Photography

One bird, two fingers.., Julian Richards interviewed.

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perkinlovelyImage: Perkin Lovely.

Julian Richards is a "top tier" artist representative in New York City. After a mutual acquaintance introduced us, I thought it instructive to follow in MDM's footsteps, and start running "Dear Leader" interviews. I was not disappointed by his responses but rather felt that I, should have worked a little harder on the questions. But if you feel that the interviewer's job is to make the interviewee shine through, then I must have done a good job of it; or was it an inevitability, given the personality.

To put it mildly, few things are more entertaining than intelligence, eloquence, self confidence and comedy, all wrapped up in one lusciously human representative.

Begin here:

DL: Describe your kitchen sink?

JR: A single piece of concrete carved by our friend Trevor Heatherington into a dynamic reenactment of the Tiresius myth. He's prodding the fornicating snakes with a stick, mid-way through his metamorphosis. It's like a Bernini, but lumpier. The hot and cold faucets are particularly arresting - realistic arrangements of his male and female genitals, respectively. It's kind of a rite of passage at our home for visitors to be photographed drinking directly from the orifices (ordinarily men from the cold, women from the hot) whilst grinning libidinously at the camera. We have a gallery of polaroids on the wall by the fridge. Hilarious, eh?

DL: If you could choose to come back as a prairie, which one would it be, and would you let anybody till ye?

JR: I'm not really clear what a prairie is. If I were to come back as a fairy it might be WH Auden.

DL: What living person do you most admire, be specific ?

JR: It changes. There's this actress Natacha Regnier who is the right shape. She occasionally gets my aching admiration.

DL: Do you love all your children equally?

JR: Over an extended period, probably. But there are huge fluctuations over the short term. They offer very different challenges.

DL: Is there something photography is lacking, if anything?

JR: I can't help thinking that it lacks so much, simply because of its inherent limitations. In that sense you can't blame it. But you can feel a bit embarrassed observing it's importance being inflated to laughable proportions. Photography is the homeland that flocks of itinerant charlatans have spent generations seeking. It it so replete with the ordinary pretending to be extraordinary ... and I'm as guilty as anyone of lionizing mediocrity - my home-loan company requires it of me. I suppose there's an academic argument for it being the art form of our age ... shabby times, given to a relentless stream of product rendered quickly for an audience of glazed eyes and dull, lazy minds. As such I suppose it becomes relevant as a kind of cultural emblem. This relevance, however, doesn’t go far in offsetting the paucity of the experience of dealing with what is frequently required of us on a day-to-day basis. But like anything, if you suspend disbelief and confer special status upon material which is deeply banal, you can quickly build yourself a new hierarchy of value whereby bad is good and okay is wonderful ... and ten minutes later you can confidently pontificate upon such things as 'greatness' and 'beauty'. People will apparently know what you're talking about and nod accordingly. Maybe you can even sell some stuff.

DL: If you were to be given just one print to give to former Senator Joseph McCarthy, what would it be and how would you deliver it?

JR: I don't think I'd bother, really. Maybe if it was simply a matter of emailing him something off one of those Amatrice Francaise sites. It's nice to have a reason to poke about in there for a half hour.

DL: What do you dislike most about bakeries?

JR: Most of the women in them aren't naked.

DL: If you could change soft core pornography, how and who would it be?

JR: I guess make it less content to be soft. I like the tension between soft straining against the impulse to be hard. Who? Some of my friends' girlfriends, probably. I'm interested in tinkering with the unfamiliar/familiar equilibrium.

DL: Are you in it for the money?

JR: Yes, naturally. There are other ingredients, but the absence of any one of them alone wouldn't be reason alone to stop. Without money though, it would be over in a heartbeat.

DL: Any further penchants you'd like to reveal, unofficially?

JR: They are so prosaic I think it would be hard to stifle a yawn. I like to think I have my own unique niches in the canon of the commonplace, but perhaps I don't ... and anyway it'd take too much time and penmanship to state them prettily. They tend to wiggle about.

DL: Is there anything else you need, besides money?

