Things That Are Not Meant to Work: An Interview of Folk Artist Justin Williams on The Occasion of His Solo Exhibition @ Roberts Projects LA

Oil and acrylic painting by Justin Williams. Jade, the artist's wife, reclines on a sofa behind a fortune teller.

Justin Williams
Major Arcana, death watching over Jade (2024)
Acrylic, oil, raw pigment and gold pigment on canvas
77.25 x 84.75 in (196.2 x 215.3 cm)

interview by Chimera Mohammadi

In Justin Williams’s newest exhibition, Synonym, at Roberts Projects, waves of stories collide and crash across timelines, pouring onto the canvas in lush and decadent palettes. Williams creates wormholes between his ancestral memories and the present day. His work carves spaces, ranging from cozy to claustrophobic, in which dead and living strangers coexist in moments of imagined connection. Williams’ world is seen through a kaleidoscope of childhood trinkets, native flora, and mythologized fauna, from goats to dogs to horses. The artist collects moments and mementos alike to collage in these quiet yet fantastical dreamscapes, mining through Westernized memories of suburban Australia and hitting rich veins of ancestral Egyptian aesthetics. Williams embraces the awkwardness of outsider life, and his work embodies the comforting realization that even outsiders create their own exiled community. To mark the occasion of Synonym, he discusses stories and people, which echo throughout his life and strangers whose moments of grief have shaped his work. 

CHIMERA MOHAMMADI: I wanted to start off by asking what a day in your practice looks like.

JUSTIN WILLIAMS: I've tried to level out a lot. I got married, met [my wife] Jade, and I'm kind of trying to be normal in a weird way. It's been really productive, forcing myself to sort of start at 9:00 and work ’til dinnertime or whatever. And that might not be working – I might just sit on the couch and look at a painting and be like, “That looks ridiculous.” It's basically just get up, start making marks, and then from there, I'll kind of lose time.

MOHAMMADI: Your upcoming show at Roberts Projects, which looks gorgeous, is entitled Synonym. Is there a meaning behind that title for you?

WILLIAMS: Titles and names for paintings and things like this, it's a real collage, and an abstract process because I'm super dyslexic. So, I like words in the sense of how they sound, and it could be related to the show. It [Synonym] feels really circular. One painting might be about a weird transitional experience, or a story, or a secondhand story, or cults where I'm from, or these things. I tried to distill it into one thing, thinking that that's like what you're meant to do as an artist, but then I'd rather the painting inform what the show is. So, if one painting’s about this guy I knew growing up called Baba Desi, the Belgrave Wizard — and I love the fact that he was just this weird dude that worked at a post office, really suburban, normal, nice guy, who had a full meltdown and decided he wanted to carve sticks and be a wizard. And I'm like, What the fuck? Where did that point happen? This in-between moment. One painting would lend itself to that, and then the next painting might be a portrait of Jade and all my fears and feelings I didn’t even know I had about normality, coping with that through a painting. They're two very separate topics, and I was always like, Fuck, is it too schizophrenic or not cohesive to show altogether? But it all comes back to self-portraits. Like, Why am I interested in these things? So, it's one topic, but it's split off on a journey. 

 
Oil painting by Justin Williams. Baba Desi, a wizard, stares at a goblet, wearing a coat covered in faces.

Justin Williams
The Belgrave wizard-Baba Desi (2024)
Acrylic, oil and raw pigment on canvas
48 x 36 in (121.9 x 91.4 cm)

 

MOHAMMADI: Do you consider yourself a figure within this sort of mythology of the ordinary that you're creating in your work? Or are you an outside spectator looking in? What's your relationship to it? 

WILLIAMS: I feel like the ones that are more successful, it's like I'm a spectator. Sometimes I know the story, but I always want it to feel like this moment when something weird's happening at a park or a friend's house. It's like, you know what's going on, and you kind of walk past, but you can be drawn in, or you can not go into it, but you know you want to find out about it later. I like those ones where it's this banal jumping off point. And sometimes, when it's to do with stories, as opposed to things that I've experienced, they're really interesting. It's a lot of things through my grandma and her side through Alexandria, [Egypt] and the stories that just seem so normal, the way she says this shit. I made this painting of her, because she got bitten by a scorpion. There's two different types of scorpions. One will kill you and one won't. And she's like, “Oh, we made the nanny suck the poison out of the bite to make sure because it could have killed me or not killed me until the Bedouin doctors arrived.” And I'm like, “Fuck. You just put this poor lady's life in danger, and you got bit by a scorpion, which is crazy for me anyway.” But the way my mind is interpreting that is through a painting, and I've made that painting a couple of different times because I want to think of what my [grandma] Norma was thinking. Also, the experience of this probably 20-year-old lady that's not getting paid that well, sucking poison out of this young girl. Everyone was okay, and it's all fine, but it's this weird magical world.

MOHAMMADI: You've said that your grandparents’ migration from Egypt wasn't really discussed in your family, and it's a very prominent theme in your work. I was curious if the tension between your connection to that culture and your familial distance from that heritage has informed your work?

