Helmut Newtown Interview with Frank Horvat (link)
Photo by Helmut Newton
Frank Horvat : I don’t know much about your life, but I remember the impression you made on me in the fifties, when we first met. You were a very regular guy, very disciplined. You did the work you were supposed to do, and you did it well. We used to hand jobs to each other, when one of us was too busy to accept them. Then, in the late sixties, you started something that was unmistakably your own, working with phantasies which had been taboo until that time and which were becoming less taboo. This became very successful, because sexual liberation was in, but also because you were treating the subject with a certain chic, that allowed you to get away with it where others wouldn’t. Then you had a heart attack, and this was a turning point. You decided that you didn’t have the time to please “them” any more, that from there on you would only please yourself. That was where you turned the tables : by pleasing only yourself you got more recognition and made more money than any commercial photographer would by trying to please his clients.
Helmut Newton : I am still very disciplined.
Frank Horvat : I know. Sometimes I think : “Here he photographs nude girls, but he could just as well photograph vintage cars or football games, he would do it with the same imagination and the same discipline”.
Helmut Newton : This is why I continue accepting commissions, even though economically I don’t have to. Because making money gives me a kick, but also because 1 think it’s important for me to have the discipline, to work for somebody within a given frame. At least from time to time.
Frank Horvat : But you also apply this discipline to your personal work.
Throughout, Newton sounds like a man who has gotten his way with the world. He is used to being childish and he knows that the world will accept it. That, in fact, the world has politely requested only his juvenilia. It is amusing, if a little bilious to see how the culture of selling can appropriate, protect, and encourage whatever it needs to survive. (Better than the torture chambers and perpetual civic anxiety and boredom of totalitarianism at least). It’s not particular as an organism in this regard.
There is a weak acidity in Newton that comes from being seduced then raped by that world. Amongst those who choose money, and who have real ambition, there is always this familiar regret. Like a persistent, scratchy sore throat.
It’s comforting however to see such honest, clear criticism that only two artists can do to each other. Real critics are real bad because most of their time is spent disguising their motives. Most of their efforts are wasted on trying to convince you that they are trying to do it for the betterment of the public. Trying to hide that everyone is essentially for and by themselves. Critics are inefficient. Someone who creates knows what’s filler, and knows what is new in the work, as he can see how it was put together. Only the very best critics can do that, and they usually started out as, or are, makers themselves (Szarkowski, James Woods, etc. etc.)
This is a healthy interview in the Nietzchean meaning of that word.
Click the link in the title.
Note: On a second reading of the interview, I’m not so sure anymore that he has a sore throat. ‘Because making money gives me a kick.’ Just because I don’t get that doesn’t mean he doesn’t.
Posted 2 years ago