JR: I need objects for the unholy bits of my imagination to alight upon.

DL: Favorite childhood cheeses?

JR: I remember discovering that camembert sometimes smells like semen. Still tastes good though. I've since noticed that day-old pancake mix has a similar quality.

DL: Which talent would you most like to have and how much would you pay to get it, Euros please?

JR: I can't afford to shop in euros, I earn my crusts in dollars which are currently equivalent to the Namibian Lucky Bean. I have always aspired to possessing talents which might alchemise me into a state of irresistibility. Hypnotism, manufacture of persuasive pharmaceuticals, knot-tying, those kinds of things.

DL: If you were one of those emoticons, which one would you be, and how big?

JR: The sunny vagina, 1:12

DL: What is your most treasured possession and would you give it to me, if I asked nicely?

JR: If I lived in a land where spouses were still considered goods and chattel I might entertain a loan or a swap under very special circumstances. What you got?

DL: What is "clam happy"?

JR: See response to emoticon question above.

DL: What are the upper body qualities you most like in a woman, or a man, if that doesn't do it for ye?

JR: Modest dimensions, please.

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DL: What is the greatest love of your life and will it love you back, eventually?

JR: Overall I'm happy being the less loved in the greatest love equation. The inequality keeps the horizon line in view and the mystery of the other side intact. Who knows (or wants to know) what the landscape looks like once you crest the hill? Some fetid bog pocked with slag-heaps and sulfurous chimneys? Or just a flat expanse of featureless nothingness, like fucking Holland? Even if it's better than that, it's hardly likely to outdo the euphoric pornography of my imagination. So better to keep panting and chasing.

DL: How many horse-ladies in your Apocalypse?

JR: A brace of small-breasted ones.

DL: Who are your heroes, and do they even know you exist?

JR: I'm not sure I have any. Which isn't as cynical as it sounds, it's simply a matter of age and cheerful skepticism. Given time, most heroes seem to acquire feet of clay. Possibly I have a few dead ones, but I'd be irritated to see them stated as such, especially by me. Obsessions, however, would be a different story, although they might not be whole human beings. Just bits.

DL: Is this mildly annoying?

JR: Not at all, it's mildly flattering to be asked.

DL: Chicken or fish?

JR: I'm afraid I need a url to answer this.

DL: How's thing?

Marsasart....or, Buford Herring's Q3.

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I am currently developing a line of photography based video games with Atari. This up coming video gaming library will be available for purchase on this site in Q3. The franchise’s titles we are currently developing and market testing are being quickly expanded to satisfy the needs of the gaming and discerning visual creator’s library.

Titles available in Q3 :

“Terry’s Pro Shooter 4”: Join Terry Richardson and shoot socialites and celebrities in New York’s heavily defended upper East Side social gatherings . Join Terry and shoot your wad on your gallerist’s tits and fornicate with up to 16 online players, featuring never before seen multi-player hotel-animatronics. New “T4™” joy sticks, deliver unmatched social climbing and positioning while you surf Lexington and 85th, survive a debutante’s dream body and join the “Crank Gang” to roam deserted streets.

“I’m Diane Arbus, bitch!”: Join Diane Arbus and Joel Meyerowitz as they challenge you to make your mark in the fast moving world of street photography, capture the elusive with startling flash photography, evade polices and street sweeps. Dive in an unprecedented 353 levels of “Street’s” and “Hobo-photography”. Redeem camera credit anthologies or clash with angry mobs in ‘The Grid”, in level 3.

“June’s Weddin’ 3?. Capture lifetime memories, indulge in our virtual 3D wedding planning and catering and try out our “Brother’s Speech Slurring” technology, catch the garter and bone aunt Mary. But Avoid our “Dry Heaves’” pit to fly to honeymooning Tahiti, but plan it well or beware of version 3’s “Her Hidden Newly Hitched Neurosis™” .

” SS-ex Freaky”, Join Michio Nobuyoshi and capture “The Money Shot™”. Explore your sexual identity within our 7 multi-player levels of split-screen love nut busting 3D virtual reality. Our unprecedented “Scratch and Sniff™” and online avatar slut technology gives you a unique 360 intensity and unheard off directorial gaming abilities.