WILLIAMS: I've wanted to go and do residencies there [in Egypt], but you know when you listen to a song, say you're going through a gnarly breakup and there's a particular song that carries you through it, and you know that in ten years when you listen to it, you're going to think of Simon or some shit? It's precious. You won't put it on all the time. I want to be ready when I go to Egypt and spend time because I'm not a holiday painter either. You’ve got to understand, too, Australia in general, and especially where I was from, is an ancient civilization mixed with a really young culture. If you don't become a builder or a plumber, love surfing and football … it's just happy and dumb in a fucked up way. And I hated football, all that shit, so much that I really thought there was something wrong with me. And then, you mix in my mum's side, going to primary school with a fucking bowl of tabouli and some falafels, I'm like, Fuck that. Give me white bread and a sandwich so no one thinks I'm weird. My dad's side's full of Irish convicts. That’s where the name Williams comes from. And so, I was able to fit in really well with a group of normal Australian people, but secretly, I'm like, Fuck, I love art, and I want to know about Matisse. So, I think being an observer, an outsider, in these kinds of situations, is overall what I feel the work's about.  

MOHAMMADI: What does it mean to be an outsider? 

WILLIAMS: I think everyone is in a certain aspect of the word, but it's like, who fights? You feel more comfortable if you fit into a culture. It makes things seem right. So, if you're in between, or you're listening to what you know is actually legit to yourself, it's a weird friction. For a long time, I felt like I was pretending. Now I'm awkward and the paintings feel awkward and I'm okay with that. If you're at a dinner party or whatever, the people that are cool and boring, they won't really gravitate to the weird, overweight accountant-looking dude or whatever. But that's the guy you want to talk to. He's the best. I'm really fascinated by authenticity, even if it's wrong and misguided. You know, when you've got some cool people coming over, so you're not going to put on the music that you're actually listening to? I want to put on the music that I actually listen to and be pathetic. That's the feeling that I want. And that's okay.

MOHAMMADI: How does this outsider status or culture inform the creation of the fictional communities and moments of togetherness that take center stage in your work? 

WILLIAMS: It goes back to trusting in the work. It's like collage in a way. So, it might be two stories. A good example is one of the paintings, This trap I lay for you, about this guy, Neil. I used to cut up firewood for these bed and breakfast type things in this town called Sassafrass, which is a bit bougie in the hills for glamping kind of couples. Neil was the coolest looking dude. He had this big, massive beard, and this huge goat, which was kind of weird in this area. One day, I was dropping his firewood off, and he's out front, holding an Angora goat. It's this red color and it was dead. Its neck was sagging, and he's bawling out, crying. I was like, "Oh, you okay?" He was like, "Fucking dead. It's dead." The goat had eaten an old gasoline can. He’d had this goat for a really long time. I was like, “Oh, that's really sad. I'm sorry about your goat.” And he's like, “No, you don't understand. It was my late wife's goat. The goat's dead. My brother's dead.” So, I went over there thinking, I'll listen to the bullshit and whatever. But it fucking broke me because he was totally in love with this lady. The way he described it was this beautiful romance. They had an antique shop, which was why his house and backyard was just filled with shit. She died of cancer. The goat was hers because she wanted to make jumpers out of it. It was just this real sense of loss. That was the last straw, this dumb goat that he didn't even like. He hated the fucking goat. But it was a really sad, beautiful moment. I felt like I'd gone into a painting in a way, and he'd given me a gift in that sorrow too. I made that painting a lot of times. So I'll think, I'm going to make that painting from the perspective of Neil. And then aesthetically, it just comes down to something that looks better than something else. I'll have to get rid of Neil, and then another figure that’s in there might look like my dad. And then, the story is suddenly about two random stories coming together that don't mix. They don't make sense. But for me, I know exactly what's going on.

Oil painting by Justin Williams of a man digging in front of a cabin.

Justin Williams
This trap I lay for you (2024)
Acrylic, oil and raw pigment on canvas
76.5 x 86.75 in (194.3 x 220.3 cm)

MOHAMMADI:  I was interested in the prominence of nature in your work because you're a portrait artist and people are the focus of your work. But even your indoor pieces have these little lush pockets of flora and often a dog or a horse, and I was curious about what these natural motifs represent for you. 

WILLIAMS: Most of the work is from where I grew up. When people think of Australia, they'll think of beaches or desert, but where I'm from was prehistoric looking, in a way, and almost more indicative of a European forest. You've got these really old ferns. And my dad's a landscape gardener too, and he's like Google. You can be like, "What the fuck's this plant?" He'd be like, "It's a Pacificus Metallicus. It originates from South Africa and the Roman gypsies brought it in through the desert.” And all this kind of shit that you don't need to know. So, the plant-based stuff is pretty much where I'm from. And being in Santa Fe, the landscape is very different here. Sometimes I'll bring in some of that kind of stuff. Again, it's that collage type of thing. My cameras are filled with really boring things like a fence and a little path. I'll use these little things for reference, but I don't want too much information either. I like to give myself a little bit of an idea of how to do stuff and then not print them off really big and know how to fucking make it work. The shadows are all wrong. They're things that are not meant to work. It helps convey awkwardness within the work. But yeah, a lot of the plants just come from where I'm from. And growing up, too, [my grandparents], they're the first people I'd ever known that had indoor plants. I thought it was crazy. Plants inside the house! It blew my mind. I mean, now it's really normal, but that ’90s thing for Dad was potpourri and dried shit. So, these lush green things were like an art class and over the top. I fucking love it. Mum would be like, “Ah, it's disgusting. Trying to fit in.” 

