Interview

An Interview with Vahakn Arslanian

Interview /

Vahakn Arslanian, Winter of D.C., 2024

Featured in Emerging Movement

Having relocated with his family to New York City as an infant, Vahakn Arslanian is fascinated and inspired by roaring jet engine planes, explosives, luminous light bulbs and flickering candlelight. He has been nearly deaf since birth, his only sense of noise is from that which is thundering to the ears, for him, a glimpse at the vibrational frequency of sound. Along with his fascination with planes comes birds. Where this biomimetic pair have in common, Arslansian mends the two, such as his rough paintings and drawings of plane wings with bird feathers. He takes much of his work and frames them in found objects such as vintage plane windows, often broken and cracked.

In September, Arslanian’s work was featured in the Trops exhibition Emerging Movement in New York City. After the show, Alexandra Kosloski and the painter discuss his artistic inspiration.

Vahakn Arslanian, Light It Up, 2007

Alexandra Kosloski: Your painting in Emerging Movement, “Winter of D.C.”, is made of a cockpit window from an old airplane. Your work often revolves around broken glass and found objects– what first drew you to these materials?

Vahakn Arslanian: I love flying in airplanes from New York to Europe. In 1989, when I was 13 years old, I flew from Belgium to New York on SABENA Boeing 747/-100, and mid-flight I met the pilot in the cockpit. I asked him about the windshield, and he told me about the layers of glass. In 2004, I bought an old Boeing 747 windshield from an airplane repair shop– it was very heavy, about 250 pounds. I broke it with a hammer, then I began removing each layer of glass. When I was 6 years old, I helped Julian Schnabel when he was making his large art in East Hampton. He was throwing ceramic plates, and breaking them with hammers. I find many old windows on the street with antique mouth-blown wavy glass. Sometimes the glass is broken so I solder it back together.

Alexandra Kosloski: Is there a particular artist that you find yourself going back to for inspiration?

Vahakn Arslanian: I am inspired by Dustin Yellin’s paintings, and the technique of cutting pictures from magazines of flowers, or anything on layers of sheets of glass. My favorite artists are Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali. Also, while I walk on the street in NYC, I notice different colors of flowers and I feel like painting.

Vahakn Arslanian, Bird Airplane, 2004

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Interview

An Interview with Alexandre Rockwell

Interview /
An Interview with Alexandre Rockwell

The filming of Sweet Thing, a film by Alexandre Rockwell, 2021

Filmmaker Alexandre Rockwell is perhaps best known for his works, In the Soup and 13 Moons. His ability to bring to the screen colorful characters that are both intricate and flawed, as well as his use of classical techniques and sheer creativity to tell stories has made him one of the most well-respected figures in independent film.  

In their interview for the Trops, Alexandre Rockwell and Alexandra Kosloski discuss taking risks in art, community, and the making of Rockwell’s anticipated new film Lump.

Alexandra Kosloski: Could you talk about your latest unreleased film, Lump? It was a really beautiful film, and there’s a lot of interesting things about it, one being that it was shot on iPhone.

Alexandre Rockwell: Yeah, it’s weird. I really like film. I like shooting on 35 or 16 millimeter or even 8 millimeter. I’ve always done that, even with low budget films. This one I had zero money on and I had to shoot a lot inside a car. I was trying to figure out what would be the most mobile way to shoot. I figured I would give the iPhone a try, even though I really resisted, resisted, resisted.

This film is black and white, so that simplified things– I don’t have to worry about a color palette, I just had to think of tones and contrast and framing. I was able to overlay film grain on it, which has kind of an organic texture, almost like sand or stars in the sky. Grain has kind of a beautiful supplemental pattern to it rather than digital pixels. I was able to add the quality that film has onto the images, which I find really pleasing to my eye. 

It was immensely liberating. I definitely would do it again. If I have more money, I’ll probably shoot in super 16, which is a medium I really love. We shot a lot of films on super 16 or 60 millimeter, which has a very interesting, high contrast, high grain quality to it. But in the meantime, this is really liberating and inspiring. I think a lot of young filmmakers should really consider this option because the excuse is always they don’t have the money, the wherewithal, they can’t get the equipment– but if you can just shoot with a phone and you can shoot a narrative story, it makes it accessible so you can actually work, instead of talking about work and constantly trying to raise money for work. It was liberating and really radical in my life as a filmmaker to discover the ability to work in this medium.

Alexandra Kosloski: That’s interesting. I think that a lot of the time, when there’s constraints on something, it makes you more creative, trying new techniques that maybe you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Alexandre Rockwell and Melanie Akoka on the set of Sweet Thing

Alexandre Rockwell: That’s very perceptive of you. I think it’s true. Constraints are what make it human. Sometimes a filmmaker will have no constraints and be able to manufacture perfect images, where the beauty of being human is the struggle- the struggle to try to make something beautiful with just a limited means.

Alexandra Kosloski: Could you share some of the inspiration behind the writing process of Lump?

Alexandre Rockwell: Yeah, it’s funny making films; the more I do it, the more I realize that it’s much more like music. Music is emotion, that’s how you engage in it. It’s a rhythm and it affects you. It almost goes past your intellect and into your soul, and film, I feel, is very much like that. It’s not really based upon an idea as much as an emotional response to something. When I write, I try to write very, very fast and very direct because I feel that the interpretation of the story makes the story powerful. It’s like the painter Willem de Kooning said, “Any idea is as good as another in art”.

I think sometimes the more simple the idea, the more you can infuse your emotion into it as an artist. Which kind of gets back to what you said about limitations– they’re there for you to simplify your work. You have less options so you channel your energy into this one thing. 

So, originally the story of Lump was going to be episodic. I was going to do a web series based on two guys who work for a private eye. They have no idea why they’re following somebody; they just know that they have to. I found really funny situations. The older Italian guy who plays the lead in Lump, Steven Randazzo, this is what he would do when he was supporting himself as an actor. He would get assigned to follow somebody and get paid $100 in cash. So he had all these funny stories. Was he following a hit man? Was it the husband from a jealous wife? And he never knew. One minute he thought he might be getting killed, and the next minute there was some poor guy who would just start crying in a bar. He would want to put his arm around him and say, “Look, I understand.” He told me these stories so I just kind of jotted some of them down. I changed them a lot, but I just wanted to do these episodes about each person they follow. Then I realized there was a narrative film that grew out of it, so I made a feature.

Lump, 2024

Alexandra Kosloski: I love that that’s coming from a personal experience. It doesn’t feel fantastical or super idealized. Similarly, you said before that In the Soup was somewhat autobiographical, as well.

Alexandre Rockwell: A very similar genesis of the story. In fact, my movie, Sweet Thing, which my two kids are in is similar, too. I seem to start from a place of autobiography. I didn’t used to, but then I realized that I tell stories about my life. Like when I was a young man, I was trying to make a film way back when, and I met a gangster. This guy really believed in me. We really wanted to do something which he considered important, other than just selling drugs and going to prison or whatever the hell he was doing. He saw me as a young guy who was full of dreams and he wanted to support me and see where it went.

I would tell these stories to people who were at my job– I was working all these crazy jobs, bussing tables, cleaning basements. I was always broke and telling my coworkers these stories about meeting this drug dealer who wanted to make films with me, and they would laugh. But I was dying, I was about to be murdered any minute because his brother was a homicidal maniac. So eventually I just started writing down some of the stories, and that’s how In The Soup was born.

In The Soup, 1992

Alexandra Kosloski: What attracts you to these kinds of offbeat stories?

Alexandre Rockwell: I think all my life I’ve really seen myself as an outsider. I wasn’t great at school, my parents are divorced, I lived on my mother’s couch for a long time, and I never participated in a kind of a regular system of life. I didn’t go to film school. I always found myself by meeting people and vibing off them. I went to Paris for a couple of years, and I studied. I was going to be a painter. I got jobs there. My life story drew me to outsiders as well. When I look back on my films, it’s almost like I’m trying to make a community. Like if you notice the end of Lump, they’re all sitting, having a barbecue– all these very disparate men. They were lonely once. All of these lonely people come together for a birthday party at the end. And that’s how the movie ends with this kind of Cassavetes-inspired getting together to make a family. I’ve always done that. I mean, the same thing with In The Soup, I seem to be drawn by people who are outsiders coming together, forming a community or a family of some kind.

Little Feet, 2013

Alexandra Kosloski: That just made me a little emotional.

Alexandre Rockwell: I know it’s funny. Like when I was a kid, I loved The Wizard of Oz. I just loved to watch that. I just love the fact that these weird people like the lion, the scarecrow, the tin man, they all came together and they form this little troupe of outsiders.

Alexandra Kosloski: That’s something I can really empathize with– feeling like an outsider and looking for connection.

Alexandre Rockwell: I was jealous of Italian-Americans or people from ethnic neighborhoods when I grew up because they always have an identity. I always felt envious or jealous of that kind of thing. I realized my real community is outsiders.

I feel that outsiders, artists, people who live alternative lives, we come together and really appreciate the people you join with. You’re not just choosing them because they’re your family or they grew up down the street. You’re choosing them because they see you for who you actually are. You’re not just a conformist who’s fitting into something, they actually see you. I think it’s quite a beautiful thing. So later in life, I realized that’s what I’ve always been trying to do. When I was younger, I was a little more insecure, but now that I’m older, I can feel that that’s a really powerful thing in me, and that’s something that I gravitate toward.

Alexandra Kosloski: Filmmaking is very collaborative. What are the challenges of manifesting your one vision with other people and so many moving parts? I imagine there’s a lot of trust you have to have.

Alexandre Rockwell: It’s almost like the best collaborators are the people who were given very clear goals. Young filmmakers often misunderstand collaboration, they think that we’ll all make a decision together, like a democracy. Vote for this or that. Actually, my collaborators– musicians, or cinematographers, or actors– really want a clear direction. They want to hear your vision and they get very clear direction from you. Once again, you get better at it the more you do it, but it does present challenges. The one thing a director really needs to do is communicate. Each person is different. Some people need you to speak to them all the time and appeal to their intellect. Some people need to be left alone or encouraged. You have to orchestrate the whole thing. And casting the crew is just as important as casting the actors, because the vibe has to be right. People have to get along and be working toward the same goal.

Little Feet, 2013

Alexandra Kosloski: Who have you worked with that you’ve admired the most?

Alexandre Rockwell: I admire different people for different reasons. I admire Steve Buscemi a lot. I’m very close to Steve. I’m kind of constantly surprised by his ability, what he can do. I mean, he’s effortlessly humorous. He can make you laugh doing anything. I could drive across the country with him and just laugh the whole time. Yet at the same time, he’s a really well trained actor, and I don’t think I completely appreciated that until I saw the work that he did with other people, because I didn’t know he could do that. He just showed me so many colors. And there’s something about Steve that I admire greatly as a human being; he’s the most understated, un-Hollywood, unpretentious kind of person you’d ever meet. He’s a real down to earth guy. I’m sure you’ve heard stories about him being a fireman, but on September 11th, he just walked up and helped take bodies out of the ashes without any publicity or anything. That’s just who he is. He’s as much a fireman as he is an actor. He’s just a great guy.

I love Will Patton. I worked with him on Sweet thing. I admired him so much. I like to work with non-actors a lot, and he’s trained in theater, television and film and can be in a scene with a non-actor and help guide him. I’m just completely blown away by how someone can stay in the moment and still work with a non-actor who is lost and can bring them back.

Alexandra Kosloski: I’ve seen Patton’s work, he’s excellent, and Steve Buscemi is just so beloved.

Alexandre Rockwell: He’s the best. I’ve always known him as my friend, and he still is my friend, but I realized stepping away from it, that he’s become somebody who you cannot replace. If Steve’s going to play a part, no one else could play that part. And if they did, it would just be a completely different part.

Steve Buscemi in In The Soup, 1992

Alexandra Kosloski: Could you share a moment in your career where you were challenged creatively, and how that turned out?

Alexandre Rockwell: Yeah, I had several moments. Multitudes. Probably even today I had a moment. A more severe moment where I was challenged is when I was in Hollywood. I was trying to make films and I just had two kids, and I was going broke. It just felt like I was becoming a professional loser, trying to get money for films everywhere I went. The most difficult part of it was that filmmaking, the one thing that worked for me in life, was starting to take a really bad turn. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like trying to go meet people to raise money. I didn’t like going out to dinner with people who I couldn’t stand, just trying to charm them into giving me money to make a movie. I didn’t know if I was a filmmaker anymore. I kind of had a crisis.

I had a Bolex camera that I had since I was 18 to make my first films on, and I said, okay, I got this camera, I’ve got these two incredible kids. I’m going to go get some film, and I’m just going. I used to write in a restaurant. I remember talking to the busboy, “What do you do?” And he said, “I’m an actor”. And I asked him if he would want to work on a film and if he would do sound. He said, “Sure, but I don’t know how.” I said “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you in an hour how to do sound.” I met the guy who shot the film in a playground. He was pushing his kid on a swing, and he was a cinematographer. I hired him to shoot the film. And so we shot on my Bolex with my kids, and it was this movie called Little Feet. I made the movie for almost no money, and I rediscovered what I loved again. 

