Life is too short to be distracted by the pesky,
mundane questions that plague most photographers: "How can I
get this model to smile without showing her teeth?" or, "Does
this house look better with or without the little red wagon in
front?" So think hard, think deep and ask new questions. As a
photographer, how can you present the nature of existence and
the drama of the human condition? How will you define beauty
and ugliness in visual terms? What is death and why is mankind
fixated on rational explanations of the afterlife? In short,
send the models home and start asking the BIG
questions.
Duane Michals has been examining
these issues over the span of his legendary and influential
career, blurring the boundaries between photography and
philosophy to create a body of work that is unique in the
field. Unlike many of his contemporaries who fixate on
manufactured ideas of what is true and real in the world,
Michals delves deep into the unconscious mind to find lasting
meaning in his life and his art. |
"When people ask me what I am, I
tell them I'm the artist formally known as a photographer,"
says Michals when describing his creative position in life. "I
am an expressionist and by that I mean I'm not a photographer
or a writer or a painter or a tap dancer, but rather someone
who expresses himself according to his needs." He has often
found himself an outsider in the photographic universe that he
finds dull and uninspired. Too many photographers, according
to Michals, unconsciously rely on what he dubs "PC or
political correctness." Stuck in a visual bind, photographers
pander to the lowest common denominator and, by doing so,
betray what he believes are the possibilities of the medium.
Instead, Michals uses visual narratives and symbolism to
convey ideas and interpretation of the human
condition.
According to Michals, to
illustrate grief by taking a picture of a woman crying does
not aid the observer in understanding it is truly like to
experience deep sadness. Instead, the photographer must help
the viewer feel what the woman feels by tracing the woman's
pain with photographs, text, icons, or anything else that that
brings the audience closer to the actual experience. "It's the
difference between reading a hundred love stories and actually
falling in love," he emphasizes.
Michals' career has been based on
these terms, a hodgepodge of the brilliant, silly,
metaphysical and playful, has changed the face of photography.
for four decades he has asked questions with photography
rather than give answers. |
Now at 66, Michals
believes he has never been more engrossed in redefining the
medium that he is at this moment in his life. "Photography has
to transcend description... it can never pretend to give you
answers. That would be insulting."
Michals' journey with a
life-altering trip to Russia at age 26. With a borrowed camera
and no agenda, he ventured behind the iron curtain at the
height of the Cold War for the sheer adventure of seeing the
"enemy" on their own soil. Mindful of the fact that most
Americans during this period considered his trip dangerous and
even crazy, he wandered around the city of Minsk, taking
portraits of the people who were supposed to be our
adversaries. What he discovered, however, was that he had more
in common with the people he met than he could have ever
imagined. It was a revelation. Armed with the notion that
there is an inherent creative reward in taking risks, Michals
returned to New York to pursue photography in a way that would
satiate his desire to explore the confounding mysteries of the
human condition.
Photography in the early 1960s
was dominated by the documentary and portrait style. To reject
the paradigm of the medium during the era was to reject the
conventions of such giants as Angel Adams and Robert Frank.
Michals did - exploring photography with a sense of freedom
and experimentation. Sequences of shots that ran with a
narrative theme became Michals'' means of making sense of
issues such as desire, time, youth and death. He did not, and
still does not, believe himself to be radical in terms of the
questions he asks with his art. "I think that these are very
reasonable questions to ask. What could be more
important?"
Intent on expressing the ideas as
opposed to capturing images, he aimed to develop a meaningful
relationship with photography. For Michals, it has always been
of paramount importance that a photograph not only evoke
feeling, but that it be enhanced by inviting the viewer to
internally examine issues and ideas. In asking questions that
are of such enormous scope and consequence, he is cognizant
that he has taken a difficult and frustrating path. "I fail
more than I exceed in a way that someone taking a picture of a
sunset can never fail," notes Michals. It is a mantra and has
kept him reflective and insightful in a field dominated by
fads and heavy consumerism. |
Throughout his career,
Michals claims he has never worked for the benefit of an
audience. As much as critics and student of photography
scrutinize his work, Michals creates art solely for his own
exploration. "If I cared what people thought of my work, I
would never get near some of the issues I confront. Certainly
not gay issues. I'd have to resort to things that shock, which
seems to be all the rage."
Avoiding the trappings of the New
York photography scene, absent from parties and openings,
Michals works feverishly, conceiving an idea and bringing it
to its end result without pause. The pace of his creative
process allows him to avoid self-censorship and create
instinctively. By the time a piece has been shown or
published, he has moved onto something new. His work remains
vital, kinetic, and wholly uninfluenced by public
reaction.
To examine Michals' work is to
step into a surreal and dreamlike universe where faces and
figures are not always what they seem. People are seen
standing in a vast conglomerate of stars, heads are pulled
from magic hats and men gaze at ghostly figments of their
imagination. These images are derived from Michals' ever
evolving philosophy of how the universe operates. It dishes
out maddening speculation and logical rationalization in equal
amounts, carefully pieced together from years of intensive
reading and hypothesizing about the meaning of existence. "If
we use observable fact to dictate what the possibilities of
life are, then we are stuck with those that believe the earth
was flat. It's like saying when we shut off the radio, the
music no longer exists because it only came from the tubes
within." These ruminations manifest themselves in his work
with dramatic results.
It is challenging enough to
derive meaning form the art of photography when the artist is
concerned with the rational literal observation of the world.
