>I never photograph anything I don’t believe in. If I love working with death, it’s because even in death I find this power of reality that no sculptor or painter could recreate, not even a Michelangelo or a Da Vinci.
>OK, well, my photographs are not “morbid.” Morbid means unhealthy and deformed. I photograph social outcasts because I want to celebrate their singularity and the strength it takes for them to engage life. An example is a photograph called “Un Santo Oscuro,” a man born in Canada because his mother took thalidomide, which was banned in the United States under the Kennedy administration. He’s born without skin, and without arms or legs. He’s in pain from the moment he was born. As a child, he was a sideshow freak. I had a friend in L.A. who saw him begging on the sidewalk. My friend was overwhelmed. He told me about him on the phone. I got on a plane to L.A., to convince this man to be photographed. I was very struck and emotionally engaged in photographing him. It’s titled “Un Santo Oscuro,” or “The Obscure Saint.” Again, what I want to say is: I don’t work in the world. I work from what the world gives me as far as ideas and emotions.
>I don’t photograph “perverse” things, because that means the celebration of perverted intentions. Instead, I celebrate the courage to live, especially the courage to live through the struggles we’ve been given in life. There’s always the negative connotation when people see my work. They think that I’m taking advantage of situations. They think I’m taking advantage of people who are a certain way, and may live lives that they would be frightened of if they had to live them. There’s a lot of mixed baggage out there as far as how my photographs are perceived. That’s normal and natural in the history of art, especially with photography because it’s closer to the reality we all can see and understand. What I want to do is make photographs that are made like no other photographs. That’s the criteria of all art regardless of medium.
>For me, the most important and beautiful photographs are the daguerreotype and older methods.>To acknowledge that beauty, I make my work in that manner. Not because I want the photographs to look old, it’s because I want that wonderment of newness in a photographic reality, which I prefer over the dull, modern look of what you have to work with in paper. I have reverence for the prints. I first make a master print, and when I make an edition, the edition must match the master print.
>First, I’m not comfortable with the title “freaks.” It’s a terrible, sensationalistic term. Thank God there are no more Freak Shows. When I was in my teens, I would go to Conny Island with my brother to photograph people. The barker, the man that tries to get people in the show, was telling a lot of the people, “Unless you live good lives, your children are going to look like the people in here.” It was a cruel, stupid, primitive thing to say.>I can’t be cornered, like many artists – there is no A, B, C, D, to my work. Some artists deal in cyclical things, but for me, it’s never been that clear, because I photograph people who all have different characteristics and consciousness. I never know who I’m going to meet. I work with those people - I don’t use them. The same thing applies to human remains or inanimate objects.>My work isn’t linear; it’s more of a phenomenology.
>I go against that [the reproducibility of photography]. In my case, I want to impose my hand on the photograph. I want people to know that I’m not relying on the “decisive moment.” The negative is a beginning point for me. I’m a print maker as much as I am a photographer.>I have to know every square centimeter of the print. It takes me days, sometimes weeks or months to resolve an image. For sales, I keep an atlas of how I made the prints, but I have to begin the whole process of discovering what that image was about. My thoughts go back to that time and I have to relive those emotions.
>There are two things I live for: my religious faith and my engagement with life through photography.
>The flesh is the clothes of our corporal existence. It identifies us whether we carry it well, or if we’re born with physical problems. All of us, from a theological standpoint, have liabilities and gifts that we have to deal with in life. We have to accept the pain as discovery.
>I went to Cooper Union first, and I knew from the get-go, because I was usually older than the teachers, that art can’t be taught. Either you have the flame of passion or the spark of interest, or you don’t. A fraction of one percent of all graduate students in studio art actually live a life of working that way full time. It’s a hard trip. But I’ve always been impassioned. I’ve always done what I’ve wanted to do. The definition of all artists, actually the definition of all human beings, is to inform yourself of why we’re here, what our purpose in life is, and how to make life better. We have to ask the profound questions. Am I an atheist? Am I a religious believer? Or is life just a crazy conglomeration of planetary movements that made us and made time and space, and we live a life of futility? I’ve tried living that way, and it didn’t work. I don’t like futility or anything nihilistic. I like things that are human and positive. Otherwise, it’s all self-involvement, and it’s all escapist, and it’s all meaningless. I’m not just a spiritual person. I’m a religious person. That’s another reason why I photograph death. I think death is the doorway to eternal life, and we have to die to get there. I believe we are given life to make life better, to find our spirits, and to nurture each other. Then that’s over with, as it will be with me pretty soon. I have maybe 10 or 20 years left. And I’m going to die in the darkroom, printing.