Going back with the limitations– I had nothing but this camera, my kids, and three people working on the film. I was going “God, I love this.” I was working in the medium that I know how to work in, and I loved it. So I made this little movie called Little Feet. It was really well received, got great reviews, it even came out theatrically, and I was really pleased. It reinvigorated me. It sounds like a self-help kind of thing, but it’s really true– in the moment of crisis for anybody, the kernel of some incredible gift is right there. In crisis, something’s being offered to you, and you either take the challenge or you don’t. And I guess when I made Little Feet, I did take the challenge and it gave me everything back.

Alexandra Kosloski: There are times where you just lose control a little bit, but that’ll bring you to something unexpected.

Alexandre Rockwell: Yeah, it’s scary, of course, because it’s like you’re jumping into a void. You’re worried, but you have to have some faith. When you lose everything, it’s much easier to see what will pull you out of it. In fact, I’ve seen a lot of very unhappy people who actually are getting what they want– like they’re getting films made, they’re getting money, life is giving them everything they’re asking for. I’m not saying in all cases, but in a lot of cases, people lose their rudder and they’re not connected to it anymore.

Alexandra Kosloski: So, themes that I see in your work are, first, youth and innocence– of people facing a world and not understanding it– and also some kind of intimacy. I feel like that makes them more relatable in a way, it’s something very personal.

Little Feet, 2013

Alexandre Rockwell: When I show my movie to audiences, even like when you were in that screening the other day, generally speaking, people come out and really moved. I’ve had people crying or laughing at the end of my movies. It’s like they’re connecting to something intimate, like you said. I think that’s what it is. 

Youth definitely is part of it, but I think even more than youth, it’s innocence. I think there’s something about vulnerability and keeping a childlike view of things. I mean that in the highest respect– to go into a situation and be open to being vulnerable. And sometimes, people coming together from very different places creates that insecurity that can make you vulnerable. It can create a clash. In the case of Lump, you have a wounded older man who’s kind of shut the door on life. One of my friends, a French filmmaker, says it’s like he starts off in a coffin and at the end he’s celebrating his birthday. He meets this innocent person, this man who fell to earth. He’s full of hope and faith and innocence who pulls this guy out of his shell. So, yeah, all those things are perceptive.

I guess that’s sort of my cross that I carry, because I think we’re living in cynical times and I think that intimate films show vulnerability– I’m not saying it’s people who aren’t interested in that, but a sign of our times is anger or resentment. I am more into vulnerability and openness.

Rockwell and Buscemi at the Lump post screening Q&A

Alexandra Kosloski: I could see this manifest technically too, because since Lump was often shot in a car, there were a lot of very close shots. It was right in their face. I felt like I could smell them. The sound also really intentionally brought so much to the film, and I think that activated these other senses and made the film feel so visceral.

Alexandre Rockwell: That was a real advantage to being inside the car with the iPhone. When you’re shooting in a car, usually you have this large camera and you have to shoot through windows or tow the car, whereas in this movie, they’re really driving. We were able to move the camera around as if we’re in a football field, but we’re inside a car. That was a real benefit to the iPhone.

 You know, it’s interesting getting the camera close to people because in other movies of mine I haven’t done it as much. I think you have to be careful. It’s a very delicate thing because you don’t want to invade someone’s privacy. You want to allow them to retain their dignity and their own sense of self. And so that’s another thing that the iPhone does well– a big camera will frighten them away, but we’re so used to looking into the phone that you can bring the phone in and not make someone as self-conscious. They can stop being so aware of it so that intimacy can come out.

Alexandra Kosloski: Can you share any behind the scenes stories from filming Lump?

Alexandre Rockwell: I can tell you a funny one. We shot often without going to the trouble of getting permits. So, we went to a movie theater and I wanted the guy who played the panda man, M.L., to take off his clothes and have a meltdown in front of the mirror in this public bathroom. And, so I tried to find a public bathroom where it would be pretty empty, and I rigged up a thing where someone was outside the bathroom with a telephone and I said, if anyone starts to come towards the bathroom, call us, because this is a little intense. I got this guy screaming, staring in a mirror naked. You know, this could be a problem.

So, we were filming, he took off his clothes, and all of a sudden I got a call that there was a kid coming in the bathroom. We had like three seconds so he ran naked into a stall, and I was in one stall, Stephen and Jocar were in one. The kid went into the last stall and we all tried to hold our breath. We’re obviously in there. Then the father followed the kid in and was standing outside the stall. We’re just holding our breath. The guy goes out and the kid leaves and now’s the time for M.L. to scream. And he’s fantastic, he doesn’t give a shit. He’s just doing everything for the movie. So he does it and we get it, and he puts his clothes on and we leave. And just as I’m walking out of the cinema, I can see the security and two police officers heading toward the bathroom, and we just barely slipped out.

We had all these crazy stories, like going in and shooting in a Chinese restaurant. I just told them we’re shooting a birthday party. We did all the lines and we had to keep reshooting and I think they got wise to it after a while, but they let us shoot there for nothing. Every day was a new crazy, wild adventure

Alexandre Rockwell and Lana Rockwell on the set of Sweet Thing

Alexandra Kosloski: That’s the exciting thing about independent filmmaking is that those risks can be taken. And yeah, ML was great. He came off so uninhibited, so natural.

Alexandre Rockwell: He’s such a great guy. I’ve worked with him in Lump and Sweet Thing. He’s just so willing and so hungry. I love working with actors like that. I totally understand why some actors don’t want to do that, but I love working with actors who just do whatever it takes to get the performance, because that’s what I’m like as a filmmaker. I love it when no one’s holding me back. You never want to take risks with health or an injury or something like that, but you definitely want to take emotional risks and, you know, some legal risks.

Alexandra Kosloski: I feel like it enables you to put the storytelling first and all the technical things come after.

Alexandre Rockwell: There can’t be art without risk. You get so many great things when you lose control. And yet you’re shaping it, you’re sculpting it– it’s wild. It’s like dealing with fire or water, it’s like you’re trying to channel it.

Sweet Thing, 2020

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Interview

An Interview with Nemo Librizzi

Interview /

Nory Aronfeld and “So Bad It’s Good” by Nemo Librizzi, photo by Bebe Uddin

In his interview with Alexandra Kosloski, Nemo Librizzi shares the essence of bohemianism, emphasizing the intrinsic drive to create art regardless of external validation. From his graffiti roots in New York to using AI in illustrating his graphic novel “So Bad, It’s Good,” Librizzi discusses his artistic evolution and ongoing projects.

Alexandra Kosloski: What does it mean to you to be bohemian?

Nemo Librizzi: Well, sometimes the arts equate a livelihood. Art can make some people very wealthy, and some people it even makes famous. But for anybody who has ever made something– before there was ever any question of an audience, you’re making it for yourself responding to some unsettled feeling or raw urge to create. 

Some people make beautiful things because they came up in an environment of beauty and elegance, and others come from a very dysfunctional place, and have a vision of a more beautiful world. There are people from all walks of life that find themselves in a position to create something. To make something becomes more important than practical realities. People who make art even though they’re not understood or can’t make ends meet by this pursuit, and they do it anyway, we call that a bohemian.

“I think that each of us has an inclination or sensibility to create based on a dream or a feeling.”

I think that each of us has an inclination or sensibility to create based on a dream or a feeling. Not everybody tries it, and out of the people who act on this fantasy, not everybody strikes a chord to be readily understood by others. In which case, the realization is still useful to oneself. Art for art’s sake. And in our society, there are these cultural specializations: you’re a lawyer, you’re a doctor, you’re a statesman or something, or you’re an artist. In other cultures, perhaps it’s more acceptable to be a Renaissance person. You make something, but you also have a regular job, and it’s not necessarily merely a hobby either. It’s part of who you are- a more nuanced part of your identity.

Alexandra Kosloski: I would say that you’re a pretty good example of a Renaissance person. You seem to be an artistic shapeshifter. Can you share a little about your journey from graffiti art to filmmaking and beyond? How did your experiences influence this artistic evolution?

Nemo Librizzi at the launch of “So Bad It’s Good (Part One)” at Village Works

My dad was a painter his whole life, and a poet, although he was an art dealer by day. Just being with my dad as an art dealer, we used to go to Warhol’s Factory, or Tom Wesselmann’s studio, or different artists ranging from the abstract to photorealist. There were no hard and fast rules for my father about what constitutes art other than it’s a movement of the soul. 

So when graffiti came around, I remember seeing it on the subway and asking my dad what it was, and he said, “The kids go in the tunnels at night and do it.” I must have been 5 or 6 years old. I told my dad, “I want to do that”. He said, “You have to practice and when you get bigger you can go do it.” And I did.

I focused on it for many years until I went and painted on the subway. The first time I did it was ’82, maybe ’83, and I wrote all the way up until they phased out the graffiti trains in around ’88 or ’89. It was a starting point for me because at that moment when I was initiated as a graffiti artist, it came in vogue in creative circles that people from other disciplines were paying attention to what was happening on the streets in New York. So I found myself, as a graffiti artist, part of this inner circle of people like Jean-Michel Basquiat or Keith Haring or Martin Wong, because all these people were interfacing with that street avantgarde. And I never saw a clear delineation between the different arts. I felt they were all equally relevant. 

Sometimes I get an idea that might be musical in nature, and I have to try to figure out a way to make a sound that echoes the sound I’m hearing in my head. I used to make radio shows because I’ve never learned how to play an instrument. That’s just one facet of self-expression. But I also write books and make little films. I think you are inspired by a spark of an idea first, and then that idea knows what it wants to be. Maybe you need to learn some formal things, to bring it into fruition, but technique is not art. The technique is a means by which we express the idea that we have.

Alexandra Kosloski: I’ve experienced this. It feels like the idea is the one driving the car and you just have to be in the passenger seat.

Nemo Librizzi: Absolutely. You have to help it get where it’s going.

“With some Bohemian comrades-in-arms in 2009”

L to R: Ben Ruhe, Nemo Librizzi, Lance de Los Reyes, Kiernen Costello

Alexandra Kosloski: Do you have a favorite memory of when you were Style Writing?

Nemo Librizzi: I had that dream when I was young, but it’s not as simple as painting in a studio. It’s a fearsome thing when you’re nine or ten years old to actually get to a place where you can write on a train. The trains themselves are dangerous. You’re trespassing into subway property, where the people that work on the trains get killed while working there. So us as kids, you were taking your life in your hands. And on top of that, if you didn’t get arrested or hit by a train, the place was full of gangs that would try to steal your spray paint and beat you up. And if you had any kind of name, a sucker reputation could follow you around and ruin your chances of getting your name up.

There was a lot to contend with, especially being a white kid and the son of an art dealer. I wasn’t as tough as a lot of my counterparts. When I could finally paint the side of a train– objectively, my first efforts were horrible, looking back– but I was proudest of that moment where I first achieved it at last, because nobody handed me that victory. I went out and I made it happen just by my own backbone. Even though it wasn’t any great glory in anybody else’s eyes, I proved something to myself that day.

Young Nemo Librizzi in NYC

Alexandra Kosloski: Can you think of a time that another artist surprised you?

Nemo Librizzi: Oh, God. Artists always surprise me, so they never surprise me. I can give you three occasions. One was VFR, who’s a graffiti artist, and his specialty was “tagging”. His signatures were all over the city. VFR made a campaign to go all city [known for graffiti throughout all 5 boroughs of NYC] one of the highest ideals that a graffiti artist can realize, if you’re not going to concentrate on doing what we call “burners” [large, elaborate wall pieces]. When we first met, we were all selling fireworks down on Canal Street. My partner CHAMA saw talent in VFR that honestly, at that moment I felt was too raw. He was too young. But, at some point VFR matured. I don’t know what it was, but one day a light went on in his head. Suddenly he had one of the best signatures in the city and of all time. It shocked me to think the kid ended up being great.

I felt the same thing with the photographer, Khalik Allah. His videos for Wu Tang Clan seemed very straightforward, but he wasn’t coming from any poetic background that I recognized, he was pretty much self-taught. Somewhere along the line, he discovered these people on 125th and Lexington, who were smoking K2. K2 is supposed to be synthetic weed, but it takes people to a much more psychotic break with reality than marijuana takes somebody. Khalik Allah took it upon himself to document these outcasts, and it was like his soul was reaching out to theirs. These weren’t stars, or even conventionally “cool” people. Yet, there developed a very vital connection between the viewer and the subject. I think the resulting works are of great importance on the landscape of our city’s history.

The third example is Martin Wong, because Martin Wong used to hang around all the graffiti scenes, and he was a very self-effacing, humble guy. Although he dressed pretty outlandish and had a big, larger than life personality, he was very earnest. I never knew him to be an artist, I just knew him to be part of the underground. He was an enigmatic character.

And one day, I was brought to see his paintings. It was his Chinatown series, and I had my mind properly blown. Martin Wong was probably the biggest Trojan horse for me in that he had always been there. I was friends with him. I’d hang out and eat dinner with him and I never knew how great of an artist he was until very late in his life.

Nemo Librizzi, Juju, oil on canvas

Alexandra Kosloski: Who are your biggest influences?