“Call of Art Basel 3?. Follow your favorite artists and critics to Basel and Miami, drink appleteenies and make your assistants fly economy. Virtual “You Sell Them Larry™” and 3D horn rim technology. Navigate our new multi-player online HD booth technology and live the breathlessly real, contemporary cinematic fury of collectors, artists and critics.

“Conde Nasty 3?: Travel French counties for Conde Nasty and shoot lifestyle of real Caucasian “Hottie”. Our “Quaint™” technology will have your eating organics and driving antique French Citroen 2CVs. Pose near lavender fields, smiling country bumpkins and 300 kinds of stinky cheeses. Restore your peace and harmony with our new Euro-3D virtual realities. Choose from one of our twelve traveling possibilities but start with “Richy Rich” or “Bobo Pastorialist”, and then move on to level three and “Landed Gentry”. Graduate to ” Grand Thai Whore Mongery”.

This game is also available in travel Adrenaline, Medical and Sexual tourist; breath taking gaming combinations of :”I’m Diane Arbus, bitch!”, ” SS-ex Freaky” and “Conde Nasty 3?. Shoot those adorable Guatemalan hill ladies or “Run for your life in Karachi”.

more to come….. Stay tuned to further developments and to all our upcoming gaming possibilities.

"When, a Scandinavian Sex God...."

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After re-viewing that "I was a sex god in Soviet Estonia", I was reminded of David Hamilton's work. David Hamilton has been doing his part to piss off the religious right for the better part of the last century; and when I was a kid in France, in the seventies, his work was all the rage; and like strikes, George Marchais and the CGT, he was everywhere he wanted.

Of course his work has come under fire in the United States as "child pornography". Since I won't even think of touching that one with any pole, of any length, I'll let you do your own special judging. I also could not really find any Hamilton images by searching, so instead I found and am posting (not at work...oops, too late) a generic nude from the seventies, to titillate your puns intended.

What I find enviable about the seventies nude aesthetics is how unique and specific it churned out to be. I suspect that the work of David Hamilton was a huge influence on the genre but also within photography's subsequent struggles with Thatcher-Reaganite era censorship. For better or for worst, David Hamilton's work was hugely influential to generations of photographers, from Jock Sturges to Sally Mann, and to all those fashion appropriated, one might see in Vogue or W these days; tame emulations of his kitschy erotic masquerades. At the end of the day David Hamilton's work fell victim to the religiously rabid masses, the moral policing of a world bent on censoring the relative validity of The Hamiltons and Sturges.

Invariably those self righteous religious fascists bitches turned out to be pornography's biggest consuming masses; they themselves the true agents and perpetrators of pedophilial sexual abuses; all the while diverting attention from themselves and onto those few who may not necessarily deserve it, or be tied to the whipping post of the fearful and "coincer".

PS: Hamilton openly acknowledges that his photos depict their subjects as idealized sexual fantasy objects for men attracted to young girls."There's only three of us in this business. Nabokov penned it, Balthus painted it, and I photographed it." This comparison is more than a little self-serving; David Hamilton is more like the Maxfield Parrish of softcore porn.

Whatever is to be said about him, we live in a world were work like his, becomes almost impossible to judge, exhibit or discuss publicly. The cacophony of a fearful public along with the resurgence, exploitation and trade of millions of innocent sex slaves makes for artistic suicide these days. We live in a fugly world, no matter how and with whom you look at it !

Revenge of the Cretins.