MOHAMMADI: What role does your ancestry play in your life? Are ancestors guides, reservoirs of material, inspirations, missing persons?

WILLIAMS: As I got older I was like, Fuck, that's pathetic. I should have been embracing this shit and finding out more. It's been a real race for me. Now [my grandma] Norma's ninety-eight. She hasn't really got long to go, and she doesn't really make that much sense anymore. So, I'm just really trying to get as much information from her, and Mum as well, but Mum's like, “No, we're Australian.” That's it. Within my family too, Mum's like, “I don't know where this art shit came from.” It's apologetic almost. But I've accepted that's what I'm doing, and they've accepted, “Okay, if we don't hear from Justin for three months, that's fine.” But I think opening that door—because I was already painting and drawing and doing a lot of things before I really wanted to know where it came from—it helps me accept that artistic side of why I'm interested in these ideas. And because art wasn't really a thing. They just would have a really beautiful ceramic dish that they used for something. It has to be over the top and lavish and beautiful. And so, I liked these little objects, like a lamp with a camel attached to it or some shit. It's tacky and pitch almost, but every object had a weird, over-the-top kind of thing. It stood out a lot more because you're in this beige, suburban, claustrophobic environment. So you can tell, Oh, fuck, that's not from here. You can't get that down at 7-Eleven. That's from somewhere else. So I think it helped me to be like, Okay, it's in my blood, and I really want to make things. 

MOHAMMADI: I wanted to dig into the phrase ‘displaced timeline’ in your bio. In the press release, Synonym was “aiming to transcend sequential timelines.” Could you elaborate on the relationship to time in your work?

WILLIAMS: I think that touches on that collage aspect that I was talking about before. A good example would be, I made this painting last year. I was walking the dog to the dog park, and I had this moment. There's this red fence and there's snow everywhere. And I feel like a newborn giraffe walking in the snow. I'm also like, “Whoa, snow.” All the time. Jade's like, “Who cares? It's annoying.” But I had this moment of me walking through the snow, thinking about Oswaldo, my grandpa. He died never seeing snow. Oswaldo Died Never Seeing Snow was the title of the painting. I painted this big red fence with the snow, and then I painted my grandpa on the horse in the snow because it's like these two timelines. This guy's dead, long gone, and he would have never experienced snow because he came from Alexandria to Australia. He would have never had this human experience that I'm having right now. And the horse, because he was similar to the guy with the goat. That's why I think I really sort of meshed with that story, because he had a horse in a tiny backyard in Melbourne. He was like, "Well, fuck. I can have a horse. We could have him in Alexandria. I want to have a horse.” He'd walk his horse around. The council came in and made him get rid of it. I just like the idea of him in my timeline, the present time, walking past this thing.

Synonym is on view through March 9th at Roberts Projects LA, 442 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles.

Transmundane Economies: An Interview Of Theodoulos Polyviou By Carlos Kong

 
 

interview by Carlos Kong
portraits by Burak Isseven
styling by Hakan Solak (all looks GmbH)

Theodoulos Polyviou is an artist whose practice explores the multilayered spaces where queerness, spirituality, and cultural heritage overlap across physical and digital worlds. Often utilizing virtual reality (VR) technology, Theo’s work also features architectural and sculptural elements, text, and sound, resulting in installations that are at once intellectually deep and sensuous to experience. He has participated in numerous exhibitions and residencies throughout Europe, and has a forthcoming project in Lecce, Italy, later this year. I met Theo on the occasion of his recent exhibition Transmundane Economies at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, where he has pursued a long-term artist residency. As an art critic, I’m usually hesitant and skeptical regarding the experience of art in virtual reality. But I found how Theo uses VR in Transmundane Economies to construct a “ritual space” that conjoins queerness, religion, and Cypriot cultural heritage to be profound and compelling. So I’ve met with him again to find out more.

CARLOS KONG: How would you describe yourself? Who is the real Theo?!

THEODOULOS POLYVIOU: I am inherently lost, or maybe by choice—I don’t know. But for me, being lost allows me to dig into subversive and irrational ways of navigating life, and this informs my practice. It gives me the freedom to partake in rituals of collective disorientation and becoming.


KONG: We met at your recent exhibition Transmundane Economies at Künstlerhaus, Bethanien in Berlin, where you’ve been an artist-in-residence since December 2020. Tell us a bit about your show.

POLYVIOU: My latest exhibition is one of many chapters that constitute Transmundane Economies, an ongoing project that deals with Cypriot cultural heritage in relation to virtual reality. It explores the complexity of immersive media—its experiential, epistemic, social, and economic dimensions—in relation to cultural, historical, and educational practices. I investigate how media-augmented renderings of history encounter the physical premises of museums and institutions. The figurations between cultural heritage and virtual reality generate information through their clashes and compatibilities.