Nemo Librizzi: I probably have a thousand biggest influences. I think that if I had to make a shortlist, though, they would probably be all of the outlaws, like John Genet and Caravaggio. Jack Black, obviously not the comedian, but the stickup guy who became a writer in the 1920s. Or Petronius Arbiter, who wrote the Satyricon. Or Eugène Sue. Rimbaud. Anybody that had an aptitude for culture and intellectual rigor, but was also there on the street corners where things actually happened. Henry Miller is one of them. Bukowski. We see this “terribilita” even in the Abstract Expressionists. We find it in Reggae and Dancehall and Rap music. Art that has blossomed right out of the mud of everyday human life has appealed to me most.

Alexandra Kosloski: The counterculture.

Nemo Librizzi: Yeah.

Alexandra Kosloski: I wanted to talk about “So Bad, It’s Good.” It brings a really unique approach to storytelling since it’s AI illustrated. What led you to this style?

Nemo Librizzi: I had written the play about 15 years ago, and it was my intention to have it acted on stage in costumes. I got kind of far along in the process where I was actually meeting with theater people, but it fell between the cracks. I didn’t know quite what to do with it, and I moved on to other endeavors. And then when I saw a friend playing around with AI, I was like, bingo! I can mine that source with this idea. I have chops as an illustrator, but I can’t compete with what AI can do on this level. I can fill up the pages with endless details. I think the AI has untold potential, though it’s unwieldy at times. It’s like trying to make a fine sculpture with a chainsaw, really, because it’s such a powerful tool. It can lead you by the nose if you’re not careful.

Alexandra Kosloski: What inspired the world of Norbert and the hijinx of Petropolis?

Nemo Librizzi and Ibrahim Kandji at the Trops launch of So Bad It’s Good (Part One) at Village Works in NYC

Nemo Librizzi: For many years I’d been a starving artist, I was happy to live wherever I could hang my hat, until I became a father for the first time. In a way, Norbert’s struggle is autobiographical– he has 14 or 18 kids, I have one to worry about– but suddenly I had somebody other than myself to worry about. When I started to face the problem of making a living, I realized, everybody faces those problems. I had to laugh at myself. Struggling to make a living is not really an epic human battle, it’s just normal. “The daily grind” most people call it. So it wouldn’t have been that funny if I wrote a play about my own mundane struggles, but now putting bunnies in there, trying to hustle their way out of an animal ghetto- that becomes funny. 

We all grew up with some kind of fairy tales, and most of them were about little bunnies and puppies, with very little resemblance to our own world. They’re usually acting out some sort of moral maxim or ethical lessons to children. I tried to replicate the everyday realities that people are up against in the inner city, except enmeshed with a fairy tale or cartoon world. I just thought it was a funny juxtaposition that I’m sure other people have done, but that’s my own take on it.

“So Bad It’s Good” by Nemo Librizzi, photo by Bebe Uddin

I find it entertaining to immerse myself in the process of making it. It’s almost like playing with a dollhouse. It’s an escape. We got the second chapter at the printer now, I’m in the process of making the third one in the trilogy now. And my friends down here in Miami, tonight they’ll all be going to a party or something, but I’ll rush home to get working on this. It’s more exciting than being at a party. You never know who you’re even going to meet on AI. Once you type in the prompt, you see all these strange faces emerge out of the mist, and it’s just a fascinating process.

Alexandra Kosloski: Yeah, it brings some levity to the story. Besides part two and three of “So Bad It’s Good”, what are some other current projects that you’re excited about?

Nemo Librizzi: I started writing a novelization of Dirty Dancing. I was really excited about it at the beginning, and it wrote itself, but at some point I started struggling with it. I needed it to be a little bit more than a simple rehashing of the story. A filmmaker friend thought it could be cool for it to become a movie, then it could be Dirty Dancing- the movie based on a book, based on the film. It starts to become a hall of mirrors in that way. Other than that, I’ve been making some more little films for YouTube. 

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Interview

An Interview with Sante D’Orazio (Part 3)

Interview /

Film strip frame by Sante D’Orazio

D’Orazio’s world is populated by supermodels, actors, rock stars, and icons. His +30 year career has seen concurrent themes of eternal youth, stunning beauty, and rock and roll. D’Orazio’s portfolio is a mixture of informal and posed – an uncensored and provocative trademark. Since he first shot for Italian Vogue in 1981, D’Orazio’s work has been published in the likes of Andy Warhol’s Interview, Italian, French and British Vogue, Vanity Fair, and GQ among others.

In the final installment of their 3 part interview, Sante D’Orazio and Alexandra Kosloski discuss “nice accidents” and connecting with the unknown.

Continued from Part 2

Part 2

AK: What was the most unexpected photograph you’ve ever made?

Sante D’Orazio: Well, in the editing process, a lot of times you’re shooting from one particular angle and you think it’s genius. And then for whatever reason, you try another angle, you do only two frames and think it’s not good, and go back to where it was before. And then you’ve got 500 frames of that angle you thought was so much better, and two frames of the one you tried, and those two are the best. Or something went wrong in the last frame and there’s a glitch, and that glitch makes it unique. That happened quite often when it was film, film offered more technical glitches that were wonderful.

That’s on film (right). It’s a Polaroid film, 35 millimeter film. That’s the last frame. So it’s a sticky film, where you peel off the emulsion. She’s like a Greek goddess.

AK: There’s such an intensity in her expression.

Photo of Tatjana Patitz by Sante D’Orazio

Sante D’Orazio: Here’s another picture (below). That’s from a glitch, too. So those are nice accidents. I was always doing experimental stuff that was more painterly.

Photo of Tatjana Patitz by Sante D’Orazio, 1989

I had all these pictures that I could never publish. A lot of naughty pictures, and they’re all famous people, and then one day I decided I would scratch everybody’s face out. And I did. And they were much better pictures. You didn’t need to know who they were. And then I bought a 70’s porn and I scratched out everybody’s face. Every frame. It took four months to scratch out 10 minutes. And so as the film moved and the scratches– 24 per second– all moved around, it became a moving abstraction. That was my first one. Then the second and third one, I used colored inks. And I not only had the film, but I would take individual frames and scan them and print them, so they were like little paintings.

AK: I like your series of priests, too. Could you talk about the little bit of the connection between art and religion?

Sante D’Orazio: The connection is not literal in terms of religion as we know it, especially not any kind of organized religion. Art to me is a means of connecting with the unknown, and that’s really what I think religion is; connecting with the source of being. Not all the time, and not all art, but certain art. That’s what it was for many of the abstract expressionists and the minimalists. It’s a means of connecting with the unknown. We all have different experiences, we have different beliefs, and it’s not literal, it’s the sensory perception. 

Geometric paintings by Sante D’Orazio, installation in the artist’s studio

My geometric paintings are about how there’s a lot going on in what we can perceive and what we can’t sense. I was like, “How do I paint that?” Not the literal, but that sense. With those paintings, it was the geometric shape– the landscape creates a space between them that’s invisible. That’s what those paintings are about.

Everybody has a different approach to it, but I always tell people: learn how to stop thinking. Once you start thinking with the camera in your hand, you’ve lost the picture. If you had time to think, the picture’s gone. I’ve told that to some very famous painters, and they went from taking shit pictures to taking some really good ones, because they got it. They were already doing that in their paintings, they realized that they could do that in their photographs. I think it applies to every art form; dance and music. Stop thinking. You do all the thinking in between, all the thinking you want. But once you get to it, stop thinking. Feel. It’s all feel. All sense perception. That’s the language of that connection that you have with the unknown. It’s all a sensory thing. That’s the only connection you have. 

AK: Lastly, could we talk a little bit more about your current projects?

Sante D’Orazio: Presently, I finished the memoir and I’m looking for a publisher. Then I want to finish editing the archive, discovering new pictures. I can make a new book from those pictures, and maybe I can throw in some of the writings from the memoir into that book that pertained to photography. I’m revisiting an old script that I didn’t get to develop. I’m more ready now than ever before, so I’m back to that. I would like to direct a film. I wouldn’t mind getting back to my painting work. And you know what I would love more than anything? I would love to do some great photo projects. I just went to London three weeks ago and shot Guns N Roses in Hyde Park. That was my first photo assignment in seven years. I got some great pictures, and that was exciting. Otherwise, I shoot on my own. I still love shooting nudes because I started by drawing nudes. I was never really a fashion photographer. I learned how to do it, but I was always a beauty photographer.

An Interview with Sante D’Orazio (Part 3) Read More »

Interview

An Interview with Sante D’Orazio (Part 2)

Interview /

Tatjana Patitz, Photo by Sante D’Orazio

D’Orazio’s world is populated by supermodels, actors, rock stars, and icons. His +30 year career has seen concurrent themes of eternal youth, stunning beauty, and rock and roll. D’Orazio’s portfolio is a mixture of informal and posed – an uncensored and provocative trademark. Since he first shot for Italian Vogue in 1981, D’Orazio’s work has been published in the likes of Andy Warhol’s Interview, Italian, French and British Vogue, Vanity Fair, and GQ among others.

In part 2 of their 3 part interview, Sante D’Orazio tells Alexandra Kosloski how he broke into the fashion industry, and shares the best advice he ever received.

Continued from Part 1

Part 1

AK: What was your thought process behind pivoting from commercial work to a more personal art practice?

Sante D’Orazio: Well, commercial work is usually directed. They made the choices, it had nothing to do with me afterwards. I was usually directed by someone who didn’t have the talent to direct. I always said just because the word “art” is in their title, doesn’t mean they know anything about art. 

AK: And so how would you handle that?

Sante D’Orazio: The thing is, they always wanted something that they recognized and was easy to replicate. I always tried to give them what they wanted, and then I’ll give them something else that might be really good and different. But they already set their mind to what they’re familiar with. Nine out of ten times they go with that. That’s commercial. They go with what’s familiar. There might be something better, but it doesn’t matter.

AK: Even though you can offer something that might exist beyond their taste.

Sante D’Orazio: Yeah, but that’s the nature of commercial work. I was so stupid, I was always trying to make it better, and I allowed myself to get frustrated, and there was just no need to put myself through all that. In retrospect, it’s like, come on, just do it and go home. Make life easier for yourself. There’s a time and place for certain things. You’re doing a commercial job. I would sometimes have to call up my agent and say “how much am I getting today?” Just so I could put up with it.

Tatjana Patitz, Photo by Sante D’Orazio

AK: Who do you create art for?

Sante D’Orazio: I still have to do it for me. I’m looking for something within myself. I’m still that foolish kid, dealing with the commercial world and fighting it. I’ve learned not to listen to all the naysayers. You make something that’s unique to you, and the naysayers are the ones that you like and respect, who tell you “Nah, that’s not really that cool.” And you believe that? That’s the worst thing you could do. You have to believe in what you did, and you have to develop it.

That’s the definition of contempt; to make less of another, to make more of yourself. I had a mentor in photography, and he made me write certain things and stick them to my wall, and that was one of the things. “Contempt is making less of others to make more of yourself.” You never do it. And then the other thing that I’ll always remember is that he said, “Let the obstacles be your guide. It leads you to places you would never have gone on your own.”

AK: And that was some of the best advice you’ve ever got?

Sante D’Orazio: Yes.

Geometric painting by Sante D’Orazio, 2021

AK: Could you talk a little bit more about him?

Sante D’Orazio: Lou Bernstein. He said he was the only Jewish man in Brooklyn with an Italian son. He belonged to the New York Photo League, they were the photographers that did street photography as we know it in New York City. I didn’t know his work at the time. He saw me going to art school, I was going to the Art Students League, and he saw me with one of those big portfolios. I told him what I was doing and he asked me if I wanted to learn photography. Yeah. He had a class up in this attic apartment on East Fifth Street in Brooklyn, and he taught three students on a Friday night. And on the weekend, I would go with him out in the street, wherever there were people gathered. He wanted me to shoot alongside him so I could see what he was looking at. He would point things out, learning how to anticipate a moment. You start putting it all together, and we go from there.

AK: Before you had met him, you had been painting?

Sante D’Orazio: Yeah, I started out painting. I had to figure out in high school what the hell I wanted to do, and the only thing I knew how to do naturally was art. So I went to community college for art direction, and I hated it. Then I transferred over to Brooklyn College for fine art, and those were my best years in college. I met Phil Pearlstein, who was one of the leading artists in figurative painting, and I became his assistant. When I graduated, I had to figure out, what am I going to do now? I had a cousin, who was a well-known hairdresser in the city, who was always telling us stories of all the glamorous people that he was doing hair for. It seemed like a world away, but he encouraged me to go into fashion, so I gave it a try. I put together a portfolio of ten life drawings of nudes, ten pictures that looked like ten different photographers took them, and ten pictures of whales from the aquarium.

AK: You’re laughing, but I saw those pictures and I think they’re great.

White beluga whale at Coney Island Aquarium, Photo by Sante D’Orazio, 1975

Sante D’Orazio: Thank you. Those were my first photographs. And so I put them all in the portfolio. Who do I go to first? Avedon Studio. Didn’t get past the secretary. And then I went to Irving Penn and didn’t even get past the intercom. And then one blizzard of a day, I went to Scavullo, and I got into the door, and the first person I saw was Scavullo, himself. And he’s like, “What do you want?” I was like, “I want to be an assistant”. He’s like, “Get out of here”. I thought to myself, I gotta rethink this.

AK: So how do you come back from that?