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My friend Richard emailed me this Newsweek article this morning and it set my blood a boiling. You'll need to read Peter Plagens cretinous musings and come back to me but if you should feel unwilling to budge from this august blogging, I shall furnish you with an excerpt, which more or less sums it: "Yet wandering the galleries of these two shows, you can't help but wonder if the entire medium hasn't fractured itself beyond all recognition. Sculpture did the same thing a while back, so that now "sculpture" can indicate a hole in the ground as readily as a bronze statue. Digitalization has made much of art photography's vast variety possible. But it's also a major reason that, 25 years after the technology exploded what photography could do and be, the medium seems to have lost its soul. Film photography's artistic cachet was always that no matter how much darkroom fiddling someone added to a photograph, the picture was, at its core, a record of something real that occurred in front of the camera. A digital photograph, on the other hand, can be a Photoshop fairy tale, containing only a tiny trace of a small fragment of reality. By now, we've witnessed all the magical morphing and seen all the clever tricks that have turned so many photographers—formerly bearers of truth—into conjurers of fiction. It's hard to say "gee whiz" anymore. Art and truth used to be fast friends. Until the beginning of modernism, the most admired quality in Western art was mimesis—objects in painting and sculpture closely resembling things in real life."

WTF, what's wrong with this Newsweek? Hasn't he finally understood that any form of visual art will inexorably migrate from the descriptive to the imaginary, and sometimes all at once. As a new visual medium is created, most creative artists will explore its ability to record reality. It stands to reason, obviously, but shortly thereafter the artist will explore his or her inner thing thingies. That's just the way it goes.

What happened with photography is that very quickly, in the 19th and early 20th century, photographers both documented, copied other visual arts like painting but also started to explore the medium's possibilities as just another tool for self-expression. It's the critiques and some photographers who are guilty of narrowing the medium by straight jacketing what photography should and should not do, or be.

It also happened that the 20th century was so incredibly violent and momentous that documenting these epics started to overtake the more imaginative aspects of photography. I mean really, would a self respecting talent continue exploring the joys of one's imaginations when genocide and bombs are ripping the very fabric of the society he or she lived in. Probably not. Conflicts put documentarists on top of the "Photographic food chain", and from which they comfortably dictated what it was to be a photographer, what photography ought to achieve and to what aims it should point its machines.

What is happening right now is that photographers and artists from around the world are rediscovering the medium thru technology, just like the camera, itself a breakthrough technology at the time allowed artists the freedom to go nuts with possibilities. Nevertheless, art tends to migrate from the pictorial to the conceptual or the imaginary, as a matter of maturity, and by that I do not mean that it get better or worst by aging. It is just a natural peregrination from the real to the dream, much as we ourselves live as we pass from day into night, the conscious to the subconscious. None of this is new, artists generally do not make the kind's of discoveries which truly shape our societies, they generally respond to them and express them visually or conceptually, wether they know it or are unconsciously doing it. Darwin devalued the divine and Freud elaborated on the ego and the Id, Einstein equated the space time but Duchamps and Warhol only followed their lead, by sensing those earth shaking ideas and expressing them in cave paintings.

So when you try to figure out what is art or what photography is, don't bother with the minutia, just remember that there's good art and bad art only. It's hard enough to divine those two out, as it already is. Never mind if photography ought to be representative, manipulative or imaginary. Is it good or is it bad, and good luck and good night..... bitch....!

Our friend "Crystal"....

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vive What’s in pork larb that gets me every time? After an early lunch I walked over to Park Life on Clement and bought a cuckoo clock for thirteen bucks. What a deal, 24 hours for only thirteen. While I was at it I picked up the recently released “The Vice Photo Book”, as in Vice magazine, not “La Biblia”. Wouldn’t be caught dead with that thing, starts me sneezing and coughing something awful nasty.

The work within could simply be re-categorized as “punk photography”, or the “jack ass school of photo shoots” or “indie pics”,or whatever you wish it to be, but at the end of the day it does the world a fairly good service. I can’t quite put my finger on it but it has a certain sad sweetness, if not wetness, to it. The innocence of a youth stripped of what once might have been called inhibitions. Sorta like what Japan might have looked like if Panasonic had discovered and marketed crack, meth or ice.

The only thing I wonder about is what that stuff might look like if it had been shot by more talented photographers? Yet still, that’s part of the philosophy, appeal and aesthetics, so who am to think?

And another thing is! Is that Vice Magazine is already hopelessly outdated and cliche. What next? “Snuff Magazine”, the international magazine for those who like to kill ; oh but wait, that’s call “History”. Better yet "What does Philip Jones Griffith think, about all this?"