 
 

KONG: In Transmundane Economies, you use virtual reality (VR) to digitally reconstruct Bellapais Abbey, the ruin of a 13th-century monastery in present-day Northern Cyprus. What drew you to this site?

POLYVIOU: Bellapais Abbey is a relic of many lives. Following the different colonial periods of Cyprus, the monastery went through various architectural and cultural changes, which continually altered its organization and operation. Transmundane Economies takes Bellapais Abbey as a site of inquiry. In collaboration with the architect Dakis Panayiotou, we’ve recreated part of the monastery using virtual reality and transposed it within the premises of Künstlerhaus Bethanien, extending its long-lasting and shape-shifting history. By immersing physical bodies in our virtually-invented trajectories, the project proposes alternative ways of inhabiting the monastery’s ruins. The project’s virtual orientation system disrupts the traces of previous ways of navigating the site left behind by former colonial interventions.

KONG: In both your latest exhibition and throughout your practice, you’ve recreated specific architectures in virtual reality. How have you come to use VR, and what are its advantages?

POLYVIOU: VR allows me to create spaces of ephemeral nature. Using VR, I construct temporary spaces, free from usual structures. I think of them as ludic social spaces or as secular chapels. They are nonetheless reminiscent of actual chapels I’ve seen in Cyprus, which connect segregated communities and towns of deregulated planning on the island. The psychological dimensions of the spaces I create become ‘materialized’ through VR, and the immersive experiences of VR are a participatory process. In doing so, VR allows me to extrapolate how the practices and ceremonial expressions born in my work could potentially acquire social meaning in the future.

KONG: When I experienced your exhibition Transmundane Economies, I couldn’t help but think of the act of queer cruising—the back-and-forth energy of potential erotic encounters—as I circled through the dim corners of Bellapais Abbey in virtual reality. Some would view queer spaces as the opposite of religious spaces, but you’ve mentioned to me that both are structured by rituals. What interests you most about “ritual spaces”? How are queerness, religion, and cultural heritage connected in the context of Cyprus and within your work?

POLYVIOU: Indeed, my work addresses spaces of ritual, but it departs from museological approaches to religion that are bound to material objects. Instead, I use virtual reality to address the limits of storing religious objects within museums, opening new potentials for spirituality to be designed and experienced in the digital age. I’m most interested in ritualized performances as a social strategy; the construction of memory and space through both queer rituals like cruising, as well as religious rituals; and the emergence of new social identities and queer spaces through digital collectivity. The new identities produced in ritual spaces provide access to history, ancestry, and spirituality in ways that challenge the distribution of material wealth and the status of borders and territories. With regards to queerness and religion, institutionalized religion has had a strong influence on the political affairs of Cyprus by instrumentalizing a sense of national collectivity. The queer community on the whole island is not only subjected to marginalization based on their sexuality but also due to number of processes of identity formation and discrimination. My work is an offer to discuss mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, and to consider how any place can transcend its own physicality to escape its embodied, ideological power.

 
 

KONG: Many of your works are made through collaboration. You produced Transmundane Economies with the architect Dakis Panayiotou, who you have been collaborating with since 2018 and with whom you contributed work to the Cyprus Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennial in 2021 as part of the group exhibition anachoresis: upon inhabiting distance. How do you work with your collaborators?

POLYVIOU: My work is of a collaborative nature indeed. Amalgamating different voices in my practice removes the focus from individual creativity and provides an opportunity to devise a ‘hybridic’ mode of production. I employ processes of dialogue and collaboration across different disciplines, including spatial design, architecture, sound, and even scent-making. My long-lasting friendship with Dakis Panayiotou has stretched out a collaboration that has traversed projects and residencies over the past four years. I believe the two of us find harmony in contradiction. Our differences complement each other and our collaborations become mechanisms to explore the potential dynamics of collective failure. I’m also interested in engaging with open forms of audience participation. This too is a form of collaboration, crucial to the completion of the work. The process of consciously involving visitors transmutes the exhibition space into a place of ritual, where they can connect with the transcendental world in a process of self-identification as spiritual beings.

KONG: You will soon be an artist-in-residence at Kora Contemporary Arts Center in Lecce, Italy. What will you be working on there? What’s next for you?

POLYVIOU: I was invited for an artist residency at Kora Contemporary Arts Center in Lecce, Italy, where I’ll be working site-specifically during April and May in Il Palazzo Baronale de Gualtieris, a 13th - century castle in the town Castrignano de’ Greci. The work will be then presented as part of a group show running from July 2022 through June 2023. From May 10-14, 2022, Akademie Schloss Solitude will organize the festival “Fragile Solidarity/Fragile Connections,” where I’ll give a talk in conversation with writer Jazmina Figueora. I’ll also be premiering a video on Kunst-tv, curated by Daniela Arriado and Vanina Saracino later this spring. More to come after September, but I can’t disclose the specifics :)

Transmundane Economies, Theodoulos Polyviou and Dakis Panayiotou, Künstlerhaus Bethanien.

longsleeve: Theo’s own, trousers & boots: GmbH

It's Not About Me: A Conversation Between Photographer Greg Gorman and Patricia Lanza

 

Andy Warhol, Los Angeles, 1986, copyright Greg Gorman

 