Sante D’Orazio: I eventually got a job as a gofer at a commercial studio, with a commercial photographer who borderlined fashion advertising. He worked with famous models on advertising shoots. My job was to mop the floors, clean the dishes, go for whatever was needed, and I was just happy to be in the studio. I was making $75 a week. I didn’t care. I got in the door.

Adrianna Bach, Photo by Sante D’Orazio, 2015

I worked in that studio and I made friends with other assistants, and once in a while they would take me out with them to Studio 54, and the floodgates opened up. I told a friend that I would go to Italy with him, because somebody wanted to work with him there. We planned a trip to Milan, and I gave notice at my job and saved 1500 dollars, which was a shitload of money for me. And the night before, he bailed on me. I didn’t know what to do, so I just said, “Fuck it, I’ll go”, and I went on my own. I didn’t even know where the magazines were. I didn’t know of any hotels. I got a room with a neon sign that flashed and buzzed, like in a film noir. I put my suitcase down and didn’t even open it. I couldn’t even go home. 

I ordered a big pitcher of beer, and I got myself shitfaced, and who walks by is a photographer, who I had assisted. He’s like, “Why are you in that hotel? Stay in my hotel, with all the models and the young photographers.” He goes, “I’m going to Portofino tomorrow with my girlfriend for the weekend. Why don’t you come with us?” I was like, “Oh, God, thank you.”

I took my luggage over there, and went to Portofino. He gave me the name of all the agencies, all the magazines and everything I needed to know. It was a godsend. I checked into the hotel on Sunday night, and Monday was the next day. And the photographer said to me, “Look, there’s no work. I’ve been here for three months. I have to go back, there’s nothing happening.” I said to myself, I’ll take my shitty portfolio and go to Italian Vogue. And when they say no, I’ll get on the train and go visit family. 

I go to Italian Vogue and they let me wait for the art director. He looked at the portfolio– the whales, the drawings, ten pictures that looked like ten different photographers. And then he goes, “Wait here. I’m going to wait for the beauty editor to come”. She came and they talked to each other, this and that, and they gave me two double pages to do nudes for Italian Vogue Beauty. So on my first day there, I got that job. Because they were creative, they saw nude drawings that I did, they saw I could draw a sensual line, they saw the whales that were sensual, and they saw in the ten different photographs that I could light.

AK: They see skill, they see good composition, so they can make the connection.

Sante D’Orazio: They were creative. That’s what you don’t get here in the States. And that was the beginning of my career.

AK: So do you remember that photo shoot?

Sante D’Orazio: Oh, yeah. There were two nudes on how to tan yourself. One was in natural light, and one was in the sun bed. So that was all blue lights. And the other one was in the sunlight. So you turn the page, one was all orange and yellow and one was all blue. I had to wait the entire month to shoot it, but in the meantime, I got to meet all the agencies, all the important people. Then it was the end of July, and nobody works in August, so I went home. I had to wait two and a half months for the magazine to come out in the U.S., and I went back to work as an assistant, saved more money, and went back to Milan again in February. So that was the start of my career.

Irina Shayk by Sante D’Orazio for CR Girls, 2016

Continue to Part 3

Part 3

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Interview

An Interview with Sante D’Orazio (Part 1)

Interview /

Talisa Soto-Bratt, Photo by Sante D’Orazio, 1992

D’Orazio’s world is populated by supermodels, actors, rock stars, and icons. His +30 year career has seen concurrent themes of eternal youth, stunning beauty, and rock and roll. D’Orazio’s portfolio is a mixture of informal and posed – an uncensored and provocative trademark. Since he first shot for Italian Vogue in 1981, D’Orazio’s work has been published in the likes of Andy Warhol’s Interview, Italian, French and British Vogue, Vanity Fair, and GQ among others.

In part 1 of their 3 part interview, Sante D’Orazio and Alexandra Kosloski discuss the artist’s current projects and the emotional connection behind his photographs.

AK: Can you describe what it feels like to make art? What is that feeling to you?

Sante D’Orazio: It’s beyond the feeling; it’s a way of life. I can’t not make. There’s a sense that if I’m not creating, I’m usually destroying. It’s the two sides, the yin and the yang of creativity. I’ve seen it with so many different artists and so many different fields. You get destructive. If you don’t have an outlet, it hurts. Whether it turns inwards and it becomes depression, or it comes out in so many different forms. Once you find the creative form, it’s healthier, but it’s just about finding it. And you need it. It’s life giving or taking.

Geometric painting by Sante D’Orazio, 2021

AK: What is your current studio practice like?

Sante D’Orazio: It varies. Recently, I had to get spinal surgery, and so I couldn’t take pictures. I couldn’t move around– because when I shoot, I move– I bend, I twist, I turn. I couldn’t do that, so I was painting more. The worse it got, the less I could paint. I had to find something else, so I started writing. I’ve always told stories since I was a kid, so I decided to write those stories down, not thinking of any particular narrative. I just wrote stories down and put them away, and when I had enough of them, I put them in some order and I had a memoir. And so I wrote a memoir during the COVID period and the period where I couldn’t walk.

Then the other thing I’ve been doing lately, which I hadn’t done in 40 years, is editing my archive. Let’s say I was doing ten pages for Vogue: they only used ten pictures, yet I shot maybe a thousand. Now, you don’t throw the others away– they’re all good pictures. Some are even better than the ones that they used, but I had to put them away because I’m onto the next shooting, and then the next one after that. When you were shooting at my pace, you didn’t even have time to know if your pictures were any good. And the only time you knew that they were good is when the client didn’t call, because if they did, that means there was something wrong. They never called you when something was right. So you put them away, and move on. And now, I’m finding gems I never knew I had. I remember the shootings, but I didn’t remember the particular images and oh, my God, I can’t believe it. I have a new me through all those images. So, I’m only up to 1993 and I started eight months ago, so you can imagine how much work I have to do.

AK: That sounds like a huge undertaking.

Sante D’Orazio: It’s daunting.

D’Orazio in his studio

AK: Not only the sheer volume of images to filter through, but emotionally, I imagine it’s exhausting.

Sante D’Orazio: Yeah, it is. The other thing that you have to know is that taking the picture is really only half the job– the other half is recognizing it within the edit. No one can edit for you if you’re looking for yourself on an artistic level. On a commercial level, knock yourself out. But on a personal level, I have to edit. I have to find my picture. I think that’s the only reason a photographer– and I’ll speak for myself– has any great success. 

You have to connect with your subject emotionally. I do. I make a strong connection with my subject. There’s trust, there’s a bond, and there’s a real closeness that happens. If it appears sexy or sensual, it is, but not on a physical level, it’s on an emotional level. And it ends there. But you really care about each other. And when you see each other again, it’s that same trust and love. I just edited some pictures of Talisa Soto– she was a great model– and I sent them to her and she texted me back, she goes “Sante, I always loved working with you.”

AK: That’s so nice to hear.

Christy Turlington by Sante D’Orazio, 1993

Sante D’Orazio: Yeah, it’s so nice. I always felt the same. And it was that bond that I’m talking about. It’s care, a lot of care.

AK: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that, because there is such a sense of freshness and intimacy in your photographs, even when they’re obviously posed. Do you think that that bond plays a role?

Sante D’Orazio: Big role. Yeah. Guys in general are insensitive when it comes to that, but women seem to see it immediately. That trust stays because I was never a predator. And when they came back, the photographs just picked up again from that moment. And that’s what you see in the pictures.

You see it in their eyes. You just catch the whole feeling as soon as you meet somebody. And then to finish what we were saying, is that you have to then find that moment in their eyes in the edit. The eyes may be looking to the left, and the way they’re looking– is it inquisitive, is it trusting, is it not trusting? You have to be able to recognize that, you have to be sensitive to it. And then that’s the picture.

Continue to Part 2

Part 2

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Interview

An Interview with Miriam Parker

Interview /

Miriam Parker in her studio. Photo by Avery Walker

Miriam Parker is an interdisciplinary artist who uses movement, paint, video art and sculpture/installation. She has been influenced by her experience as a dancer, her study of Buddhism phenomenology, and her connection to the free jazz tradition. Through re-organizational practices, Parker refines her understanding of individuality, outside of traditions built from oppressive ethics. Parker is a Monira Foundation artist-in-residence at Mana Contemporary.

In their interview, Alexandra Kosloski and Miriam Parker discuss the artist’s philosophy and the way it manifests in her art.

AK: What is your studio practice like? 

Miriam Parker: Well, there are two aspects. One is working on installation, which is this practice of translating my process from being a dancer into being someone who is making something outside of her body, not just using the body itself. In this installation practice, I’ve been really steady with this idea of creating a space that itself becomes generative. I first use my body to create something, but then, the aim is for this thing to be the matrix for its own development. For instance, if I draw a line, it’s not just about creating a line that stays there, but the line itself has to be growing. How do I create an installation- in space- that is alive, the same way a dancer is alive, or music? How do I create an installation that animates the space?

For the past year, one of my research areas has been about the frame; what does this frame- that is going to allow for the space to be animated- look like?

I have also replaced the body with paint, still with the same question at the back of my mind– what makes something alive? How can you create life, especially where you make do with the human body? Paint is interesting because it is viscous and it can be a vehicle for energies and flows; and right now I am learning about viscosity and paint and pumps and how much energy it takes to bring the water/paint up to a certain height. I am trying many different things and learning from the numerous mistakes I make in the process. But what is interesting is that while I was working with the paint, I also realized that it was not just about using the paint as a proxy for the body– I slowly realized it was also about how the paint was released– that’s where the magic lies.

In the artist’s studio. Photo by Avery Walker

For instance, as I am speaking right now, the impression you have of me is not just the result of what I am saying, but also of how the words are released from my mouth. When someone is dancing, it’s not just about their movements, but it’s about how they move out of their bodies and towards the onlookers. Well, it’s the same thing with the paint. So now the challenge is understanding how to have each of my sculptures– which is dispensing paint– have its own rhythm and language. 

AK: So there’s that translation between inside and outside of the body, do you define any boundaries between performance and visual art? How?

Miriam Parker, in residency, via @miriamparts on Instagram

Miriam Parker: Technique. You know, the technique of creating a painting is a choreography that’s very different from the technique of creating movement with your body. The choreography of painting, or of architecture, is a different technique. I would say an artist has a vision that usually has a primary actor and then secondary actors, just like in a movie or a play. For me, my primary actor or main character is dance. I’m a dancer, I’ve spent my whole life dancing. The essence of dance is no different than painting or music making, the essence itself is always art. What is different lies in the technique, the craftsmanship, and now that I am working with different mediums, I have to learn about their own idiosyncratic techniques. 

AK: Performance art often physically inserts the artists into the work. Could you tell me a little bit about how you navigate the connection between art and your body when you’re physically in the work? How does that feel? 

Miriam Parker: Like coming home. I have this unsurmountable wish to birth something beautiful into the world. I don’t have children, and creating something that is separate from my body, but that still comes from my body, is really important. When I, as much as I can, physicalize everything I’m doing, I’m in a very, very happy place. Then, when I perform inside the spaces I have created and I activate these spaces with my body, the gestures I improvise are of deepest reverence for the space and for the architecture of that space. Once I understand the space I am in, I then can use my body to rearrange this space– even if it’s not visually rearranged for the audience, in my body I’m placing myself in different positions that help me to view the architecture of the space differently. So, what starts off as finite- an installation- then becomes infinite. It’s like a jungle gym of lines and curves and I get to just play. 

Miriam Parker, Digital Prints, via @miriamparts on Instagram

AK: I’ve noticed that your art is so tactile. You seem so invested physically, and there’s a lot about process and creation. Also, your art often involves collaboration with other artists, including many different kinds of media. What have these experiences with other characters brought to your practice? 

Miriam Parker: The reason why I started fabricating physical spaces and going into what they call “the digital art realm” is because I wanted to play with the power dynamics between performers and creators (of sculptures, installations, etc.). In a solo performance, you usually have a single body, and then you have the space, and if I am the performer I am the number one actor in that space, I am the number one focus. But soon, I felt like I also wanted to honor all the other contributing factors that allow for your eye to see. What if, instead of just applauding the performer, we honored  everything- human and non-human- that enable us to see the object? And that, to me, is very much about the social and political aspects of power living. To me, stepping into the visual art world is very much about– let me honor the ground, the importance of how ground plays on the physical body as the performer moves, how ground, in the end, allows the onlookers to see this physical body in its different aspects. And that’s the type of questions an architect would ask. How does the space design the  movements? And I say that because I didn’t want to be a master or a conductor. I didn’t want to come and say “This is what we’re doing, this is the object I want to create, and this is how you put it into motion.” I want it to move all together, as a generative, co-operative ecosystem. To me, this is very close to the definition of love. 

Working with others is having the joy of bringing in other artists who have a mastery over their own technique, and who have their own vision. People who have spent a lot of time understanding their vocabulary and whatever medium it is. Bringing those together is part of my craft, actually, their masterfulness, their individual creative ways. How do you create space that allows each of these artists to be there in an equal way, without one being more important than the other? That’s my interest in collaboration, which is honoring others without taking away from their voice, which is very challenging. 

AK: How has your study of Buddhism phenomenology influenced you? 