It is more difficult when the artist moves beyond mere
observation and into the realm of his thoughts and translates
his muse into film. |
Michals bridges this gap
because he is unfettered by the medium's boundaries and
explores his visions through interpretive conceptual
"spin-offs." For example, when illustrating desire and
femininity he rejects the idea that women are merely objects
of lust, as depicted in many images, and tries to envision the
more intimate details of what it is truly like to be a woman.
"What photographers show in magazines is woman as sex objects.
If you want to see tits and ass, that's observation. It is not
getting into the nature of what it feels like to be woman...
and that's what's interesting." Instead, according to Michals,
he might explore what it is like for a woman to experience
cramps to delve deep into the meaning of womanhood. "I don't
want to catalog images. I want to get into something that I
can't truly describe. I might fail in the process, but it's
where true creativity is born."
Recently, the photographer has
had to cope with the deteriorating health and death of his
elderly mother and, therefore, the consequences of life and
death. Although deeply emotional about the prospect of losing
a parent, he is also philosophical about the idea of death and
has explored the concept in his photography. Again, Michals
moves beyond the idea that the body is merely a vessel for
biological functions and tries to envision the processes
through which the spirit moves from the body out into the
expanse of space and time. The layers of insight into the
concept of death, says Michals, cannot be bound by the
mechanics of photography, but must be given editorial comment
and a sense of narrative. By approaching photography in this
way, the spectator is given a glimpse into the possibilities
of ideas that are often difficult to grasp. Michals' visual
meditations about death are not morbid dramatizations of an
idea that some people naturally fear, but rather a series of
questions asked to reach a closer understanding of something
we will all someday face.
Not all of Michals' work is
rooted in heavy, mid-boggling issues. In fact, the
photographer has a sharp sense of wit and an air of silliness
that reveals itself in both his conversations and his
photographs. Foolishness to Michals means being playful and
expressive with words and images. A series of shots entitled
What Funny Things Billy Dreams is indicative of this side of
his work. The visual narrative uses illustration and
photography to penetrate the seemingly ordinary man who has
fantastic dreams set in an almost fairy tale world. The
series, included in Michals' children's book Upside Down,
Inside Out and backwards, (or Downside Up, Outside In and
Frontwards, depending on whether you are looking at the front
or the back cover) reflects Michals' childlike innocence and
sense of wonder. Michals is outspoken in his criticism of the
current superstars of the photography world and has a
particular lack of regard for fashion photography. He has gone
so far as to come up with a term, 'fartster,' (first
introduced in his article "Dr. Duane's Infernal Tongue and
Cheeky Journal," published in the magazine 21) to describe
"one who confuses fashion with art..." The word, both
ridiculous and biting, plays with the idea that society has
been transfixed for too long with the shallow pretenses of
celebrity and personality. "Herb Ritts is a fartster, the
Boston Museum is a fartster. |
To show head shots of
Cindy Crawford or any of the multitudes of Cindys is the work
of a fartster," Michals explains. True art according to
Michals, involves a lasting and profound reflection of society
that will stand the test of time. It is gleeful irony then
that his most recently published work appears in the pages of
French Vogue with a pouty soldier of the Army of Cindys
staring coyly from the cover. Nestled between perfume inserts
and hemline shots, Michals' work brings an exploration of
quantum theory to the bible of shallowness. It is as if he is
subverting from within. The series illustrates philosophical
concepts such as Schrdinger's Cat and Heisenberg's Mirror in
the mischievous Michals style. Wormholes colliding particles
and the theory of backwards time travel are photographed
symbolically with humorous captions that fill the unlikely
pages of the glossy monthly.
Michals rarely teaches, but his
workshops and lectures around the country are enormously
popular with students looking to avoid a "fartster" career. He
enjoys teaching by example, pushing other photographers to
reject the conventions of photography and look inward for the
questions that will stimulate artistic growth and enhance the
medium. He encourages those in the field to study not only
photographers, but painters, filmmakers, philosophers and
writers as well. Italian painter DeCurrico, directors Woody
Allen and Bernardo Bertolucci, and eastern philosophy such as
the Tibetan Book of the Dead have all influenced Michals. But
perhaps it is the writer Walt Whitman who has had the greatest
influence on Michals and his outlook on life. While still an
adolescent, struggling with his sexuality and his Catholic
upbringing, Michals found Whitman's Leaves of Grass and was
astounded and nurtured by the poetic brilliance of the work.
He felt it spoke directly to him and discovered great strength
in Whitman's honesty. He carried a copy of the book with him
while in the Army during the Korean War and still has it
today. Later in life, Michals published a book Salute, Walt
Whitman, as an homage to the author including photographs
exploring Whitman's influence on himself and
others. |
As the 20th century draws
to a close, Michals is cautiously optimistic about our place
in history. He hopes that our era will be remembered for its
ideas, not the trivial indulgences of rock stars and flashes
of celebrity. He is vocal about his frustration worth the
current political climate in Washington and has spent time
writing to Congress urging our representatives to focus on the
larger issues and problems faced by the country. This sense of
activism seems to be a natural extension of Michals'
philosophy, pushing others to look within themselves, as
opposed to looking for simple and uninspired means to garner
attention. As a photographer, or rather, an expressionist,
Michals' place in the history of art is secure - and he shows
no signs of slowing down. "I've never felt more freedom than I
do anything and I'm having a great
time." | |