“For me a photograph is most successful when it doesn’t answer all the questions and it leaves something to be desired. I like each picture that I take to be a testament to the individual character of my subject.”–Gorman

Greg Gorman is an iconic Hollywood photographer and master of portraiture. Over his fifty-year career, he has photographed the most recognizable faces from the entertainment industry and music world. This retrospective book, It’s Not About Me, published by teNues, showcases many images never before published, and is a tribute to his long successful career of photographing the famous and the notorious with a distinctive approach and style. From Kirk Douglas, Eartha Kitt, Robert Redford, Marlon Brando, Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, and Al Pacino to Viggo Mortensen, Diane Lane, Iggy Pop, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, and Liza Minnelli, as well as Mark Wahlberg, Halle Berry, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sharon Stone, Michael Jackson, Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro and Marina Abramović – to name just a few

Patricia Lanza: This will be your 12th book publication. What was the impetus for making this retrospective book, It’s Not About Me.?

Greg Gorman: I felt that I had a lot of work that had never really been explored. I think one of the interesting things, being seventy-one, and having shot portraits for the better part of 50 years, is going back and looking at the work with a different eye, a different point of view. I think it's been quite challenging looking at work that I may have dismissed many years ago and finding pictures that I wouldn't expect. What I was looking for was a comprehensive overview of my career, revisiting and publishing pictures that have never been seen before, including color imagery for the first time.

Lanza: What is the time period for this book and how many images did you edit from your archive?

Gorman: The book covers 50 years of my career. It took me three and a half years to create the book. I did a solid year of editing. I'm an intense person when I start on something- I go full tilt. I had 160 large boxes in cold storage where I probably belonged, and I would bring them home one or two at a time. I set up an editing bay at my desk in my bedroom where I have a beautiful view overlooking the city. I didn’t want to edit in my office. I moved everything upstairs with a light box, slide pages, contact sheets and a grease pencil- something the younger generation are probably not familiar with. I spent the better part of a year working feverishly. When I was in town, I was definitely editing.

Lanza: What was the editing process? How many images did you review?

Gorman: Thousands upon thousands of images at the very least! I narrowed it down to roughly a thousand images; scanning the balance of what I didn't have already scanned That was the film, just looking at my analogue work, not even any of my digital work, which began around the year 2000. For the film work, I settled on about a thousand pictures. I edited for a solid year; taking the next year off thinking about where I wanted to go with this project.

So it was about three and a half years, almost four years before the publication of the book. I really took my time with it. Then it became a question of which images made sense. The irony was that much of the early work showed me how my career had evolved. I reviewed a lot of the early work and regrettably saw a lot of pictures of major players which were not lit in the style for which I became known , however that is the evolution of an artist’s work.

My style began to change around the time of my shoot with Tom Waits in the late 1970’s. My signature style focused more on the relationship between my highlights and shadows. Thanks to my brilliant art director, Gary Johns, we were able to incorporate some of the overly lit early works into creative, interesting photographs by positioning and cropping . He has been a friend of mine since the seventies. He's done a lot of my books, including the campaign for l.a.Eyeworks. 

Lanza: Your book has many portrait pairings. How did you arrive at this?

Gorman: That's the genius again of Gary Johns. I think that he did such a beautiful job editing and of putting pictures together.

In fact, sometimes from a humorous point of view, sometimes from a logistical point of view they paired well together. But I think the pairings make our book kind of fun. Normally you would not see them together, like pairing Barry White and Betty White for example. However many of the portrait pairings have meaning and poignancy. Some of the portraits needed to stand on their own on- deserving a double page.

Lanza: What are some of the most defining moments in your career? What would you say were the big breaks?

Gorman: Certainly early on, getting the likes of Dustin Hoffman on the movie, Tootsie, as the special photographer, was a big break. Barbra Streisand calling me up one day when she was recast in a film called All Night Long at Universal. Knowing that I was the special photographer on set, she wanted to know how I was planning on photographing her. The sign of a true professional. Having these big names in my portfolio early on in my career certainly didn’t hurt. Having David Bowie and Bette Midler, by my side added more credibility as well.

They thought, Oh he's shooting David Bowie… he must be a pretty damn good photographer. I was just lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time. And certainly a big defining moment in my career. In another arena, my editorial days with Interview Magazine, was a big plus . I think that was a breakout for a lot of photographers that were working around that time. During the period of Robert

Hayes, as the editor in chief of Interview, this was a significant moment. Another defining moment in showcasing my signature lighting style, was the l.a.Eyeworks works campaign. .

For the l.a.Eyeworks campaign I created some of my most iconic portraits. And for sure, my most famous picture of Andy Warhol. He called me up one day after signing a deal with Ford models and asked me if he would be a good candidate for one of their advertisements, since the adverts appeared monthly in Interview Magazine. Shooting the campaign became a challenge for me because this was before celebrities realized the value of a personal endorsement. 

 

David Bowie, Los Angeles, 1987, copyright Greg Gorman

 

Lanza: You have degrees in photojournalism and fine art cinematography. When did your work evolve to portraiture?

Gorman: I have an undergraduate degree in photojournalism and a Master of Fine Arts in filmmaking from the University of Southern California.