Miriam Parker: Well, everything I’m saying is birthed from that philosophy. One of the core ideas and concepts that is brought up through Buddhism is the idea of interdependence. The idea is that nothing arises independently, there is always something that is lending itself for something to happen. The question is then– how can I be a part of this collaborative process? How do I honor this creative nature that we are all a part of ? The cooperative, interdependent nature of the life we are living is a key element of Buddhism thought that I am trying to bring into my artistic practice. The goal, in other words, is to break down the misconceptions of how we assume things work (in this case, that things can work independently from each other). So my whole practice comes from my Buddhist philosophy studies, it’s the basis of everything.

Miriam Parker, MAYPOLE to the sun & The Minotaur’s daughter by Eleni Giannopoulou & Benjamin Craig, via @miriamparts on Instagram

AK: What current projects are you working on? 

Miriam Parker: Great question. I’ve been working on something called “Heart Patterns” for two years. “Heart Patterns” is based on the idea I was developing earlier of creating an installation that is endowed with a sense of life. In the past, I have created installations in which life was there because my body was there. And I really had this urge to do that without my body. So I’m experimenting with two main elements. One is paint flow, the other is sound. In the end, the whole flow of paint and the receiving of the paint on different canvases and wells will be made sonic. And then this other project, which is so dear to my heart, is a film that revolves around a specific image–  the one that stands in the middle of the fire. There is a Buddhist concept called “Bodhisattva”. And a Bodhisattva is somebody who, when they see/encounter suffering, do not run away. A Bodhisattva is one who trains to stand in the center of the fire. And it’s through standing in that center that they transcend by not being afraid of pain. There was an image that I found from the Brooklyn Museum, that is the image that I’m trying to embody and use as the center of this film, a real tribute to wisdom. It is about the fire and the Phoenix and ash and all of these iconic symbols of empowerment. 

In the artist’s studio. Photo by Avery Walker

As a side comment– we go to museums and look at these relics and most of them are actually meant for really high spiritual practice. Relics are meant to help us evolve. And looking at them in the context of the way  we usually see them shown, does not do that. So I really would like this film to be shown in a museum setting as a challenge. Imagine a show about wisdom. How would you curate that so that people actually learn about transcendence? And not just history. 

An Interview with Miriam Parker Read More »

Interview

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 3)

Interview /

David Aaron Greenberg in his studio

Photo by Pedro Angel Serrano

David Aaron Greenberg is an artist who uses multiple modes of expression. ​His work has been exhibited in various New York City galleries and is in the permanent collection at Stanford University.​ His critical writing has appeared in Parkett, The Fader, Art in America and Whitehot Magazine. ​Along with producer David Sisko, he co-founded Disco Pusher, a New York City songwriting and recording duo. Greenberg graduated from Rutgers University, Phi Beta Kappa. He lives in New Jersey and sometimes New York City.

In the final installment of their 3 part interview, Alexandra Kosloski and David Aaron Greenberg discuss Road Tripping, his project with The Trops, and the inspiration behind it.

Continued from Part 2

Part 2

AK: How would you describe the local art scene in New Jersey? 

David Aaron Greenberg: In Asbury, the literary scene is really vibrant, this “New Jersey Poetry Renaissance” that they call it. The music and the poetry overlap, but not so much with the visuals. It used to be the eighties and nineties artists were in bands, and bands had artists and there was this cross-pollination. And I wish there was more of that. 

In terms of the visual, there’s little pockets in New Jersey, it’s very dispersed. You know, there’s real people around me. And I’ve seen young friends of mine that are in Philadelphia, where there’s definitely giant buildings where there’s like 300 other artists, and I would just find that oppressive. I mean, it’s great if you’re young or if you like that, but I don’t want to be around other artists. I want to be around real people. There are people that come into my studio that I meet on the street, literally, and then pose for me. I just recently met a gas attendant at the Wawa, and he came in here. I mean, when they walk in here, their opinion is not some bullshit. They really tell you what they think of your art. They don’t have any preconceived notions. They’re not angling for something. 

David Aaron Greenberg

Vibing, 2023

I remember years ago the Italian painter Sandro Chia said, “The greatest way to judge the value of a painting is to just leave it out with the trash and see what happens to it.” Divorced of the context of the gallery or in a museum, if you saw that fucking shit on the street, what would you do? Would you say that’s really interesting or that’s a piece of crap? And I think it’s a really wonderful concept. Like, I sometimes leave my paintings outside to dry, and people ride by and they go, “Oh, that’s really nice.” Leaning up against the wall, drying in the sun outside of the apartment building. You’re not living in the real world if you’re completely surrounded by artists and everything that you do is like: you go to openings, you go to dinner with artists, you vacation with artists and you go to the Hamptons. It’s like you’re living a lifestyle instead of actually making art, right? 

AK: You could get out of touch with most viewers. 

David Aaron Greenberg: With reality. Just like, dealing with everyday life, the artist is not supposed to be removed from society completely. As Walt Whitman said, he was “one of the roughs”. That’s what made his poetry so great. He was amongst the people. And New Jersey makes you real, no matter what. People do not give a fuck here. 

AK: But that’s a really beautiful thing that you were saying. Road Tripping, the project you’re doing with The Trops, you’re not displaying it in a white box, you’re displaying it in the community. 

Photo of the artist’s studio

David Aaron Greenberg: Yeah. I’ve talked to the owners of the spaces and had their approval to put it up. So you’re talking with real people that are part of the community that want to encourage art and music and all that. What I really love about The Trops is that it’s very simple, but it’s very revolutionary. It’s like it’s got one foot in the established art world, and it’s got one foot in the real world. And it needs to be in both of those places. And that’s what’s so great about it. To use the technology of apps to to do something that’s not just about making money, but really being part of a community. And there’s a big difference in experiencing something in real time than it is online. I mean, we all love looking at people’s art on Instagram and we love to take videos, but you can’t experience a painting unless you’re standing in front of it. I just recently saw The Cure. I’ve never seen them. And there is something about a live experience, whether it’s music, art, poetry, reading. It’s life, it’s real. I think this young generation right now is relating to that because they lived through COVID. They interact with people and have cravings for real things, real books. 

AK: Real connection. 

David Aaron Greenberg: You can see real experience. These kids sniff out when they’re being manipulated and being set up.

AK: Can you tell me a little bit of the inspiration behind Road Tripping?

David Aaron Greenberg: I tried to place paintings that seem to somehow relate to the space. It was really easy for the painting in the Scarlet Reserve Room, which is a smoking club. That particular painting I had been painting for a while. I started it on acid. It’s probably the last time I’ll ever do acid because it was just too intense. That was like two years ago. And then the friend of mine– that it was based on– was in the studio, and I said, “Oh, let me pull this out. Remember this experience?” But it was interesting, there was something not right about it. Like, the dimensions were all weird. It was trippy, you know, it was started on acid. And I said, “Let me try to fix this, stand here”. And he’s like, “The only way I can deal with this is if I smoke.” There was something missing in this painting, and he started to light the joint, and I was like “That’s it.” And it became a still life of the actual joint that he rolled. And so, the fact that a painting of mine is in a store arena in an establishment that I totally love, and if it helps promote the place, awesome, because I want this place to thrive. Not only are people smoking weed there, but the atmosphere is amazing. People read poetry and it’s just really relaxing. 

Now, The Asbury Park Roastery, that’s a strange little painting. It seems like somebody who needs a cup of coffee.

AK: Yeah, it’s a little moody.

David Aaron Greenberg

Black Eye, 2023

David Aaron Greenberg: Exactly. And Keyport Funhouse, that place is like your older sister’s best friend’s bedroom exploded, and the coolest shit is there. And you’re like, “Wow”. It’s like when you’re young and there’s an older girl and she lets you in her room. It’s a big deal. You’re like, “Wow, this is how girls live?” You know? It’s not a boy’s room. It feels like that when you walk in. It’s a great vibe, and what I put in there is a very small, very beautiful little portrait of the singer Sandflower, who I’ve written with for like ten years now. And I wanted the painting to have the feel of one of those tiny little royal portraits that you see. So it’s the oil is really heavily built up and it’s got tons of varnish on it. And you can sit on a couch and get coffee or homemade lemonade and just lounge in there, and the painting just feels natural. It’s glamorous and beautiful and feminine, and I love it. The other painting I have is in New Brunswick, which is in the George Street Co-op, which is a great place.

AK: I love the George Street Co-op.

David Aaron Greenberg: I don’t remember a time that it wasn’t there. It was such a big deal to actually have a painting in there. I didn’t know if they would agree to it. And the manager was just like, “Yeah, let’s put it up right now”. That one is called “Pop Smoke”. It’s a strange little painting, it kinda looks like the figure is in the smoke. I’ve been going there since I was in high school in the eighties. They have an open mic that they’ve been doing for years in various forms. And it’s a great little thing. It’s a great place to try a new song, for me. It gets you out of your space.

I didn’t make any of these paintings with the idea that they would wind up in these establishments, but the fact that they work in them is really rewarding. At the end of the day, as Stephen Torton says, “We are just all decorators in one form or another”. You know, it’s part of the furniture. And also the notion that they’re not all in one place, that you could literally take a road trip. You can start, let’s say, in New Brunswick and go to Red Bank, then go to Asbury, go to Keyport, come back. That’s awesome, go to the beach, get some coffee, smoke weed. I think it’s cool.

AK: It’s a whole journey. Yeah.

David Aaron Greenberg: It’s a great thing. Ultimately, even if it’s the landscapes that I do, the portraits, they’re all a way to elevate the everyday, every day. People are beautiful. The “road tripping” aspect is pretty funny, too. People travel all around the world and forget about their own backyard. The beauty in the everyday.

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 3) Read More »

Interview

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 2)

Interview /

Photo by Daniel Wolfskehl

David Aaron Greenberg is an artist who uses multiple modes of expression. ​His work has been exhibited in various New York City galleries and is in the permanent collection at Stanford University.​ His critical writing has appeared in Parkett, The Fader, Art in America and Whitehot Magazine. ​Along with producer David Sisko, he co-founded Disco Pusher, a New York City songwriting and recording duo. Greenberg graduated from Rutgers University, Phi Beta Kappa. He lives in New Jersey and sometimes New York City.

In part 2 of their 3 part interview, David Aaron Greenberg talks about his memories with his idols and his current endeavors.

Continued from Part 1

Part 1

AK: Is being an artist how you thought it would be?

David Aaron Greenberg: That’s a wild question. Like, “I’m going to grow up someday and be an artist”?

AK: Yeah. Did you have that?

David Aaron Greenberg: I had a strange notion of being a rock star, which I was immediately disillusioned with when I started meeting actual rock stars, and realizing how difficult it is. And then I deliberately did not want to be a rock star. 

I think the man who put it over the top for me was Joe Strummer, of all the rock stars I’ve met– and I’ve met Lou Reed, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Iggy Pop. Some of these people I had relationships and friendships with. I shared a manager with Iggy, this great guy, Art Collins. And then others like Lou Reed hated me. And I never did anything bad to him. In fact, I tried to be nice to him. Maybe that was my problem. I was talking to his wife, Laurie Anderson, who I adore. She’s so sweet. I used to do meditation practice with her. I don’t know why Lou just didn’t like me. I didn’t hold it against him. I still respected him as a songwriter.

David Aaron Greenberg & Daniel Carter Performance at Eroica Variations

Photo by David Sisko

But the last thing he said to me, I was talking to Laurie in Christie’s during the opening of Allen Ginsberg’s estate sale, and John Ashbery read a poem. It was like a poetry reading. And Allen’s older brother was there and I was talking to him. The cool thing about Allen and me is that his family was very accepting of me. So Eugene, his brother, said, “I feel like I’m at a garage sale right now”. It seemed like a garage sale, but it was at Christie’s. It was very weird. So anyway, I was talking to Laurie about how weird it was and how I just saw a T-shirt that actually was mine. I would do Allen’s laundry and our laundry would be mixed, and I just never took it. And there it was, behind glass. You could bid on it. And I’m like, “Oh, well, I guess I’m not getting that back”. I think I was telling Laurie, there’s my T-shirt, and Lou comes up and goes, “Yo, do you have a cigarette?” And I said, “I don’t smoke.” and he says, “What good are you?”. So that’s the last thing he ever said to me. “What good are you?” He never liked me from the beginning. Consistent, I must say.

The first time that he ever interacted with me was when Laurie was performing with Philip Glass and Allen. Lou sat next to me the whole night and didn’t talk to me, which is fine. We were watching the show. And then at the end I was starving. But Allen kept saying “There’s going to be a dinner afterwards, so save your appetite”. So we’re standing, getting a cab, and Lou’s standing there off to the side and they’re talking. So Allen comes to me, he’s like, “Here, take my harmonium in my bag. There’s miso soup and brown rice in the icebox.” Hello? What about dinner? He said “I’m giving Lou your ticket”. I’m like, okay. I said goodbye to Allen, we kissed. And then I went to say bye to Lou, and he just turned. And I was like, “Motherfucker, I worship you”. I learned how to play guitar by listening to Bob Dylan, and then I learned how to rock out by listening to Lou Reed. Lou was a dick, and I have friends of mine, some of them no longer with us who adored him. There must have been some good in him. I just didn’t happen to ever see it personally.

