Saturday, 29 May 2010
An interview w/ Richard Kern
One of the premier visual stylists of the No-Wave scene in 1980s New York, filmmaker and photographer Richard Kern worked with musicians and performers like Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins, Kembra Pfahler and Lung Leg, a.k.a. Elizabeth Carr — who, most famously, appeared on the Kern-shot cover for Sonic Youth’s 1986 album EVOL.
Kern now photographs full-time, producing pastel-hued, soft-pornographic nudes of nubile young women for publications like VICE, who calls him their “favourtie girlie photographer” and hosts a show on their broadband network entitled Shot by Kern. EYE WEEKLY caught up with him for an espresso at the Drake during his brief artist residency at Studio Gallery, which is also currently hosting a from-the-vaults show of his work, including a film series.
What is a good photo to you?I know it when I see it. It has to be a little bit weird. At the show, there’s only one photo you could call “sexy.” Most of the stuff is just people standing there, doing things without clothes on. Well, they have panties on or whatever, but it’s not like they’re adopting sex poses.
It’s impossible not to notice the marked shift in style that happened in your work in the early ’90s. It’s like you became a different person.
It was 1988, around there. It was when I got off drugs. Everything lightened up quite a bit. The films still had humour, but most of my aggression had lifted.
What’s your opinion on the remarkable lifespan those films from the ’80s have had?
It’s extremely weird! I think it was a really lucky time to be doing them. It was right at the beginning of the video age, and I put them out on video, so people who were looking for something interesting had alternatives — you could see something different.
You’re associated with the No Wave and Cinema of Transgression movements. Was making art for you just a by-product of being a listless young person, or was there any intentionality to it?
It’s more like a “fuck you” to everybody. That was the big statement. Back then my favourite band was the Sex Pistols: everything was shit; fuck everybody; you’re all stupid. And then I stopped drugs and it was like, "Wait, I’m stupid!" Except, people still identify with those films.
You collaborated with Lydia Lunch, and those films [The Right Side of My Brain, Fingered] have dated very well. Would you say she was approaching art-making in the same way? What was your working relationship like?
The reason those films stand out is because of her. She’s in them and her personality is all over them. The second one, Fingered, was made in direct response to The Right Side of My Brain, which got bad reviews. People were like, “What is this shit? This is misogynist!” And we were like, “You think that’s bad? Wait until you see the next movie.” We wanted people going in and expecting a Maya Deren film or something and leaving totally disturbed.
There are a lot of young women now who like and identify with those films.
Yeah. It wasn’t that way at the beginning. It was the exact opposite.
Lung Leg has become an underground post-feminist icon. Does that seem strange to you? Do you feel the burden or responsibility of that?
No, I don’t. It’s just that it seemed like everyone else finally figured out what we thought we were doing. Ideas get into society and mutate and affect people’s opinions. Video is really powerful for that kind of stuff.
But did you ever have any kind of feminist intentions in making those films?
My main intention was, “I’ll make these films, people will watch them and I’ll fuck up their heads.” I always thought, this is a Trojan Horse: they think they’re coming to see something cool and it’s gonna really fuck them up. Just your basic anarchist manifesto.
A lot of your recent photography is notable for its extreme prettiness, softness, exquisiteness. It’s the same stuff; it just doesn’t have that darkness in it. And jokes! A lot of jokes. If you watch [my film] Manhattan Love Suicides it has a lot of the same jokes that are in some of the photos. The girl with her head in the toilet, that kind of thing.
Aside from getting clean, does that aesthetic shift have to do with getting more successful, with having more resources at your fingertips?
I pretty much live the exact same lifestyle as I did then. I’ve had a couple of good years with photography, and I can actually make a living at it, but there aren’t that many photographers who get rich. When I got off drugs I was so broke a friend of mine was letting me stay at their house. And the only thing I could afford was black-and-white photos, so that’s what I shot.
How has underground culture changed since you started working?
I know underground culture is out there somewhere right now but I don’t know what it is. I don’t do Facebook or Twitter. I’m on the ’net nonstop but, and it may be a stupid thing to say, but I feel like Facebook is like joining a fraternity. It’s just a giant group of people saying, “Hey, let’s all do this.” The challenge to me now would be to somehow get outside of all of that stuff, where nobody is. All I know is that if there’s something you want to do you’ve just got to do it, all the time. People who are making good art aren’t sitting around on Facebook all day.
Why are you so private and exclusive when you do your photography work?I think a lot of people are surprised when they work with me that it’s not some crazy shoot. It has to be quiet. It has to be small. And when I do do something that’s commercial and there are a lot of people around, the first thing I say is “Don’t talk. If you’ve got anything to say to me, say it outside.” Because I’m just walking around thinking. It’s about me and the model.
Do you keep touch with a lot of the models you work with?