I started my career in photography when I borrowed a friend’s camera to shoot  a Jimi Hendrix concert. I fell in love with photography and enrolled in a course at the University of Kansas. The only photography course they offered was a course in Photojournalism. My passion has always been people. I went through the School of Photojournalism at K.U., but then moved to California to finish my degree in film. However, when I graduated from film school, I realized that I would enjoy a career more in still photography than as a film maker in the movie business. I always cherished more that one on one relationship with people.

 Lanza: How did your education in cinematography or filmmaking affect the development of your still photographic style? 

Gorman: That's a great question. And you know, no one's ever really asked me that during an interview. My career in lighting has come full circle. And the answer is when I got out of film school I suddenly didn't have the money to be able to afford buying strobes (electronic flash). So when I first started shooting I used, one K quartz lights and two K quartz soft boxes.

I started out with those continuous lights, but once my career took off, I realized that I needed more power to capture my imagery. I turned to electronic flash which I used for most of my career. You know, I was shooting a lot, and I eventually bought a Six K HMI Arri light, with a ballast for a very modest price of $30,000. It was very heavy and on a huge stand.. So today I've come full circle, and I shoot with LED Rotolights, including the new Titan X2, my favorite light. I like it because not only are the skin tones stunning, but there is enough power to back it up.

In 2000, I started shooting digital. I couldn't believe how well digital saw light in low luminance. BUT you have to understand that at the beginning of digital, I was still shooting with a Hasselblad because digital cameras, were represented by a three–megapixel camera. I turned to digital, and shot with the Canon EOS 35mm cameras, when the file size became larger and the technology became more sophisticated.

Lanza: What is happening with you now, having this long career in photography?

Gorman: In the last nine years, my passion for shooting commercial assignments started to diminish. I have been focusing more on teaching and education. However, just recently my excitement for shooting re-emerged. Not being a fan of medium format since the Hasselblad days ,I always preferred the 35mm digital cameras. 35mm was always a good fit because of how I shoot, with a little bit more spontaneity, and with a high ISO, which you need with the LED lighting. The higher ISO gives you a more film–like quality. Then I started watching NOBECHI Creative Live series online, of which I am a lecturer. I heard about the medium format Fuji GFX100, a 100–megapixel camera. A week ago I was sent the camera to try out. I printed and read the 350–page manual. Justin Stailey of Fuji said that I was probably the first person he knew, that ever read a camera manual. When you have a multitude of choices and settings, I thought it best to read the manual and understand how the camera works before starting to shoot.

Frankly when I started shooting with this camera, I was blown away. The camera, which looks imposing because of its size was not heavy, and with all the controls at your fingertips it was a great match for me! The Fuji lenses are great. I am very excited, as I have a couple of special projects in mind with big prints and back to my classic black and white style. AGAIN, I have come full circle with my camera of choice and gone back to shooting medium format with the Fuji GFX 100 and the Rotolight TITAN X2 by my side! The perfect combination for studio portraiture!!

Lanza: Of all the famous people that are in the book, It’s Not About Me. Who was the most surprising in a photo session? What was one of the most interesting stories?

Gorman: Certainly meeting David Bowie was a big moment. Of course I was anxiety ridden because he was such a hero of mine. He possessed a wicked sense of humor and consequently was fun on set.

Bowie was so smart and sophisticated. He basically knew that photography was a necessary evil as part of the marketing program. When Bowie would have a project coming out, he would call, and we would shoot for two or three days. We made sure we covered all the magazines and press media releases, to help him avoid other photo sessions with other photographers.

Those times have really changed. For example, I shot Tom Waits, for the first time for an album cover for three days in the late 1970’s. I'd start at about seven or eight o'clock in the morning picking him up at the Tropicana Hotel on Santa Monica Blvd. We often shot till midnight–something you would never see today. The last time I shot Tom Waits was well over 10 years ago. He gave me 30 minutes at a Chinese restaurant in Santa Rosa. I took him  out back where there was a railroad track to get the pictures for the required pages for the London Sunday Times. Today with digital, everything's a rush. In some ways, digital has been fantastic, but in other ways, it's been a demise because everybody knows it can happen as quickly as we speak.

Lanza: Let's talk about the book what is happening this year in that regard?

Gorman: The book, published by teNeus, It’s Not About Me, is coming out in July in Europe and August in the States. I have a show coming up this fall with the Fahey/Klein gallery – the actual dates are dependent on the current situation. Most of my European dates orchestrated by Anke Degenhard have been put on hold until we know better the current state of affairs. However my press for the book has been diligently moving forward thanks to my brilliant Press Agent Nadine Dinter. Many of the photographs in this book, stem from original assignments, advertising campaigns, personal shoots and work associated with the motion picture industry.

Often after these assignments, we would separately make our own set of pictures. Our more private moments. Most of the color and black and white images featured in this publication came from that body of work. I put all my energy into the talent and tried to take a back seat, putting their imagery front and center and thus, the title, ‘It’s Not About Me’.

Throughout Greg Gorman’s star-studded portfolio entitled, It's Not About Me, you'll find the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp at the beginning of their careers, as well as the iconic posters Gorman created for films such as Scarface and Tootsie, record covers for David Bowie, and magazine covers for Andy Warhol. Foreword by Sir Elton John. Afterword by John Waters. Preorder here.