AK: That was a great story, mostly because I’m interested in knowing what Allen Ginsberg used to eat.

David Aaron Greenberg: Okay, so, this is how I know that Allen cared about me. He left a note– when I was out– that said, “There’s miso soup on the stove without seaweed”, because he knew I hated seaweed. He loved seaweed and I hated seaweed. He made it without, with me in mind. That’s an act of love.

AK: That is an act of love. Food is really a manifestation of love.

David Aaron Greenberg: Right? He underlined “without seaweed”.

AK: Looking at your work, I would guess that the body and the likeness of the body is not the objective. You have such an expressive style, I imagine that you’re trying to get some kind of essence or energy from them

David Aaron Greenberg: You said it better than I do. You just nailed me right there. Yeah. Exactly.

AK: So what are you working on lately?

David Aaron Greenberg

NP

2023

Featured in Eroica Variations

David Aaron Greenberg: Recently I’m working on an interesting– conceptually, it’s interesting because it’s a portrait of Fulano Librizzi, and I’ve been drawing or painting Fulano Librizzi since he was a sonogram. I think the first portrait I did, I couldn’t really get to him until he was maybe four. And even then, he was highly suspect of me at age four. He had good instincts, he knew to keep his distance from me at four. I couldn’t handle him at four. I had to wait. When he was around eight, I think I got a good likeness of him. So, I’m working on a portrait of him called Fulano and Fam, with his mother and father behind him. But that’s taken me forever and ever. Because first of all, he keeps changing, he keeps getting taller. And it’s impossible to keep up with him at this point. I think I have to wait till the last growth spurt. He’ll be 20. Will you please stop growing and changing? So, it’s a conceptual thing.

AK: And you’re featured in The Trops exhibition, Eroica Variations. You have three or four paintings in the show?

David Aaron Greenberg: There’s four because there’s one in the bathroom. Everyone forgets the bathroom painting. The bathroom works really well. I would prefer if someone bought it, that they put it in the bathroom.

Continue to Part 3

Part 3

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 2) Read More »

Interview

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 1)

Interview /

The artist’s studio

Photo courtesy of David Aaron Greenberg

David Aaron Greenberg is an artist who uses multiple modes of expression. ​His work has been exhibited in various New York City galleries and is in the permanent collection at Stanford University.​ His critical writing has appeared in Parkett, The Fader, Art in America and Whitehot Magazine. ​Along with producer David Sisko, he co-founded Disco Pusher, a New York City songwriting and recording duo. Greenberg graduated from Rutgers University, Phi Beta Kappa. He lives in New Jersey and sometimes New York City.

In part 1 of their 3 part interview, Alexandra Kosloski and David Aaron Greenberg discuss his early approach to painting and his love for poetry.

David Aaron Greenberg: In the last three years, I’ve kept my guitar out of my studio. That was a big, important thing for me to do, to not have the guitar in the painting studio.

AK: Why?

David Aaron Greenberg: I finally found that it wasn’t appropriate. There’s no place for the guitar in there, just like there’s no place for an easel in the recording studio. I needed to do that in order to keep my head together because I’m not 25 anymore and living at the Chelsea Hotel. I’ve got to separate things. Keeps the mental craziness in my head in check. Do you mind if I draw you while we do this?

AK: I don’t mind.

David Aaron Greenberg: It’s easier for me.

AK: So you’re an interdisciplinary artist including painting, music, writing… Anything else?.

David Aaron Greenberg: “Include.” No, I just do them. I include everybody. All inclusive. I’m not exclusive. I cheat on myself. I’m in an open relationship with myself.

AK: But do they overlap at all? Do they inspire each other?

David Aaron Greenberg: I have a moleskine matte black sketchbook without lines. It’s like the most basic, nondescript moleskin notebook that you can have and within that is everything. I’ve got stacks of them from the years. If I want to make a drawing into a painting, I pull out the drawings, stick it on the wall next to the painting and go, “Okay, what else do I do?”. Music– if I need some lyrics, I steal from my poems. I steal all the best lines from the poems and put them in. I steal from myself and throw them into songs.

David Aaron Greenberg during the interview

AK: So you have this sketchbook which is basically a physical manifestation of all your inspiration.

David Aaron Greenberg: Yeah, but at the same time it’s like a shorthand to explain what I do. I mean, there’s other stuff I do, like I write essays and I write art criticism. So I just live my life. I don’t really know what I’m doing day to day, but it’s nice to have an excuse to pretend that I’m a normal person. So I try to keep studio hours Monday through Friday 1 to 4. Those are my office hours like I’m a psychiatrist. I might get there before one, and that’s a good day. I might get there after one, and it’s like I’m rushing around. I might not get there at all. But that’s the painting, you know? It took me my whole life to take myself seriously as a painter. I never did, unfortunately. Or not unfortunately, it was what it was.

AK: How did you first approach painting?

David Aaron Greenberg: I think I became a self-aware artist when I was 17 because I had been to Israel for the whole summer– 1988. And I had taken pictures, like you do as a tourist, and a Jew, and you’re in Israel. I didn’t take any pictures of people. I was not interested in people. I was interested in myself and my girlfriend who broke up with me the day before we were supposed to leave. And I had to be on the trip with her the whole time. So there’s misery for you. Yeah. And I had to watch her screw some guy and rub it in my face the whole time. Ah, the eighties. To be young and in a John Hughes film that didn’t exist.

So, the thing that made me aware was I don’t think I drew a picture when I was in Israel. I had a journal that I kept, and I was writing lyrics and diary entries and poems. When I got back from Israel, I had all these pictures and I did these giant watercolors. And then I was like, “Oh, I get it”. You come back to your studio with the source material. But I was still so much more interested in being a poet or a rock star. Then I was like, “Fuck it”. I loved painting but I would always do it in spurts. Like, I’d do a year’s worth of paintings in a weekend. But it took me my whole life to realize that I was painting those paintings in my mind and when I was taking photos as reference, and then I had to digest it. It took me a long time to realize that.

And I was around a lot of painters, and saw their practice, and I knew these things intellectually that, God, it’s just like a day to day job. You got to wake up, paint until you’re done, and then you go home. Yeah. Like a job. I was just holding on to this romantic notion that it was this inspired moment of creation and not, as de Kooning said, 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Yeah, which it is, pretty much. That 10% inspiration is what you work so hard to get. I wrote in a song, “Why do I work so hard to play?” Because you do. You work so hard just to be able to play. And then the worst is when you get there and everything’s great; the studio’s all ready to go, I have an hour, two, three hours to just paint. I even turn the music off. And then nothing happens. And then you feel horrible.

Installation shot of David Aaron Greenberg’s work at Eroica Variations

AK: What do you mean “nothing happens”?

David Aaron Greenberg: Literally, nothing happens. No inspiration, no nothing. I got nothing. That’s the worst, because it’s like, “Well, now what?” That’s why I like to have at least, like, three big ones and, like, twenty little ones going on all at the same time because at least then I have something to do. Because then it’s not that moment of like, “Here’s a blank canvas– start.”

AK: It’s hard sometimes.

David Aaron Greenberg: It’s not that it’s hard. It’s just that sometimes you’re paralyzed, and that’s why accidents are great. Like, literally, “Oh, shit. I dropped some paint on this. Well, that’s awesome. So let’s continue”. And that’s how I start all my paintings. This art dealer John Cheim told me at some point– just buy pre-stretched canvas that was already primed, stop with the raw canvas, enough already. And it freed me. Because he wasn’t an artist. He tried to be an artist and became an art dealer, you know, so a failed painter or whatever. He just said he realized that there was enough shit in the world that was better than his shit. So he’d much rather help people that were making good stuff, instead of making mediocre stuff. I don’t think that way. Maybe I’m just full of myself. I kind of have this theory that a painter, when they stand in front of a blank canvas, they have the history of the world and everything that came before, behind them. And it’s like, let’s dive into the abyss, because I know everything there is to know, because there’s not that much to know. You can just pick what you need to know. Etruscans, Middle Kingdom, Old Kingdom, line drawings, Coptic vases. Like, what are we going to do today?

AK: But that’s assuming that you have exposure to all that.

David Aaron Greenberg: Art history? Well, that’s the first step. Most artists don’t know their art history from anything. But that’s probably why I don’t know what I am. I’m an artist, a poet, singer, songwriter, visual artist, essayist. I mean, there’s so many labels. In the Renaissance they just said, “You’re an artist”, and you were expected to do all that other stuff. Yeah, Michelangelo wrote poems. Leonardo made scientific drawings and did dissections and no one said, “don’t do that”. It’s very American to say, stay in your lane.

AK: There’s more incentive to become a specialized artist and it’s the more popular method. So what motivates you to remain interdisciplinary? But I get the feeling you don’t like the word interdisciplinary.

David Aaron Greenberg: No, it’s fine. I didn’t want to use the word interdisciplinary because I find it unbearably hard to pronounce. I said that I use various modes of… Yeah, interdisciplinary. It sounds so formal and antiseptic.

AK: So why do you stay that way?

David Aaron Greenberg: Because as much as I try to just do one thing, I can’t help myself. I used to say for a long time, “Hi, I’m David Aaron Greenberg. I’m a recovering poet. It’s been 48 hours since my last poem.” I’ve tried to stop writing poems. I didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to be a poet. I kind of felt like I was obliged to be a poet by Allen Ginsberg who insisted upon it.

AK: Could you explain his influence on you?

David Aaron Greenberg

Photo by Allen Ginsberg

Collection of National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

David Aaron Greenberg: Around 1987, I really found that I was like… I don’t want to say influenced. Inspired. I was profoundly connected to Walt Whitman. It was beyond just liking his poem or reading his poems. I felt connected to him in some way, and that brought up feelings of myself, my identity, my sexuality, my very existence, my everything, the universe, the cosmos. As he would say, “Do I contradict myself? Very well. I am vast, I contain multitudes”. And so anything that had to do with Walt Whitman, I was interested. So PBS had a Walt Whitman documentary. And in the documentary, there was Allen Ginsberg, poet, and the name sounded vaguely familiar. And he’s talking about what? Walt Whitman. And he seems to really be connected to him, too. Like, “Oh, wow, I’m not the only crazy who thinks that they know Walt Whitman”. And so I’m like, “Who’s this Allen Ginsberg dude?”. So I went to the library in East Brunswick, New Jersey, and I said, okay, Ginsberg poetry. And I took out whatever I could find. I opened it up and then I felt paranoid. So I went to the lake outside past the parking lot and I started reading them and it felt subversive. I shouldn’t be reading this like, is this illegal? I was hiding the book. I read a couple of short poems and I had this kind of deja vu into the future. Does that make sense?

AK: Like a premonition?

David Aaron Greenberg: Yeah, but how could you feel something that hadn’t happened? It was almost like it had already happened and I was going to relive it. And what I had was a visual of an old man in front of me, and me, carrying plastic bags from the grocery going up a staircase and helping him get up to the staircase. And then I felt this enormous sharp pain and heaviness on my chest, almost like heartache. And it wouldn’t go away. It didn’t leave me for days and then those days turned into years. And then about two and a half years later, I saw him read at the Continental Divide. He was singing Songs of Innocence and Experience that he had set to music. And then he read some poems. I don’t remember what the poems were, but he was singing. “Singing” really is an interesting thing to call it, but he was trying to sing and he had a guitar player with him. He was okay. And then I talked to him very briefly. He signed my copy of Howl. I sensed that there was something going on between the two of us. That was December, 1989. By December, 1990 I was on that same stage and I was playing guitar with him. And I gave him poems, and he read them and made corrections or suggestions. And then it was like I was writing poems to please him in a weird way. When I met the poet Gregory Corso, who I also admired, he pulled me aside and said, “Don’t let that man fuck with your poetry”.

AK: Why? Because you wanted to impress him?

David Aaron Greenberg: Like, when you have a professor or a teacher that you really like and you want to do well, not just for yourself, but because they taught you, so you want to show them that you learned. It’s a weird thing. I don’t know. I think it’s just a human thing. The Buddhists would say that the students should surpass the master. Therefore, if the student doesn’t surpass the master, the master is no good. But I still wanted to paint all that time. But I wasn’t in art school. I didn’t go to art school. I had art lessons at Rutgers when I was a little, little kid. I did this special program.

AK: They still do that.

David Aaron Greenberg: Oh, really? And I learned how to do everything. And then when I was in elementary school, I had this teacher, Mrs. Jochnowitz, who just passed away this year. And she would take like two or three students that she thought were the prize, but she ignored everybody else. And then she would have us come in during recess like two or three times in the week. But what we did was learn batik and papier maché and oil sticks, and she just taught us everything. So it’s like why should I go to art school when I already knew how to do all this stuff? I wanted to study literature and art history. I think studying art history is much better. You can’t teach somebody to be an artist. You can’t teach somebody to be a writer. You either are or you aren’t. You can show them great examples, and that’s about it. Now, I regret that I didn’t go to art school because there’s shit that I have to call my young friends like, “How do I do this? Can I mix the linseed?” You know, like, I don’t know certain things that people learn in their first year.

AK: You know, there’s a hotline for painting where you can call a chemist.