Yes, quite a few. I don’t hang out with them, but everyone has email accounts. Big shock, though, when I see someone I shot 20 years ago. Big shock when I look in the mirror! Lung Leg, for example: you just think of this 18-year-old girl with this really beautiful face. She doesn’t look quite like that any more. She still has the exact same style. But it looks like she’s had a hard life.
David Balzar @'Eye Weekly'
When shorts were short...
A new translation of Dante's "La Commedia" by the avatar of no-wave cinema, Amos Poe
As some of you may know, Amos Poe is one of the leading figures of the no wave cinema movement and is considered by many to be the father of the modern indie American cinema. (see Celine Danhier's "Blank City"). His films include: "The Blank Generation", "Unmade Beds", "The Foreigner", "Subway Riders", "Alphabet City", "Rocket Gibraltar", "Frogs For Snakes", "Steve Earle:Just An American Boy" and "Empire II".
CHECK OUT THE NEW FRAMES!
His current project LA COMMEDIA di Amos Poe is inspired by Dante Alighieri’s 700 year-old literary masterpiece “La Divina Commedia” and Edward Muybridge’s 19th century breakthrough “The Horse In Motion”, arguably the first “motion picture”.
Lessons from the mephedrone ban
On 17 March I was giving a lecture in Barcelona when I received a call from CNN. They wanted my reactions to the international press conference that the Lincolnshire police were holding on the deaths of two young men that they claimed had taken mephedrone (the new synthetic drug also known as "meow meow" or "M-cat"). At that point I realised that all sense had left the ongoing debate on the question of the harms and control of this drug.
Why were the police holding a press conference when they had no idea if the men had taken any drugs? Why implicate mephedrone when the only established facts were that deaths occurred in the context of a heavy alcohol binge that went on into the early hours of the morning? As a stimulant, mephedrone is likely to reduce not increase the risk of alcohol-related respiratory depression (suppression of breathing). There was little evidence at the time of serious harms from mephedrone use, despite it having become almost as widely used as MDMA (ecstasy). Moreover, the earlier epidemic overdose use in Israel had not revealed significant harms and few if any mortalities.
The "media madness" that followed the Scunthorpe event probably tipped the balance in the decision to ban mephedrone which was enacted by a depleted ACMD in an intemperate and rushed manner, and which lead to the resignation of several more members and a coruscating editorial in the Lancet.
It has been revealed today that my suspicions were correct – there was no evidence that either of the two had taken mephedrone. It appears they took some other sedative drug – probably methadone – which is highly dangerous in combination with high levels of alcohol.
The "media madness" that followed the Scunthorpe event probably tipped the balance in the decision to ban mephedrone which was enacted by a depleted ACMD in an intemperate and rushed manner, and which lead to the resignation of several more members and a coruscating editorial in the Lancet.
It has been revealed today that my suspicions were correct – there was no evidence that either of the two had taken mephedrone. It appears they took some other sedative drug – probably methadone – which is highly dangerous in combination with high levels of alcohol.
It is probably too late now to reverse the government decision to make mephedrone Class B but we do need to learn the lessons from the debacle of its being banned on limited evidence and media hysteria. The first lesson is that the police and other public bodies should not make pronouncements and certainly not hold press conferences on mere conjecture or hearsay; the public interest is not served by inciting media attention in this way. In addition the media should apply some traditional journalistic principles such as evidence collecting and testing and allow the scientific process to take place before claiming harms of drugs, especially new legal highs.
There are lessons for government and their advisers too. They should have the courage to resist media hysteria and let the truth drive decision-making. Moreover there should be proper research investment in the science of new drugs. Quite frankly, it is an insult to the country that the ACMD report on mephedrone didn't have some basic pharmacological facts about the drug, even though it had been under review since last summer and the data could have been obtained within a few days or weeks at little expense.
What we now require is a guaranteed minimum set of core pharmacological and behavioural data to be acquired for any new drug that is being considered for classification and control in the UK, before a decision to ban it is made. The new Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) is currently developing a set of guidelines for this that we hope the government will endorse.
The whole mephedrone debacle illustrates what has been known for many years – there is a real need for a new approach to the drug laws. The 1971 MD Act is 40 years old, and in its current classification system is fatally flawed and not fit for purpose. In this new world where drugs may be invented one day and sold over the internet the next, there needs to be a fundamental revision or better still a completely new approach to drug classification.
Finally there is a personal lesson from the Scunthorpe deaths to young people who drink and take drugs. Alcohol itself is very toxic (killing by acute poisoning, hundreds of young people each year through respiratory failure) and these actions are magnified when in combination with other drugs that suppress breathing such as opiates (heroin, morphine, methadone) and GHB/GBL. If in doubt, don't drink and drug.
David Nutt @'The Guardian'
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