somehow lacks depth (whatever that means). Art, much like religion, is not meant to be humorous, it's serious business. No need to wonder why Art was the propaganda arm of religion for so long, the two are quite possibly forever joined at the hip. I am not quite sure that most people realize that unconsciously or not we equate both in our minds or work towards that end.

Art directly served religion for so long that it will take a very long time before it actually becomes divorced of that association. Modernism attempted to sever those links but only separated itself from its historical patron by looking to other forms of mysticism, culturally appropriating them to revolutionize itself, a much needed shot in the arm, but a fragile and momentary prescription. To this day I'd be willing to bet that most artists, wether they are conscious of it or not still work within that framework. I don't think that'll change any time soon.

"Yossef's Buck."

For up to the minute updates on what I am doing, this blog will serve as the perfect platform to freshen up the official website of the other "Our Dear", "Dear leader"; the political arm of Olivier Laude dot com. Think of it as its under-secretary of public relations and imoticons. I shot this yesterday in the Sacramanto river delta, a favorite haunt. This image will further garnish Charlie's* cult of personality; until one day the world will recognize his image as readily as any other dictator worth his salt. Once this image is properly scanned and color corrected to my exact specifications, it will be called "Yossef's Buck", a cultural reference to a now long deceased German artist better know for his obsessive compulsive use of felt and bees wax.

Besides this superficial reference to our afore mentioned German Artist, I am, as I often like to do, referencing other images of mine. The redwood bark palette was used in a previous photograph; the now infamous "Mikkel Sønafenlillepigemedsvovlstikker, from the "Autobahnüberfal, the Danes" series (see below). I have good reasons to do so, so please trust me on this one.....as you might a beloved father.

*our compliant and charismatic model.

Afghanistan et Al....

Kabul Back in 2003 I traveled to afghanistan for Time Magazine. Besides Afghanistan I also went to Hong Kong, better described as a giant repository of shopping malls, the Philippines, Japan and India, in that order. Afghanistan left the deepest impression because it truly felt like a country in flux. I have always been attracted to countries which are somehow trying to make something of themselves, however poorly or half hazzard-ly. I feel at home in such places because they obviously reflect on my own personal peregrinations as a person. Adding to the mix is the sheer beauty and anvil like strength of the surroundings and Afghanistan becomes hypnotic in its quiet chaos. I generally do not feel the need to videotape anything, outside of my boys, as any proud parent should, but Afghanistan was the exception to the rule. I borrowed a video camera from an AP photographer and drove around with my fixer for a day; in between shoots. This video is unedited apart from removing my fixer's face from the mix. Given recent events in that country and in Iraq, involving anyone perceived to have been somehow associated with Americans I do not want his identity to be revealed online, and have him suffer the possible consequences. I chose not to edit it partly because to do so seems unnecessary. The running sound track is from my fixer's musical collection, Kabul radio, or our conversations throughout the day(yes we communicated by singing to one another). You can download it to your Ipod or your desktop and look at Kabul and its surroundings as I saw it and felt it, without any further intervention on my part.

Suggested reading if you are interested in the history of Central Asia: "The Great Game", by Peter Hopkirk.

Dear Diary. Let me begin with an introduction.

Born:In France, in Lille, France, October 2nd, 1964. Wild ass is slaughtered and turned into sausage to celebrate afore mentioned nativity. Quadruped's name withheld from public records. I shared this date, but not the sausage, with Mahatma Ghandi, Sting, Charlie Chaplin and umpteen other bitches.

Important dates: Summer 1970: Buggers first goat as rite of passage in Milaria; a leper colony bathed several hundred nautical miles in the Mediterranean sea. Goat is subsequently butchered and polished off by villagers in bacchanalian feast reminiscent of Pliny the Elder: A roman historian whose claim to fame was his pyroclastic entombment in Pompei; not to be confused by the " Pyro-Classics", Virgil's first poem -a four books lyrical odyssey, ostensibly about farming, which he wrote during the terrible civil war following Julius Caesar's untimely death in the BC (that's hip hop, for Before Christ).

1968 to 1979: Suffers the wrath of God in numerous Jesuit schools but survives with personality cult intact, besides his being easily medicated and plagued by minor neuroses. Psychosis avoided by vacationing with fairy grandparents, herds of Bovidae, honey bees and like minded urchins; in pastoral mountainous ranges.