David Aaron Greenberg: That just proves my point, that I probably should have went to art school. I have a studio that’s like a spitting distance from Rutgers campus. And you’re a Mason Gross grad, right? So, yeah, I just need Mason Gross grads around me telling me what to do.

AK: They taught us well.

David Aaron Greenberg: It’s a good art school. 

Continue to Part 2

Part 2

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 1) Read More »

Interview

An Interview with Barron Claiborne (Part 2)

Interview /

Barron Claiborne

Born and raised in Boston, Barron Claiborne moved to New York City in 1989 assisting photography legends such as Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, and Gordon Parks. Nathalie Martin spoke with Barron about what informs his practice, the limits and reaches of photography, and the importance of constantly creating. Claiborne reflects on self-taught mastery and how his extremely honest, critical, yet sensitive eye has landed him in permanent collections all over the world, including the Polaroid Museum Cambridge, the Brooklyn Museum, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and MoCADA.

Continued from Part 1

Part 1

NM: You use the word “commercial.” Is there a fixed line, for you, between “commercial” and “fine art?” Do you consider everything you make “art”?

 

Barron Claiborne: No. Because when you’re doing jobs for other people, sometimes there are parameters that you’re not interested in. You do it for the money. If you want to pay me $40,000 bucks to shoot a soup can– when I was broke, I’d do it. Why wouldn’t I? It’d be stupid. And it’s the easiest shit. The stuff that pays the most is the easiest. Because it’s all set, you know.

 

NM: So there is a difference. You do categorize your work. 

Barron Claiborne: Oh, yeah. Because you’re working with directors, producers, all these other people, it’s more of a collaborative effort. When I take photos on my own, there is no collaboration other than with the model. Other than that, I have complete control, which is what I like.

 

NM: Totally. So how has your work, process or practice evolved? You know, as you’ve gotten more money, and been able to be more selective with your decisions.

 

Barron Claiborne: You gather stuff. I have a huge archive. But I still love photography. I don’t take pictures every day now. I kind of do the things I want to do. Because you’re also aware that you have an archive that’s going to be there when you’re dead.

 

NM: Yeah, totally. I feel like the more you have behind you, the more your life just becomes your practice, in a way. Or the more your practice becomes your life?

 

Barron Claiborne: Right, yeah. That’s like me making products. I like making products because I have this huge archive, right? I might as well– and the technology allows you to do all this crazy shit, which is really cool. I have a huge archive so I can pretty much do anything.

 

NM: And you were saying you work in cycles, or things happen in waves.

 

Barron Claiborne: Oh, definitely. Like a while ago during the pandemic, I made a moon, and then I just got all my friends to come and take pictures of them on the moon. Shit like that. I just do shit like that. Little projects– sometimes the project lasts three years, seven years, ten years. Some individuals I’ve been shooting for 20 years.

 

NM: What keeps you working? You mentioned it was just this natural, internal drive.

 

Barron Claiborne: I love people. I think it’s because I love people and I see them, and it’s amazing that everybody looks different. There are billions of people who don’t look alike. It’s fucking weird.

NM: I remember being younger and thinking it’s so crazy we have all the same parts– eyes, ears, noses, whatever– and freaking out about how we all have the same things on our faces but look completely different.

 

Barron Claiborne: I know, it’s amazing. I always wonder why we all look the way we do.

Barron Claiborne, Njuhi as White Powder Ma with Rose, 2007

NM: Do you think there are limits to photography?

 

Barron Claiborne: Ah, of course. People always say photography reveals things, but it also hides things. You can hide a lot in a photo. Also, interpretation. You just see something– you don’t really know what’s happening in the photo. Sometimes you do, but not always. And photos are used to fool people, just like cinematography is used to fool people. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s true.

 

NM: Totally. I also think with photography– even more so than painting or sculpture or anything– you have to be so selective. So intentional with what you’re choosing to show.

 

Barron Claiborne: Yes, exactly. But also, it’s not what’s in it. The thing I like about photography– it’s like three different levels of symbolism. You have the symbolism you can put in it, you also have the symbolism of the art itself– of photography itself– and then you can manipulate it any way you want. You can take pictures to manipulate people. You can take pictures to show people the truth. Just up to the individual.

 

NM: Do you ever want to get into other mediums? Have you ever thought, “Oh, maybe painting or something else will do it for me right now, I should switch over?”

Barron Claiborne: No, no. Sometimes I’ll make my photos into other things. Like now, what a lot of people do, they’re not really making paintings. They’re just making large Photoshop.

 

NM: Right, this “painting without paint” idea.

 

Barron Claiborne: Exactly, you take a photo, right, then you put you in a program, you turn it into a painting, and then you put it on a canvas. And then people think you paint. But it’s the same as a photo.

 

NM: That’s happening a lot right now. I think that’s interesting, the lines between photography and painting being blurred.

 

Barron Claiborne: Oh, definitely! I mean Warhol made silkscreens. Well, it’s for lazy people.

 

NM: Well…

 

Barron Claiborne: Well, see, if you know photography, that’s one thing, but some people just use it for their other medium. Then I don’t really think of you as a photographer, because no one’s seeing your photography. They’re seeing the painting you made from the photography.

 

NM: That’s kind of cool, using one medium to make another.

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, but it’s lazy.

 

NM: I don’t think that comes from laziness.

 

Barron Claiborne: Make a painting. Don’t call yourself a painter.

 

NM: I agree with that, definitely. But also, don’t call yourself a photographer, you’re saying. So what are they? Nothing? Medium-defiers?

 

Barron Claiborne: They’re artists, but it’s just… it makes it easier. A lot of modern art is collages. Because it’s easy. You’re just cutting out other people’s work and then you put it together, but you’re skipping a crucial part. You’re not really creating it. I would rather create everything in the photo.

 

NM: But then found objects, readymades… are not art to you.

 

Barron Claiborne: It’s lazy, that’s not art, it’s bullshit.

 

NM: So what is art?

 

Barron Claiborne: Artists painting, sculpting– 

 

NM: So only plastic arts? Where does it come from, though?

 

Barron Claiborne: I think the person should do it. A lot of art is made by craftsmen. The artist doesn’t make it, doesn’t sculpt it, he just commissions it. Like you’re an art director.

 

NM: Yeah, artists with lots of money, commercial artists. Which is only a handful.

 

Barron Claiborne: Right, but it’s still a lot. Why should the biggest artists who don’t make their own shit get credit? Should the craftsmen get credit?

 

NM: Of course, or the 400 assistants that they have in their studio.

 

Barron Claiborne: Exactly, the people actually painting the paintings. My friend used to paint paintings for Damien Hirst. They do the whole paintings.

Barron Claiborne, Old Orleans (After the Deluge), 2007

NM: Maybe art’s not about the individual, it’s about the idea being reified.

 

Barron Claiborne: It’s about everything. I’m not saying art should be anything, it’s whatever it is. All I’m saying, I care a little bit more if you painted the painting, rather than hiring someone else to paint the painting. That’s what’s happening. Artists that aren’t making their own work. It’s not like that didn’t exist. Vermeer and all those guys had 20 interns, just like people do now. When you look at most of the old paintings, tons of them, everybody’s left-handed, because they use the fucking camera obscura to trace. The animals or the monkeys in the painting are left-handed. But they’ll still deny that they used a camera obscura. But most people aren’t left-handed. How the fuck is everybody left-handed in a bunch of paintings?

 

NM: Durer made those engravings showing the camera obscura. Some artists acknowledged it.

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, of course. In art school, I mean. Everybody creates their own mythology. So, you know, you look at somebody like Gaugin’s paintings… but his life was fucking miserable as fuck, dude.

NM: He was fucked up.

 

Barron Claiborne: He was fucked up. Spreading diseases and shit.

 

NM: Child brides and all that. 

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, they didn’t like him. He was hated by the French. And after a while, he was hated by the native people also, because, well, he was giving everybody syphilis, but also because he was poor and a crazy dude. It’s crazy. He had a fucking miserable life. Everybody hated him. Yeah, well, the French hated them because he hung out with the native people, and then the native people started hating him when he was spreading fucking venereal disease everywhere. He was ill all the time, he didn’t have food, like it was fucking crazy.

 

NM: We’ve been talking about painters. What’s the job of the photographer?

 

Barron Claiborne: To get the best image possible.

 

NM: Okay, I like that. Is that an objective thing?

 

Barron Claiborne: No, subjective. Each person, subjective to each artist.

 

NM: When you approach your work, when you’re taking a photo, what has to happen for you to be satisfied?

 

Barron Claiborne: I usually want it to be beautiful. Whatever that is to me, that’s the thing. I always want my photos to look timeless, so you don’t know when they were taken.

 

NM: Your photos do look timeless.

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, because I really like history. I like the fact that you can’t tell – 

 

NM: It could exist in any time.

 

Barron Claiborne: Right. It could be modern, old.

 

NM: Places, too. Any time or place.

 

Barron Claiborne: Exactly. I like those things, but I really like beauty. More than anything.

 

NM: Me too. I love that you said this, because artists never say this, or are just not being honest. It first needs to be beautiful! I must want to go up to it, right? That’s my first criteria for looking at work.

 

Barron Claiborne: Right, right. It’s not for all artists.

 

NM: No, but I love that answer. I think that’s genuinely the most important thing. And it’s not superficial. There’s a science to it, I think.

 

Barron Claiborne: Oh, sure!

 

NM: Like I think beauty is kind of, maybe, objective.

 

Barron Claiborne: I think if you make a system, you know, you make or do certain things all the time, you can expect certain results. There’s a science to it. And it’s on every level. If there’s a bunch of gardeners and my garden is far more beautiful than theirs, then I’m the master, and they’re the students. It’s on every level. There are scientists doing physics experiments, and there are basketball players that are literally using physics to play basketball. But people don’t think of that. They’re experts on physics, but you just don’t think of it.

 

NM: Yes, but beauty specifically. It’s literally a science. Color theory, for example. These two colors work or don’t work because it’s a science, not because someone decided blue and orange are randomly complementary.

 

Barron Claiborne: Definitely. But then there’s some cultures that will go the opposite.

 

NM: What do you mean?

 

Barron Claiborne: In some cultures, red is a very good color, but then in other cultures they avoid using red at all. You always have both sides. So is it a science?

 

NM: Yeah, if you take out the idea of good and bad, etc. Purple and yellow will always be complementary.

 

Barron Claiborne: Sure, yeah. But it’s so funny that different colors, depending on what culture you come from, mean completely different things.

NM: Absolutely. I was reading this Nabokov interview and he talks about how he sees letters in colors.

 

Barron Claiborne: Oh yeah, that’s a thing, what’s it called? Synesthesia, some shit like that?

 

NM: Yes. He said, “N is obviously yellow, and H is obviously green,” stuff like that.

 

Barron Claiborne: Well, just like colorblind people. So now they have these glasses that can correct your color blindness, so people buy them as gifts for colorblind people. You should see the reaction. You know, colorblind people see green as red, shit like that. That’s why they use them in war to spot tanks and shit. Because they don’t see green as green. They see different things so they can spot things that a normal person can’t see. They use them in planes to see enemy tanks and shit. But the thing is, some people smell colors, some people see colors, some people see them as numbers. There are all kinds of weird synesthesia shit. I’ve read a book on that shit. It’s so fucking weird. Some people see letters as colors.

 

NM: Yeah, sounds, even.

 

Barron Claiborne: Everything. There are all different kinds of it.

 

NM: You said growing up, you didn’t really care about credit, or your name being attached to your work.

 

Barron Claiborne: I mean, some of the greatest art in the world, nobody knows who made it. Nobody has any idea. They didn’t sign it. But no, I mean, you care a little bit. Everybody has an ego. When people are telling me they like my photos, of course I like to hear it.

 

NM: I think to be an artist you need a certain amount of ego. You feel you have something to say, to show.

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, I think so. I mean, you’re making something. The natural thing would be because you want people to see it. Just because people deny it doesn’t mean it’s not true. Because people often say stuff like that, that they don’t care, but you kind of have to. But everybody has a shtick. It doesn’t matter how serious the person is, everyone has their shtick. A lot of artists are just con artists, really.

 

NM: Artists are lying to you and saying it’s the truth.

 

Barron Claiborne: Mm-hmm. That’s right. But you need artists because everybody is kind of one. I’m always shocked at how much photos mean to people when they come up and tell me. It freaks me out when people come and tell me they cry, when they come in and buy a Biggie print from me. They cry and shit like that, I’m like, what the fuck? At first, I used to think it was weird, and now I’m like, well, if it means that much to the person, it must mean something.

NM: Were you just going to say you think everyone’s an artist? Because I don’t.

 

Barron Claiborne: No, I don’t think that. I think you’re an artist at something. I don’t know about everyone.

 

NM: I think there’s a difference between artists and like, “makers,” for lack of a better word. There are people who make things, and there are artists.  

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, but I think those people are also artists. If a guy is a gardener, right, and he makes it look beautiful, he’s an artist. He’s an artist at that.

 

NM: Oh, totally. That’s an artist. Someone who wakes up every day and does that, that’s their practice. Maybe I just mean there’s a difference between “making art,” and being an artist.

 

Barron Claiborne: Right, right. Well, I think everyone has it in them.

 

NM: Yeah… maybe. Maybe they don’t.

