Photo by Helmut Newton

I was pretty excited to go see Newton and I bought my hard-on along with me. But I lost that pretty quickly as I saw the amount of work he had done which depressed me in its vastness and the quality of his creativity, which was high. Also, still pictures of tits just aren’t that exciting sexually, nothing like a conceptual art action of a pair of tits.

• There was a really slow paced but really exciting video which showed you how he worked with models and he was exacting. He controlled everything. He took a long time to shoot and wore people down into not revealing themselves, but doing exactly what he wanted them to do.
• Idea: don’t let girl piss then take her photos. Even better if she ends up pissing on her clothes. Could be done with a man too. Might cause less controversy.
• There are earthquake indicators or something in all of the museum rooms in Germany.
• Nudity is only one topic. Desire is nigger but has he made it interesting for long enough. Many of his photos are very shallow and the overarching viewpoint is so schizo and so often so adjusted for the purpose of a magazine that he must me considered a minor artist.
• A beautiful girl knows that it is her job to be unattainable. A key apect, or foundational support of her beauty is unattainability. This makes me feel better about the past.
• His personality is disarming. ‘Forceful, but jolly.’ Extremely exacting. No fear. No restraint at all.
• Jodie Foster is the smartest person on earth. Her analysis of Newton is very good. But this is also why he took such a bad photograph of her. He likes simple, big, obvious, womanly, tits, hips, ass, thighs. She’s brains and it didn’t work.
• His wife is pretty awesome. Australian. She helped him a lot and documented his work. Edited his books.
• ‘He doesn’t hear anybody when he is working.’ So he doesn’t hear when someone is telling him he can’t do something. He just keeps on requesting it.
• Coolness is distance. A distance.
• He lived a very very comfortable Parisian life.
• Idea: take fashion photographs with a shit camera but great lighting.
• The bookstore downstairs at the museum was devoted to photography and very comprehensive. It was a little depressing to see s many photographers with books and I have nothing. Also how do you stand out amongst them. I know, by being different. But thinking differently. Most people think that same way. Do I need to isolate myself further?

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• helmut newton
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Posted 2 years ago

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.

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• helmut newton
• photographer

Posted 2 years ago

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