"El Papa Peludo...."

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raph I have not yet posted an image of Raphaël so here he is. Since this is Thanksgiving, and eventhough, I have never been a big fan of this manufactured holiday, I have to say that I am thankful for the endless amusement and merriment my boys bring to my life. Quite the little “Terrance and Philip”, those two are. This image of Raphaël was taken last spring during a rare moment of introspection. I must have threatened him with grave consequences for him to sit still and not goof off for less than a micro-second.

I am eternally thankful that my boys are healthy, handsome, funny and intelligent. If you are reading this blog and have children of your own, I wish you all the same and many happy returns; but as Calamity Jane used to say: The adults can “go fuck their'selves”.

Self Righting is an admirable quality, don't you think?

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The Photo Editor continues his daily postings and it seems I can’t just ignore him, dammit: He writes: “I’ve never met anyone as loyal as Martin Schoeller (here). To the subject, his team of people, the client, his agent, his style, his goals, the print… everything. It’s more than just being a nice guy and delivering consistently good work there’s honesty and integrity, and a devotion to the craft, and an incredible work ethic that adds up to, well, loyalty.

There was a point in his career where he was thinking oh shit, this big head style is not going to define me but over the last couple years he’s decided the market forces are too great and produced a book and several gallery exhibits of big heads”.

Commentum, humanum est:

Loyalty: I am going to go out on a limb here and throw the baby out with the bath water but I am of the opinion that Yankee psychology leaves little room for such august affectations. I might even venture to proclaim that in this country, as someone who has lived on three continents, Europe and Asia being the other two outside this one; that personal and economic loyalty are oft ridiculed personal and corporate qualities and attributes.

Martin Schoeller, besides being an extremely talented photographer probably owes much of his success to his temperament and character but also to the simple fact that Europeans are taught, at an early age, to stick by those who raise you up, and that to not return the favor is an abominably rude and crassly North American attribute.

Americans tend to take their entrepreneurial zeal a little too seriously and often dismiss budding friendships and partnerships for short term profits. Friends of mine who work in Europe, China and India dislike working with North Americans most of all for lacking these most natural virtues; knowing full well that if they do not give way to our commercial brutishness, that they, the ” Yankees”, will take our business elsewhere to save less than a few cents.

Business is based on personal character and on nurturing relationships, but these values are often ignored in response to brutishly attained profits; victims of our quarterly reported and greedish creed. The unflinching coarseness of the market has created increasingly newfangled, unemotional and unavailable beasts.

Nothing wrong with profits but profits without relationships will eventually diminish returns on those very real and coveted profits. Without lasting relationships the proverbial economic air slowly gets sucked out of the market and replaced with increasingly short termed and noxious speculative fumes (dot coms, sub prime shenanigans, dollar stockananigans, just to name a quick few…..)

Nonetheless, it’s nice to see that sometimes, humanity and simple loyalty can be appreciated, at least on a personal level. As for institutions, they are in the business of stripping those very human qualities to replace them with malignantly optioned algorithms and purposeful speculative economic rape and pillage.

As far as I am concerned business without values such as loyalty only leads to blindingly irrational exuberance, quickly followed by the digestion of increasingly depressing, manic, and loathsomely bitter pills. This seems to have become, not only the modus operandi of the North American economy, but more recently, the engine of its continued, rapid and possibly irreversible enfeebling.

Anyway, Americans are a versatile and flit footed people; let’s hope we can learn from our mistakes and regain some of our legendary humanity, which as of late has been sorely missing from the North American psyche. Nevertheless, I also wonder how quickly Martin might be forgotten should he falter to produce or fall pray to illness, age, cynicism or simple disgust?

Sorry, was that self-righteous enough for you? I swear I stopped reading Paul Krugman way back in two 0 two ! Sorry for the rant, I know it isn’t appreciated as constructive in this here “God’s country”.

Chuck Close is my kind of bitch.

