JENNIFER McCLURE: Laws of Silence

Photograph © Jennifer McClure

Photograph © Jennifer McClure

Photograph © Jennifer McClure

EA: Define your point of view. Are you ever trying to tell a story?
 

Jennifer McClure: I read that Thomas Roma likens the making of photographs to Robert Frost's idea of making a poem: "A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness, a lovesickness." My pictures come from that emotional space of longing, of wishing for things that never were and might never be. I don't know if I'm telling a story as much as trying to find a way out. I can only see a feeling clearly when I disarm and immobilize it, pin it to the wall and examine it with the others.
 

EA: What were your first subjects when you began?
 

Jennifer McClure: The first series I did was about nine years ago. I had just gotten clean and sober but I wasn't really comfortable with the idea. I put an ad in the Village Voice to photograph substance abusers. We spent a lot of time together, and I got to ask them the questions I was afraid to ask of myself. We had different circumstances but the same emotions and desires and needs, the same flawed coping mechanisms. This is what fascinates me, whether I am photographing myself or others: how we come to be the people we are, and how we choose to handle the lots we are given.  

 Photograph © Jennifer McClure 

The photographs of Jennifer McClure are being shown in an exhibition at the Drift Gallery until July 20th, 2014, along with photographers: Aline Smithson, Bear Kirkpatrick, Christa Blackwood, Cig Harvey, Noah David Bau, Amy Elkins, and Alec Von Bargen.

Portraits in Contemporary Photography

Exhibition through July 20th, 2014

The Drift Gallery, Portsmouth, NH

JenniferMcClure.com

EAST VILLAGE: Happy Halloween!

 East Village, New York

Photograph © Lisa Galt Bond

 Love Slave, East Village, New York

Photograph © Lisa Galt Bond

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Poet Lisa Galt Bond has been documenting the changing face of her East Village neighborhood for years. She has a rich history on the Lower East Side, going back to the days when the Bowery was not the trendy scene it is today. Read more about Bond here

H A P P Y   H A L L O W E E N

LISA GALT BOND: An East Village Corner

Tompkins Sq. Park
Photograph © Lisa Galt Bond/ All rights reserved

Tompkins Sq. Park
Photograph © Lisa Galt Bond/ All rights reserved

2nd Avenue Mosaic
Jim Power, known as the Mosaic Man, with Jesse Jane
Photograph © Lisa Galt Bond/ All rights reserved

2nd Avenue Mosaic Lamppost
Jim Power, known as the Mosaic Man, with Jesse Jane
Photograph © Lisa Galt Bond/ All rights reserved

Love Slave
Photograph © Lisa Galt Bond/ All rights reserved

Dress Shoppe, Second Ave at 5th St
Photograph © Lisa Galt Bond/ All rights reserved

Dress Shoppe, Second Ave at 5th St
Photograph © Lisa Galt Bond/ All rights reserved

Street Doll, 2010
Photograph © Lisa Galt Bond/ All rights reserved

"Chet was like the sirens," said Lisa Galt Bond, referring to the mythic temptresses whose singing lured sailors to a dire fate. "He had a seductive, mystical sound that people responded to. But to follow the voice of the sirens was to be held captive, or end up dead."

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Poet Lisa Galt Bond collaborated with her friend, jazz trumpeter and singer Chet Baker, on an unfinished memoir. She later contributed her unpublished Chet Baker autobiographical notes and interviews to author James Gavins' major Baker biography, Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker.

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Bond has been documenting the changing face of her East Village neighborhood for years. She has a rich history on the Lower East Side, going back to the days when the Bowery was not the trendy scene it is today. There were only two havens in the midst of skid-row before CBGB's, Phoebe's and the 70's Jazz Scene of the Tin Palace cafe. "Bond co-founded and performed with the Tin Palace All Stars, a group of poets and jazz musicians featuring Richie Cole, Paul Pines, Eddie Jefferson, Margot da Silva and Frank Murphy, with whom she co-founded Fox Press and Fox Magazine, and which later published Geography of the Erotic Body by Margot da Silva. Bond founded Express Press. She was co-founder (with Rick Borgia of Mink DeVille) of Hypnotech Productions, a studio that did sound tracks for movies.

Poet Paul Blackburn, dazzled by Bond's work, sent a tape of one of her readings to John Sinclair who then published In Sight, her first book, through his Artist's Workshop Press in Detroit. D.R. Wagner published her second book, Radar (Niagara Press). Her poems have also been published in IS, The Harris Review, Gaviota (Amsterdam).

Lyricist and Musical Producer, Lisa co-produced The Great Jazz Series at St. Mark's Church which featured concerts by Eddie Jefferson and Richie Cole, Leon Thomas, and Joe Lee Wilson in the late seventies. With Gerry de Burca she produced Biting the Apple, a cassette collection of poetry by New York and European poets."

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Chet Baker biographer, James Gavin, also author of Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne (one of Oprah's 2009 Top 25 Summer Reads), writes of Bond, "My dear Bohemian friend, you ARE New York to me: hip, smart, curious, vibrant, passionate, multi-talented, and resilient. For all that goes on in your fascinating self-created world, you are never too busy to extend a generous and caring hand. Thank you for always reminding me of why this town is the only home for me. Love, Jim G."

Happy Birthday LGB+R: Jim said it best for all of us!
Chet Baker on YouTube - MosaicMan on YouTube

RENE RICARD: The Torturer's Apprentice

"The George Sanders of the Lower East Side,
the Rex Reed of the art world."
—Andy Warhol

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RENE RICARD is an American poet and painter. Since the early 1970s, Ricard has been one of America's most controversial arbiters of taste. Early on Ricard was one of the major superstars of Andy Warhol’s Factory. He appeared in such classic Warhol films as Kitchen and Chelsea Girls. As a performer, Ricard was a founding participant in the Theater of the Ridiculous, collaborating with John Vaccaro and Charles Ludlam.

In 1979 the Dia Art Foundation published Ricard's first book of poems Rene Ricard 1979-1980 styled on the Tiffany Christmas catalogue. By the early 1980s Ricard achieved status in the art world through his influential essays. His cover articles in ArtForum magazine helped to catapult the careers of many artists such as Keith Haring and Francesco Clemente to the forefront of the 80’s New York art scene. Ricard’s 1981 ArtForum piece “The Radiant Child” brought Jean-Michel Basquiat to fame. In Julian Schnabel's biopic, Basquiat, Ricard was played by actor Michael Wincott.

The majority of Ricard's poems are now created in the form of paintings. His 2008 UK painting exhibition at Scream Gallery was curated by art dealer Vito Schnabel.

Ricard's latest work The Torturers Apprentice opens next week in Andy Spade's New York Half/Gallery.

June 5 - July 8
HALF / GALLERY
208 Forsyth Street
New York • NY • 10079

ArtNet