>Abortion is a divisive subject right now. I’m a Democrat and I disagree with some of what Obama talks about. This is not respect for life. In fact, I think life comes at conception and I believe that we have souls. How can a mother destroy life in her body? The primary reason was scientific, but what it’s doing, and the mother knows this, is cutting the fetus up and destroying it. It’s a form of killing that people don’t stand up for.>Islam, like Christianity, wants to spread its message and convert the whole world. I think there will eventually be a war between those two beliefs. It’s a terrible thing. I always say, we can put a person on the moon, but every three seconds a child dies of starvation. That is criminal.
>Sure [there are a lot of misinterpretations of my work]. Because people have different baggage. Especially in this time, when people see something, they see it at face value. When you look back on art history, a person like Max Beckman, James Ensor, even Emile Nolde, were making different forms of painting or, in their case, picturing life. Basically, good things are defeated. Beckman’s famous painting “The Night,” is about the terror, and obviously we’re going through a terror now too, which is very damaging and reflects all the problems of imperialism in the 18th and 19th century. My work is loved by people who have a historical connoisseurship. I work on a level that invites challenge. It’s not “nicey nicey” art. It’s not the art that goes over most people’s sofas in their living room. It’s an art that informs, very much like the art of a writer.
>I think the job of art is to create a language that people can understand.
>I love Giotto. He basically invented Western painting. My deepest intention, if I were doing a better job (maybe I’ll do that in the coming years before I leave this reality) is to make work like Giotto. Regardless of what the subject matter is, even though I have dramatic subject matter, as he did, I want people to think and know that there is something clear, and profound, and immediate happening. Maybe it’s because we’re living in the same time, and we’re sharing those experiences and we’re not removed enough. A lot in the visual arts is conditioned by the art market. You have a disparity of wealth, and a lot of people who have wealth do not have the aesthetic depth to understand. They want trophies. They want what’s in the art books. I make the work because I care, and I have to express that. I’ve done it so long that I see the change in myself. That sustains me. Every morning when I wake up, I’m thinking of making photographs. Every night when I go to bed, I’m thinking of making photographs. This doesn’t mean I’m obsessive. It means the deepest desire of my life is to express myself this way.
>>4521663Top tier tits bottom left bitchLooks like some death metal album cover drawing, photo equivalent
>With the economy going down, I couldn’t live on the sales of my work. I’m out of fashion because my work is about morality. It’s about human life and it doesn’t show the prettiness, or escapism, or the caricature of feminism that someone like Cindy Sherman. There is nothing wrong with feminism, but right now in New York, if you’re a woman, you have an advantage, and if you’re a guy who is half Jewish and makes meaningful images, people don’t want to know about it.
>The difference is that in Europe, people are far more cultured; they are loyal to their artists, which isn’t always a good thing. They have a depth. I’ve seen families at my shows explaining to their kids some of my toughest works, like Feast of Fools. In the United States, that wouldn’t be tolerated.
>I’ve been signing books with an Irish saying: “We are all disguised as ourselves.” It’s a wonderful thing. That saying is in 50-60 books. It’s a gracious way of defining the human element.
>Fat ugly deformed people in lingerie, disease and abstraction, corpses, death with the occasional highly sexually desirable white whore thrown in, what is sacred is profane, what is profane is sacred>make it back & white >I am..le artisteDeath to all Jews
>>4521678What is sacred is profane, and what is profane is sacred.Death to the concept of beauty.
>>4521707>>4521678Its not a jew thing its an atheist pseud thing Atheists killed more people than islam. Atheists love death and destruction. Its their real god. Good art is made by theistsBad art “that actually has intellectual value because uhhhhh the theory of post whatever art school circlejerkism” is made by atheists that were too retarded to be lawyers or scientists
>>4521707>>4521710You're both cringe and miss the point of the artwork entirely.
>>4521734The point of art is to reveal ther divine harmonies that make up creation and bring people together and closer to God. Art is worship. Art is direct to the soul. If art is not for God, what is it for in God’s stead? What do you worship other than God? We know by your fruits. >inb4 christian society oppresses womyn, lgbtq, and furries :(
>>4521736>christian societies don't have functional 100GbE backboneSorry, I'll pass on the boyfucking theocracy especially if it means I get modern infrastructure.
You know I just.... Don't like demonic ugly imagery! I know, I know, everyone is into their tarot cards and crystals but I'm just ... Not going to side with demons! Sorry!
>>4521660These are very interesting photographs. I think they live by the principle that an art piece is equal to its impact value. That there's beaty in the ugliness, light in the dark, absurdity in the motifs and whole lot to suffering.
>>4521875This gross stuff is routine by now. I don't think there is any impact. This has become the default "art".>>4521736You really can't say that and post AI slop
>>4521759I HATE THE ANTICHRIST!
>>4521710"it's not a jew thing">the photographer is jewish
>>4521875A heap of human shit on a dinner plate with a daffodil placed in it has the exact same merit as everything else in this thread. Oh don't forget the black & white to remind everyone its high brow.
Didn't read the green texts but these all suck IMO
