Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 5/26/1999
|
I think your reactions are precisely what JP wants. He uses large format, no photoshop and he's quite good technically, just don't let your kids see these images. I kinda chuckle at the lengths he must go to take these pics. I imagine him bribing the night-watchman at the morgue in Matamorros. Loading up a corpse, and driving through the desert under moonlight, wringing his hands in anticipation at the thought of hours behind the bone saw. Whew. I'll stop here. Too weird for fiction. To answer your question Rene, well virtues in photography no, a civic/social virtue maybe, because I'd hate to think what he might do if he didn't have an "outlet" for his "creativity". If you'd like to see more JP Witkin's work I think Contracultura has a web site gallery and Twin Palms is his publisher. How bout' "The Kiss" huh? a real scorcher! OK, I need to lie down now, I feel a little "woozy". Lack i jes' swallerd' mah' chewin' tahbackey' gguuullllpppp.
ps. Tom, remember when I said JP. needed to put out a scratch-n-sniff book? I was wrong!
|
|
|
|
steve
(K=1127) - Comment Date 5/26/1999
|
I've know Joel since he was a graduate student at the University of New Mexico and have watched his work evolve. He originally did fairly straight forward photographs with little manipulation. His style changed as his ideas, many drawn from classic art (e.g.Canova's Venus; Albrecht Durer's Rhinocerus), also changed. This led him to multiple printing, paste-ups, and creation of props, like the rhinocerus. Repulsion and fascination are exactly the feelings Joel is trying to elicate from the viewers as he seems to enjoy the dichotomy of the two feelings existing simultaneously. I call it the "car crash effect." It may be horrible but you just can't help looking at it. I have a friend who does work (builds special easels etc.) for Joel and trades the work for prints. Interestingly, although he has about 8 prints, none of them are framed or hanging on his walls. As he has said, "I like the prints, I just don't want to look at them every day."
|
|
|
|
Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 5/26/1999
|
Hey Steve, wow cool, you know him! What was he like in college? how did his work evolve? Did he keep a copy of "Catcher in the Rye" in his hip pocket? Did he spend more time at Vet Med building than the Student Union? He's always fascinated me, do you know of a good bio on him?
|
|
|
|
steve
(K=1127) - Comment Date 5/26/1999
|
Joel worked very hard during college and after he graduated. He was the head waiter at Al Montes restaurant during graduate school and for a few years after because he could work at night to generate money, and work on photos during the day. (He was also, perhaps, the best waiter I have ever had.) He used to work as a medical / forensic photographer prior to his "art career." Now, there are really two Joel's. There is "the artist Joel," and the "off-duty Joel." The artist Joel says and does things to create / perpetuate the "artist Joel personae" (the myth, the legend), while the off-duty Joel will joke about his work, what he has done, people's perception of him, and of his work, and what he is planning next. The off-duty Joel has a very keen sense of humor.
I find it interesting that he was very calculated in how he introduced his work to the public. For a long time, he could not get shown in the US so he went to Japan and Spain. Think about the countries, their history, and their views of art in relationship to Joel's work. He is huge in Spain. The government arts council (sort of like the NEA) has sponsored two nation-wide touring shows of his work. I have the "programs" from these exhibits and they are hard bound books about 85-100 pages in length with pictures of Joel's drawings that he does prior to the photos, duo-tone reproduced photos, and long art commentaries on the work. They seriously appreciate his work. (Jerry Lewis & the French somehow come to mind.)
After Spain, he became "discovered" in Germany (another interesting country / image link), and then Europe in general. Of course, the US market just had to have him after that. Sort of like Jimmy Hendrix going to England to become famous in the US.
Joel works 26 hours a day at being Joel Peter-Witkin and making photographs. In nearly 20 years, I've never talked with him when he wasn't planning a photograph, making arrangements for a trip to photograph something, planning an exhibition, working on an exhibition, or generating an edition of print. By the way, he works usually works in 4x5 using an Omega view camera or 6x7 using a Pentax. His favorite roll film is Verichrome Pan. How's that for trivia?
|
|
|
|
Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 5/26/1999
|
Wow, great insights into a not-so disturbed artist....invaluable info Steve! much grass jose'! We certainly aren't "short" on any dichotomies round' here!
|
|
|
|
tom meyer
(K=2752) - Comment Date 5/27/1999
|
Steve, your reference to the "car crash" syndrome made me thing of a movie that I saw, and liked a great deal, even though it was very hard to watch, like looking at J.P.Witkin photos. It's by Cronenburg and called "Crash", and deals with the psycho-sexual aspects of self awareness through violence, mutilation and sex. Okay, okay, Holly Hunter is in it and I'll watch anything she does.
I have a friend who collects Witkins work (he's yer classic head- shrunk physician-heal-thyself kind of psychiatrist). He's got two of Joel's prints hanging in his bedroom at the foot of his bed (yikes)...you can definately get a clue from that... one is the hermaphrodite.