 

Barron Claiborne: Well yeah, some people probably don’t. There are some people probably who fucking hate art. You meet people who hate music. I’ve met people who don’t have any music in their house, they don’t have a stereo. I’ve been in houses where people are making millions of dollars. And there’s no stereo, there’s no music in their house anywhere.

 

NM: It’s insane. People also don’t have books. The biggest red flag.

 

Barron Claiborne: Oh, tons of people don’t have books. Or when people have a TV in every single room, including the bathrooms and the kitchen. I was in this guy’s house; he had a television in every single room. And in the garage. In the bathroom. He even had a TV in his kitchen closet that he could pull out and watch in the kitchen. It was fucking weird. And his house was huge. There was a television in every single room. It was fucking weird. I was like, “Wow, dude, you watch TV a lot.”

 

NM: Were your parents strict with TV?

 

Barron Claiborne: Dude, I didn’t give a fuck about TV. I was a kid. We were outside playing football and all kinds of stuff, doing shit that we were supposed to do, running around Boston. The only TV I would watch would be if I woke up on Saturday morning and watched cartoons or like sporting events, the Superbowl and shit like that. Other than that, I don’t give a fuck about TV. We never sat down and watched TV like that. And Americans, when I was a kid, the TV obsession didn’t exist. Americans watched TV, but not like they do now. I mean, it’s insane. But, yeah, give me a break. Americans never even talked about celebrities. I never heard my mother ever say anything about a fucking celebrity in my entire life. You know, they never talked about it. They like the music and shit like that, but they never talked about it. Like they listen to Stevie Wonder. Nobody gave a fuck about what Stevie Wonder was wearing or doing. Nobody cared.

 

NM: Well, I feel like culture has shifted from exclusivity and “you wish you could be like us”–

 

Barron Claiborne: To no one is special.

 

NM: Yes, no one is special, but even “buy this and you can be like me.”

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah. No one’s special. So now you have to act like beauty doesn’t exist. No woman is prettier than the other, they’re all tens… it’s fucking insanity. Basically. You still have value, but everybody’s not physically beautiful. I mean, so what! Everybody’s not smart. Everybody doesn’t care about their clothing. Everybody doesn’t– it’s not like that. It doesn’t matter. Because everybody has their own thing. Do your thing and let other people do theirs, unless they’re trying to stop you from doing yours. If they’re not harming you, I don’t give a fuck what you do. You want to have sex with goats? Just don’t fuck my goat.

 

NM: I guess that’s one way to put it.

 

Barron Claiborne: You know, fuck your own goat! There are things people do all the time that I don’t like. But who am I to judge other people?

 

NM: I think that’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned… that once you start to judge, it means you don’t understand. You’ve lost the ability to really think about something.

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, I agree. I think the worst thing is to judge people. I think now, the way things are, it’s like people believe that constantly judging is performing a public service or some shit. They act like they’re spiritual, but then all you’re doing is constantly talking about how you’re better than the other people. What the fuck is that shit? And that’s what a lot of it is. This “justified” criticism. But then as soon as somebody criticizes you, you lose your fucking mind and call them all kinds of names. But you’re doing the exact same thing. And you think your cause is just.

 

NM: It’s funny too because all the criticism isn’t actual criticism. It’s all judgements, like we were saying. I think we could use young art critics. There’s a serious lack of them. You know, people who are thinking. But now we just have everyone spewing out bullshit.

 

Barron Claiborne: Social media, too. It’s brown nosing. You’re just saying whatever. Whatever everyone else is going along with. 

Continue to Part 3

Part 3

An Interview with Barron Claiborne (Part 2) Read More »

Interview

An Interview with Barron Claiborne (Part 1)

Interview /

Barron Claiborne

Yasiin Bey with Turban

2009

Born and raised in Boston, Barron Claiborne moved to New York City in 1989 assisting photography legends such as Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, and Gordon Parks. Nathalie Martin spoke with Barron about what informs his practice, the limits and reaches of photography, and the importance of constantly creating. Claiborne reflects on self-taught mastery and how his extremely honest, critical, yet sensitive eye has landed him in permanent collections all over the world, including the Polaroid Museum Cambridge, the Brooklyn Museum, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and MoCADA.

NM: How did you get started in photography? 

 

Barron Claiborne: My mom found a camera in the bank and gave it to me when I was a kid. 

 

NM: Really? In the bank?

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah.

 

NM: Where your mom worked?

 

Barron Claiborne: No, my mom was a nurse. She was in the bank one day and she found it. 

 

NM: And she just handed it to you saying, “You would be into this, here you go?”

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, well, she just gave it to me as something to do. When I was 10, she was like, “Here, take this,” and gave it to me, and I started reading books about photography and shit like that.

 

NM: So, you were first exposed through your parents? Or through school?

 

Barron Claiborne: My mom. Then I went to school and I learned more. There was a darkroom in my high school, it was old, and no one used it. Me and another kid rebuilt it and started using it. We would take pictures and they put them in the yearbook. Then I would take pictures of myself and my friends. I always did studio pictures – I didn’t really shoot outside tons or anything. It was always people.

 

NM: Studios and sets?

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, I like taking pictures of people and messing with sets. 

 

NM: You were immediately drawn to portrait photography?

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, totally. Because you have people constantly around, it’s the easiest shit to pull off.

 

NM: Totally. And it was just capturing moments with your friends?

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, but less spontaneous, most of it was set-up. I would do shit like – I used to do this thing where I would set up a little tripod and a trampoline, and I would have my friends jump over the camera and take their pictures when they were landing upside down. I used to do dumb shit like that. All kinds of stuff. 

 

NM: When you were practicing in high school, redoing dark rooms or whatever else – do you immediately know you wanted to take it seriously and go to art school?

 

Barron Claiborne: I was going to art school anyway. I didn’t really do much photography in art school, because by the time I got there I had already been taking pictures for around eight years. So a lot of the stuff they teach you those first years, I already knew it, and I really didn’t want to go over that shit again – like dark rooms and shit like that. I didn’t want to at all.

 

NM: Did you start experimenting with different mediums?

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, definitely. I used all kinds of shit. I would make shit out of everything. I used to do collages. I just like doing visual things. But then I was working at restaurants and doing other shit and then one day I was like, “I should just do photography, fuck it.” You know, then everyone cautions you against being an artist, saying shit like, “You got to get a job, you got to have a backup.” Or like, “You should join the military,” or “They have really good jobs in the post office.” I was looking at them like, you’re crazy!

 

NM: “Yeah, work for the government!”

Barron Claiborne: Right, work for the government. Because they assume the government will always be there, so you’ll always have a job. But I never wanted to do shit like that.

 

NM: I remember getting told this when I was younger. 

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, or they try to get you in the military. My family has a lot of people in the military. I was not going into the fucking military. Even my uncles who were in it, they were like, “Do not go into the military.” Because they knew I’d end up in jail. They were like, “Oh you’d get court-martialed.” Easily.

NM: Did you think experiential learning– especially as a photographer– and just taking photos every day was more beneficial to your practice and you as an artist than school was?

Barron Claiborne: Oh yeah, of course. I’d already been doing that. And also, I didn’t like working for other people. I always knew I couldn’t. Even when I was a kid. I used to have jobs. I’ve been working since I was like 10. I used to mow lawns, deliver paper, all that kind of shit. But I realized I could never work with anybody.

Barron Claiborne

Domino

1992

NM: So it was born out of like –

 

Barron Claiborne: It was just born. 

 

NM: Out of necessity? Or internally, it was always there?

 

Barron Claiborne: It’s just me. It’s just the way I am. I don’t know where it comes from. I never liked any authority, even when I was a little kid. Always. It just seemed weird to me. 

 

NM: Maybe that’s why your mom handed you the camera. She knew. She was like, “Here you go, play with this.”

Barron Claiborne: She knew, yes! It’s a weird story, right? Literally got my living from my mother. Literally. I think about that. I think it’s funny. 

 

NM: So as you started to learn about photography and the history of art, who were your main influences?

 

Barron Claiborne: I always loved Richard Avedon, Gordon Parks, Irving Penn. 

 

NM: Who were your mentors, as well. 

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, I got to meet them, was the great thing. There’s a Mexican photographer, Manuel Alvarez Bravo. I really love his photos. I used photos in medical dictionaries, other weird shit, photos of flowers. My favorite book is the book of photos from all over the world, and the book is called Anonymous, because they don’t know who took the photos. Only a couple of them they know, but the rest of them, no one knows who took them. And the photos were beautiful. When I was a kid I would always be like, “Oh, I’d love to have my photos in a book and no one knows they’re mine.” 

 

NM: So it wasn’t “I want everyone to know my name.” 

 

Barron Claiborne: No, I don’t care about that. I didn’t really like – I was getting sort-of well-known, and I don’t like it that much. I don’t like when people call me by my first and last name and stuff like that. I don’t like it at all.

 

NM: Right. You as a brand, rather than a person.

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, exactly. It made me feel uncomfortable. That’s why I stopped taking pictures of celebrities, and I kind of stopped doing music videos and stuff like that. It just bored me. Because I want to do my own thing. I don’t really care about doing other people’s thing.

 

NM: That’s interesting, because of all the collaborative work you’ve done. 

 

Barron Claiborne: Lately, I’ve been concentrating on collaborative work. 

 

NM: But I mean in the past, even for publications, music videos, album covers – was that a different process for you?

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, I still try to get the same feeling as my personal work. I don’t differentiate my personal work.

 

NM: The process stays the same?

 

Barron Claiborne: I do the best I can in a commercial setting. Because you can’t do the same work, it’s different. But those aren’t the photos that I like. I like the photos I do on my own because I’ve been taking pictures since I was 10. I have a lot of pictures. There were times I took pictures every day, all day for 10 years. Whether I was working or not. And I was using large format, so I don’t have as many pictures as when people use 35 mm. But I have a huge archive from all over the place. And I’ve used all kinds of cameras– toy cameras, plastic cameras, 8 x 10, 4 x 5, underwater ones– everything, everything. I like all of them. 

Barron Claiborne

Notorious B.I.G as The King of New York

1997

NM: When you were doing collaborative work or working with musicians, did you just find yourself in those spaces? Was it for money?

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, I was really poor. Of course, when you’re first starting you get a bunch of rejection, but then you finally get a job, and it never paid a lot, but I was broke so 300 bucks was great. Then you get more and more. Then you realize magazine work only gets you more work, it’s sort of like advertising for you, it gets people to know your name. Then I realized, for a long time, because no one had seen me and all they would see is my name, they all thought I was an old white dude, which I thought was kind of funny. I remember once I went to Paris to work, and dude, they couldn’t find me in the airport until I was like, “By the way, I’m a black dude.” Then they found me. Because they were looking for some old white guy! They were like, “It’s because your photos seem so old.” Back then, I was using the 8 x 10 and most of the stuff was large format polaroid and shit like that. So I never even thought of that. But my name is pretty waspy, I guess.

 

NM: But then they meet you, and it makes total sense.

 

Barron Claiborne: Oh yeah, I’m super waspy. I’m a waspafarian.

 

NM: You mentioned Avedon, Gordon Parks and Irving Penn. Those are big names. How did you come into company with them?

 

Barron Claiborne: Well, I just saw books as a kid, and then when I moved to New York, I assisted for a while, so I got to assist them. But I met Richard Avedon in Boston.

 

NM: How old were you when you came to New York?

 

Barron Claiborne: I was 21, 22.

 

NM: From Boston straight to New York?

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah. I met Richard Avedon in Boston, at his exhibit, because I worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art. He had that “Out West” show there. I actually got to meet him and talk to him. They were hanging the show, he came, it was pretty cool. And then when I moved to New York, I assisted wherever I could. That’s how I met other ones, like Irving Penn.

 

NM: You just hit up Avedon asking if you could work for him?

 

Barron Claiborne: Yeah, right when I moved here, you fill out the application, they have you come in. Sometimes you would replace guys you knew who were assistants when they couldn’t work. And two of my friends worked for Irving Penn. I substituted for both. 

 

NM: Friends from Boston?

 

Barron Claiborne: No, actually, New York photographers that I met early on. Yeah, when you first start out, you hang out with photographers. Over time, it changes, because people are going for money, for their career. And then you become competition. So then they get weird. But at first, you’re surrounded by photographers. We were always going to the lab. Loaning each other cameras, going to each other’s studios. 

 

NM: Right, it was a collective.

 

Barron Claiborne: Yes. Because we needed it to survive.

 

NM: Absolutely. When you were doing music videos or album covers, was that the scene you found yourself in? Or did music really inspire your work?

 

Barron Claiborne: No, people would ask me if I wanted to shoot so-and-so, sometimes you didn’t want to because you didn’t like their music and were just trying to give them a good photo. I’m doing my own thing – I don’t tell you how to do your music thing, that’s your thing. You don’t tell me how to take pictures. I don’t tell you what to put in your music. But as you go higher, people always try to tell you what to do. Which is one of the things I hated. Because then you end up taking pictures for money, and you don’t like photography anymore. I saw that happen to some of us. They started making money, and then they just started taking photos for the money. But then you don’t like photography. I’ve been taking photos since I was ten. It’s so natural. I wouldn’t want to not like it, you know, so I just stop taking those jobs.

Continue to Part 2

Part 2

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Interview