Larry Clark Interview (with Jutta Koether) (link)
Photo by Larry Clark
I’ve always respected Larry Clark and although I’ve always liked his work, I’ve never loved it. I can see how good he is at being there, at feeling, at telling the story, and even visually, but his story really isn’t my story. Everything I feel when I look at his photographs I feel at a distance. Also, It’s unfortunate that because of how teenage drug culture has been appropriated by society as entertainment his photos have lost some of their impact. They shock, but in a predictable way. It’s not his fault.
This is a brilliant interview where you see the rawness of the man; how much he feels and how open and vulnerable he is. He reminds me of W. Eugene Smith. For sentimental work, I guess you need sentiment. I don’t mean that flippantly.
Clark: Yeah, absolutely. I just lock myself in the studio, basically. For a couple of years I didn’t come out. It’s all recluse and isolated, and it got pretty crazy. I had stuff all over all the walls, like a maniac. But I got so much pleasure out of it. It was like a happiness that I very seldom experienced. I used to just lie on the floor and look at the work and just be so happy and laugh like a maniac. And I’d wake up and I’d have no idea what anybody was going to think of this, because I didn’t know what other people were doing because I was working in a vacuum — just me. I wasn’t looking at art. I wasn’t not looking at anything.
I made a point not to look at anything because I was afraid that I’d be influenced. That’s a funny way to work. I find out that artists look at other people’s work and they get influenced, or they get ideas, or they get inspired. And now I look around a lot — in the last year I’ve been looking at art, looking at stuff — and I say to myself, “Oh, this is how they do it.”
This perfectly describes the often hilarious, and more often anxious, hateful time you have to spend with your work. Before you put it out there you are never sure if it’s any good. You can tell yourself as many times as you want that what matters is what you think about it. But there’s always the fear that it’s no good. That no one else will like it. That you’re just ‘playing around.’ This is especially the case at the very beginning, before anything has happened to you yet. I’m sure someone established would tell me to enjoy this time of virginity. Fuck you, show me the money.
On influence, he describes very well the two ways that you can go, to create from scratch, a painful, highly personal experience, or to build on what has come before. Of course no one does each of these exclusively. It’s always a mix. Although the from scratch end of the spectrum is what is most lauded in time. The derivative end of the scale has the benefit of being fashionable and so more quickly accepted, but also runs the risk of being banal in the long run. On that end, you never know whether what you’ve created is of real value, or just in vogue.
Clark: Yeah. I hated photography. I never liked photography that much. I always wished I was making films. Always wanted to be a filmmaker. The work was always structured that way, kind of like a film, narrative kind of thing. I always wished I could be a painter or a filmmaker, anything but a fucking photographer. I certainly didn’t want to be in a photography gallery. There is no way I would have shown this work in a photography gallery.
Funny.
Koether: Right.
Clark: You know, trying to …
Koether: It takes energy.
Clark: Just trying to, you know, get well.
Koether: [laughs]
Clark: I’m a sick person. I’m not a bad person. I’m a sick person, getting well and better.
Koether: I’m just curious because, you know, it’s a long time, when you think of it.
Clark: Mm-hmm, it’s a long time.
Koether: It’s a long … [laughs]
Clark: Long time.
[ … ]
Ouch. You can hear the echoes in that room. He doesn’t hide anything, even when he is hiding things. He does go on to explain later in the interview that because he has to get so into these situations, so intensely feel them, that it takes a long time to do the work. He also says later that he may have lost access (just by growing old) from his subject, by not being able to hang out with these ‘kids’ anymore.
Of course his kind of teen-idolesque behaviour was instantly copied and aped by a thousand photographers after him. This is something I could never do. This is something that he never did. I’m not interested in the world of a lost and corrupted adolescence like he is. I’m not interested in the drugs and the effects and the feelings of loosing oneself. I’m middle class, and my drug taking has been controlled, and I’m interested in Walter Kaufmann’s regeneration of Nietzche in the 40s as much as I’m interested in pussy, and getting close to street fights. I’m sure this in its own way is unique. I sure hope it is.
Click on the link in the title.
Posted 2 years ago