I was at a large meeting of photo types several years ago when he came in, hot off the road from Arizona, and unveiled his latest aquisition, right behind me unwrapping an unframed print (big) of "Feast of Fools". So I turned around, having no idea what it was, and saw it for the first time from about 2 feet away, no glass...WHOA! Man it's gorgeous and bile inducing simultaneously, you can run through this huge gamut of emotions in about 3 seconds from jealousy to self loathing to fascination to "get that damn thing away from me!".
I think his work is very important in the history of photography, but I'd never hang it in my house, much less at the foot of my bed.
When I heard him speak at an art school here in town, I came away with the feeling (like you, trib) that without photography, he'd be J.Daimler with a peculiar refridgerator...so he's a good waiter, huh?...t
|
|
|
|
Jeff Spirer
(K=2523) - Comment Date 5/27/1999
|
Steve, your reference to the "car crash" syndrome made me thing of a movie that I saw, and liked a great deal, even though it was very hard to watch, like looking at J.P.Witkin photos. It's by Cronenburg and called "Crash", and deals with the psycho-sexual aspects of self awareness through violence, mutilation and sex.
Not that it's relevant to photography, but the book, by J.G. Ballard, is so much better than the movie...I'm a big Cronenburg fan, and thought he did a phenomenal job with Naked Lunch, but this one missed. The book is one of the sickest pieces of fiction ever written, and completely compelling. I think Witkin's work is interesting, but I don't get too moved by it. Technically it's spectacular, but that isn't enough to make it worth viewing a second time...
|
|
|
|
Nacio Brown
(K=124) - Comment Date 7/29/1999
|
J-PW illustrates the perils of MFAitis. The effort shows. The work is boring. njb
|
|
|
|
Arthur Gottschalk
(K=141) - Comment Date 3/8/2000
|
J-PW is one sick puppy. But he seems to be making a living. There must be a market for that stuff; it seems to fill some kind of need in more than a few people. But it's garbage.
|
|
|
|
Struan Gray
(K=1802) - Comment Date 3/9/2000
|
Interesting that Joel-Peter Witkin and Jan Soudek threads should surface simultaneously, since Soudek to me looks like Witkin with the arms still attached.
I was recently in Salt Lake City with the flu and, unable to throw myself at the scenery, spend an indulgent day in Barnes and Noble browsing the photography books. Some shock (the crappy printing in Arthus-Bertrand's 'Earth from Above') and revulsion (Wegman at coffee table size) but Joel-Peter wasn't so bad. I'm his still-lifes look unworldly because that's how he wants them to look, but that makes them less threatening than, say, the stamp-sized severed-head-on-a-table run by the Economist during the Rawandan atrocities.
|
|
|
|
Struan Gray
(K=1802) - Comment Date 3/9/2000
|
Ahem. That should read "I'm sure his still-lifes...." and "Rwanda"
|
|
|
|
dawn woolley
(K=15) - Comment Date 11/6/2000
|
More of a question than an answer,I am currently writing my disseratation on the use of transsexuals in photography as a tool for shock and sensation. How would you defend the photographs of witkin, if refered to as simply Victorian voyeurism?
|
|
|
|
René Piazentin
(K=15) - Comment Date 12/2/2000
|
The J-PW work is much more than morbid or grotesque. Transcending Velasquez, Bosch and other references, he touches our sense of humanity and mortality with a powerfull work, discuting life and death, religion, god, etc. He?s not a boy interested in "épater le bourgeois". He is a mature artist, with a solid formation and sensibility.
|
|
|
|
belle thomas
(K=107) - Comment Date 12/31/2000
|
i have only just discovered the work of joel-peter witkin... does anyone feel that his style has been imitated over music videos? i *get* him (or at least i think i may) but certainly would suffer horrendous night terrors if i were to walk in his shoes...
|
|
|
|
Jeff Carlisle
(K=47) - Comment Date 1/10/2001
|
To answer the above question- I saw the movie The Cell on DVD recently and couldn't help but wonder if J-PW has worked a huge influence over the set designers and costumers. The Movie also reminds me a great deal of Odd Nerdrum and John Santereaross (I know I mispelled his name.)
|
|
|
|
Dietz J. Smith
(K=15) - Comment Date 3/7/2001
|
To answer belle Thomas, Yes. Video's by Nine Inch Nails and tool come to mind initialy. If interested you can also find his influence in movies. In some of the scenes in the cell as mentioned by Jeff Carlisle, but a more direct influence is obviouse in the murder scenes in "Seven". A dark and disturbing movy precisley because it imitates J-PW.
|
|
|
|
Ali Stine
(K=15) - Comment Date 4/24/2001
|
I'm a student in the MFA poetry program at the University of Maryland, and am working on a piece about the Witkin photograph "Angel of Carrots." I saw it once as an undergrad, but haven't been able to find it since. I know this question doesn't answer the original question, for which I apologize, but I am too poor to purchase a book of his photographs. Might there be a place online where I could view "Angel of Carrots"? Thank you.
|
|
|
|