1979: Ships to the United states as wretched human cargo in container ship from Le Havre, France, to Brooklyn shipyards; escapes from said metal box with mini blow torch, like creme brulee, but harder. High School in Millbrook, New York. Enjoyed Physics, Biology and rearranging ice flows on frozen Hudson in failed attempts to communicate with clouds that looked like hamsters. Became very cross country runner, masturbation a must. Great loss of DNA. English language mastered; further DNA disbanded.

Education: Skidmore College BS in Art History Class of 1986. Graduated Magma Cum Laude in Art History, but dem bitches did not award a prize for that, so no cigar for this record. Magma cum MaryJane. I'd like to thank the Otis elevator company for providing me with a safe and secure place to smoke between classes. Je voudrai m'excuser aupres des handicapes. Failed philosophy twice, some photography classes.... Graduate with a 1.7 GPA; I tried to do better but my subsequent corporate sponsorship with the Otis elevator company conflicted with regularly scheduled classes. Ate large amounts of cream of wheat; cause: no money. It's nutritious and nourishious. Bring water to a boil, dump in stomach size lump of cream of wheat, cook until good enough to consummate, flavor with glucose heaps, eat 3 times a day. Ruminate. Lived in the woods in turquoise 1978 VW van but sometimes parked on school property. Showered irregularly.

Employment:

1986-1993

Managing Editor.

Ax Grinding Quarterly: A Journal dedicated to the use of hand-held implements used for felling trees or chopping wood.

1993-1993 and a half: Publius Ovidius Naso biannual festival coordinator and CEO:

Duties included discussing Ebonics with or without Bernard Henry Lévy, french philosopher and noted intellectual. Often referred today as BHL, Lévy was born in Béni-Saf, Algeria on 5 November 1949. He became part of a group of French intellectuals who were disenchanted with communist and socialist responses to the near revolutionary upheavals in the France of May 1968. It articulated a fierce and uncompromising moral critique of Marxist and socialist dogmas years prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Frequent and often epistemological arguments lead to a palace coup and to his forced removal as Chairman and CEO of Publius Ovidius Naso. Publius Ovidius Naso filed for bankruptcy in 1994 under a cloud of suspicious financial wrong doings, money laundering, and naive realism; itself a phenomenalist aberration rooted in empirical relativism.

1993 and a half- 1995

Special economic adviser and compliant side kick to his Majesty King Taufa'ahau™ (since 1965). The Friendly Republic of Tonga™.

Duties included shouting down Samoans, berating Tahitians and belittling those fools on Easter Island. Could have gone as far as deriding the "Good People of the Galapagos"™ but there is some kind of sanctuary there, crawling with leaf eaters. Adroitly advised the King to stick to bipeds, a euphemism, of course. My position was terminated after a vicious, all out, tropical food and flotsam fight during Sunday service at " Our Lady of Perpetual Desalination". I was mercilessly set adrift on a jute raft from Nuku'alofa as punishment for my crimes but was picked up by a drunken Russian freighter plying the Cook Islands, trawling for signs of desperation. Due to their severe inhibriation I was mistakenly identified for a wahine but once again managed to escape their advances by leaping onto a nearby Korean shrimp farmer. Those years with the traveling circus finally paid off as I became their favorite pet monkey; a perfect leap into the unknown but a brilliant career move.

1995-2001

Executive Pet Monkey to the Korean Ship farmer " Atlantic Platypus", a semi-aquatic bottom trawler with Liberian plates.

Duties included, pretending to be a coconut, peeling plantains, curling both lips to reveal a set of comedic brown teeth, massaging a wary crew with fish oil, collecting algae for the tender, which housed a magnificent exclusive spa and retreat. Other duties included translating "in screeches"™ what the lookout thought he was spotting, far off on the horizon, as well as delivering much needed supplies to Afghan refugees marooned on Christmas island (unfortunately, the irony was lost on our mostly Buddhist Kampuchean crew).

2001-Present

Managing Editor: " Punjabi Represent"™,The Cole Valley Middle Aged Men's Secret Society Magazine.

Duties include: Mixing bleach with ammonia, befriending pigeons to further my communication skills, shouting liftoff to my avian friends all the while encouraging them to reach for the sky, trampling underfoot and marching with penguins.

Special Skills: Using agricultural metaphors in political speeches for the advancement of the hard of hearing and the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Transgender community. Making life deliberately hard for friends and family, so that they can redeem themselves through labor. Legal latin. Try this at home: "Ab Initio, it should be said that there is a good prima facie case for my decision to forgo this curriculum vitae".