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I have always loved chuck close's work and I think he is one of the least recognized and influential of all the very best contemporary artists. Nevertheless, here is another reason to appreciate his work further still, I could not agree more with the quote below: "Photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent, but it's the hardest medium in which to have personal vision that is readily identifiable".

" Aie Caramba! -- Art world erupts as Iceland bedlam bitch slaps Jeff Wall".

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Olafur Oliasson Yesterday, I made my way to the San Francisco MOMA to see the Jeff Wall's retrospectiva. Despite there being beautiful sunshine, I chose to go downtown and see what all the fuss-zzz-is about. I tend to go and see art when the sun’s a shina; it’s makes for better vibes when stepping back out if there ain’t none shining on the insides.

I had earlier panned him but I am always ready and willing to change my mind, especially when I have based my opinion on less than adequate internet digitals or the artist’s monograph (there’s a fucking ridiculous name for what most of us call ” a book ” ! Who comes up with this shit anyhow, Lexus of America ???. Is everybody still gunning for petit bourgeois, didn’t they read Zola? ).

As an aside and for future reference, just think of me as Tourrette’s blogging equivalent to rye, spouting expletives, unable to control my grinds. For the record, I have always been quite fond of that syndrome, even-thought I presume those afflicted with this terrible affliction would beg to differ and do so without actually sounding inappropriately and shockingly crass, for once……As for myself, I’m still looking for a therapist saddled with this less then pleasurable condition: Childhood introspection, bitch, ass ?

As was saying, I made my way downtown and checked out Jeff Wall’s oversized trans-whatever whats? and to my surprise, I still did not like his art. I can’t really put/point my finger on it but I just can’t trust him as far as I can throw it, and considering how big the fucking things are, that wouldn’t be too far. As for the curatorial blurbs introducing his craft, I wasn’t sure how to react, which depending on my mood, makes me want to streak through the galleries dousing museum guards and screaming: ” You ain’t no Condoleezza Rice “…. or, hang my head and cry.

So much for Jeff Wall and onward to Olafur “Son of Elias”. I had a few more minutes to devote to art before rejoining the sunshine outside so I decided to check out what was going on upstairs; there seems to be a generally giddy hum coming from the fifth floor veranda, which as we all know, isn’t exactly the sort of thing museums sound like; unless of course you happen across the after hour Cisco System team building drinking contest, corporate bedlam, run to the W and shit where you eat, sort of flap !

I decided that investigation would the best exploration to these inner introspections and off I went, three by three steps until there he was: ” Olaf-ur Elias-son”, Iceland’s answer to conceptual art. Dem is great art and to put on my best critical thong, I shall broadcast: “That was fucking awesome….“.

If you are in San Francisco or plan on visiting go to the SFMOMA and check it out. The only thing I will add to my less than researched and well thought out curatorial blurb-out is that the difference in mood between the “appreciation of art crowd” haunting Jeff Wall’s great halls of Canada and Olafur Eliasson’s second and fifth floor extravaganza was…….. Here is a metaphor to exemplify: “Jeff Wall’s galleries was to zombiarts what Olafur Eliasson was to a pole dancing Cinderella “, which would you rather watch?

In other news: I also saw Alec Soth’s fashion Magazine in da " Olde Museum gift shoppe". Nicely done but I just can’t help myself, I keep seeing Joel Sternfeld’s American prospects when I flip through this latest (Brent, how you like me now?).

Another one bites it...

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Robyn Color, in San Francisco, will be closing their doors at the end of October. As far as I was concerned they provided an invaluable service to photographers with their museum quality on demand Digital C41 prints, for a price which made you feel like you were not being fleeced. If you have 300Ks to invest in buying the business, a profitable and viable one I hear, contact them.The building was bought out from under them and they will be tearing it down to put up condos facing magnificent highway overpasses. Hopefully someone in SF will have the presence of mind to either buy them out or start a similarly successful business based on the same concept.

This 2 bit town has done it again. I should move to LA when my kids graduate high school, and get out of this second rate city and county. Nice place to work and live if you like coding for a living, but not much good for anything else. Personally, I don't feel like moving to London, New York or Paris. That leaves LA as a possibility. See you there someday.....