Patricia Lanza began her career at the National Geographic Society — first as a photo researcher, then as a photography editor, followed by eight years as a contract photographer. She began working for the Annenberg Foundation in 2005, researching an idea and writing an initiative on the uses of photography. In 2009, the Annenberg Space for Photography opened. As the Director of Talent & Content, Lanza is responsible for creating and carrying out Wallis Annenberg’s vision through themed programming and photographic exhibitions.

 
Elizabeth Taylor, Los Angeles, 1989, copyright Greg Gorman

Elizabeth Taylor, Los Angeles, 1989, copyright Greg Gorman

 

Geneva Jacuzzi Directs Romy's New Music Video For "Normal Day"

interview by Summer Bowie

Touching yourself with the same fingers you use to text might be the new double dipping. We don’t have to talk about it, but we can assume it’s happening, and who wants to be the uptight straight guy at the queer party? Speaking of queer parties, did you see the new ROMY music video directed by Geneva Jacuzzi? It’s a delicious dalliance of solicitous sex—one where the Avon lady calls, and there’s more than one lonely woman on the block in need of new rouge. In the following conversation, I had the chance to get ROMY and Geneva Jacuzzi together to discuss their early roots as artists and songwriters, their serendipitous collaboration for this video, and the significance of LA’s queer underground scene.

AUTRE: On writing your first song.

ROMY: I think I was 14 when I wrote my first proper song. I recorded it onto a 4-track that I got around that time. It was just me and an acoustic guitar. The song was about being heartbroken by a friend. It was sad and earnest. All my songs around then were. I still remember this line from it: 'the puzzle's ruined cuz it doesn't fit/we're missing the last piece, but I stole it." Not a bad line for a 14-year-old.

JACUZZI: Mine was 4-track too, but I was a late bloomer at 20 or 21. I don't think the first songs had lyrics. They were these weird instrumentals and they were very silly little dance-y ditties that could maybe possibly, but probably not really sound anything like early Depeche Mode.

ROMY: That sounds sweet. Early Depeche Mode! My first songs were more lo-fi punk/indy rock. It was '95, so it was the golden era for that stuff. But, I started making multi-layered synth compositions, no lyrics, on a Kawai K5000 shortly thereafter. I think later in life, when I get old, I'll just make instrumental music.

AUTRE: How did the Geneva x ROMY collaboration come about?

ROMY: I knew I wanted to make a video for this song, and that I wanted to work with you, eventually. I'm a huge fan of your music, your performance art and your videos, and I thought you'd be perfect for this song. I love getting to work with people whose work I love. I let directors have full reign over directing my videos. I like to be directed within my own work. It lets me curl and crawl into corners and crevices of a song that I wouldn't otherwise get to do. You are such a great director! As you put it, you direct like Ed Wood would!

JACUZZI: The entire video popped into my head immediately after hearing it. When that happens, I see it as a green light. Meant to be. I've had people send me songs and no matter how much I like the person or the music, if I don't get the visual flood, I can't take on the project. Sure enough, everything fell into place. It was so much fun. The video basically made itself.

ROMY: I had just rewatched Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23, que du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles that week, which was uncanny, and the video has tinges of that, mixed with Cronenberg. And you made it all happen in no time, with the best crew. All girls. Your sister Courtney, and Christina Acevedo, and it was all just so effortless and easy.

AUTRE: What was the genesis of your band agender?

ROMY: I started agender in Melbourne in 2013. I wrote, recorded, mixed and played all the instruments on the first agender record, self (en)titled in 2013. I then formed a band so I could play the songs live. It was a 3-piece band in the early stages. Always all-girls only. The first record was super lo-fi, unhinged punk. We made a record, Fixations in 2014. We toured, I moved to LA, and decided to focus on my solo project for the next couple of years. I then reassembled a new LA incarnation of the band. We're a 4-piece now. I love my band. I love this project. I need punk rock in my life. It's a nice balance to my solo project. We have a record coming out this Spring/Summer.

AUTRE: Art institutions vs. queer underground scene.

ROMY: They both serve a purpose. Geneva, you probably know how to answer this better than me, because I don't deal with the art world so much, but obviously you have a bigger platform working in bigger institutions. I think it's important for the underground to leak out into the mainstream world, for our work to be seen and our voices to be heard by bigger audiences. That's how you change the world—from within the system.

JACUZZI: I have worked with several art institutions, but aside from having to deal with fire marshals, budgets and a gazillion emails, it's not much different than playing a warehouse party. It's always a shit show. I'm kidding. As far as the the scene goes, I think of it as an LA thing. This city is a really cool place to be right now and it's so much easier to cross over. Things are a little more laid back and open so art, music, video, performance, fashion, people...they all kind melt into each other.

ROMY: I agree. It's a very exciting time to be in LA. There's something special happening here, art-wise. Magical people and magical energy.

AUTRE: What defines LA’s queer party scene?

ROMY: There's a lot going on in the LA queer party scene. There are warehouse parties, after hours parties, big parties in decent-sized venues, parties in small bars. Each party has its own brand and sound. I think most of the time you can be sure to find good queer DJs. Being a party promoter and running parties in the LA queer scene, I can say that making sure parties are all-inclusive, represent an array of queer artists and that the space is safe, are all the top priorities.

JACUZZI: I've been lucky enough to perform at some incredible queer parties over the years, and wow! So fun!! As far as what "defines" LA's queer party scene? I don't know. Fabulous. Better dance music. [laughs]

ROMY: That's true. Better dance music for sure. To be honest, I barely go out to straight bars and parties, so queer ones are all I know. But on the odd occasion that I'm out at a straight night or in a straight space, I feel it immediately, which proves that it's still so important that queer spaces exist.

AUTRE: DIY vs. professional studio recording.

ROMY: DIY there's less pressure. DIY is just usually me, alone, recording everything, demo-ing things. There's a spirit to it that you can never recreate. And then, when I get into a proper studio, I want it to sound slicker and better but then I always end up missing something about the DIY spirit and energy. In which case, I usually do vocals in one take and it captures something, an urgent, raw, imperfect energy. And then, by the time I get into a proper studio, I overthink it too much. I feel more pressure to make something perfect. It's way more conscious and aware. I'm always trying to recreate something that the demo had. That original, organic, initial detonation.

JACUZZI: To be honest, I only prefer DIY because I get nervous writing and recording in front of other people. I'm very self conscious in that department. Hopefully I'll get over that one day.

AUTRE: Stage vs. studio.

ROMY: I like how stage exists in the moment. It's there and then it's gone. It evaporates. It’s impermanent. Where as in the studio, I'm aware that I'm recording something permanent; that exists as not just art, but artifact. The studio is painful, honestly. The stage sheds pain.

JACUZZI: I think the studio asks the question and the stage answers it.

ROMY: I love that. That's perfectly put.

AUTRE: On-stage persona vs. Off-stage persona.

ROMY: My on-stage persona is wild, it's my north-node in Leo. The Leo in my chart comes out on stage. My off-stage persona is my Virgo sun, Pisces rising. But I guess my on-stage persona is my Pisces rising too. But I feel like all the Leo in my chart comes out when I'm on stage. Something is unleashed, for sure. The on-stage Romy comes more from my unconscious self. Off-stage Romy is my conscious self.

JACUZZI: Wow! So similar. I'm a Leo, Venus and North node in Leo, and I swear, the only time that comes out is on stage. It's funny because people assume I'm outgoing and flamboyant and radical but my personal life is quite the opposite. I'm kind of a hermit. Don't go out much. Love all that cozy basic shit, ya know?

ROMY: You are very different in real life. A lot more quiet. The first time I saw you perform, it was jaw-dropping. You performed in a giant clear ball. You were like some goth punk queen in a crystal ball! I thought you'd be like Nina Hagen or something, more wild in real life. But you like hanging out with your bird in your room and don't go out much. An energy conservationist. Oh! And my Venus is in Leo too, which I love. I think it's a great placement. And it's very interesting to me that my North node, my life's purpose and direction, is in Leo, which means I'm meant to perform, and so are you, and we're demanding lovers who want to be adored!

AUTRE: Music videos in the post-MTV era.

ROMY: Do people have attention spans for videos anymore? I hope so. It seems like there aren't as many platforms for videos. It seems like the new music video is the fans' interpretation of a song. A fan dancing and lip-synching to a song. That's a new form of music video, I think. That's what Tik-tok is, isn't it? I miss the old world.

JACUZZI: I can't lie. I miss MTV in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I also admit that I'm one of those people who skims through a youtube video. I don't think it has anything to do with attention. It's choice. With MTV, you didn't really have much of a choice. You just watched it because it was MTV. A lot of those videos sucked too, but you love them now because they remind you of when videos were "new." I could talk about this all day but there's only one thing I know for sure: "Ashes to Ashes" is probably the best video ever made. It changed my life. So, I hope humans continue making music videos ‘til the end of time.

ROMY: True. “Ashes To Ashes” is such a great video. I miss the music video channels. Watching MTV, and RAGE, which is an Australian music video show that's still going to this day. You wanted to know what was coming on next. You had no control. It was a mixed bag. And not controlled by an algorithm. Someone was programming it! Also, I joke that the phrase used to be “15 minutes of fame,” now it's really “15 seconds of fame.” It's all about the 15-second instagram story. Who has 15 minutes of attention to give anyone!?

AUTRE: The timelessness of dancing vs. the relative youth of electronica.

ROMY: One day, electronic music will feel like it existed since the beginning of time. In fact, I think that for young millennials, dance music has always existed.

JACUZZI: I totally agree. It's funny. One of the first songs I wrote was a dance song called, "The Oldest Known Song." It's pretty much about the synesthesia of time and color, and fire, and dancing.

ROMY: Wow! I'd love to hear it. I think I feel some sense of synesthesia when I listen to Kraftwerk. It's like a whiff and clang of metal, strawberry, glitter, tar, cloud, twinkle, cog, carousel, greasy candy. The soundtrack to someone dancing through timelessness. Kraftwerk makes things like airports and train stations feel like they're alive and dancing.