REM sleep disorder

"In the tunnel," Tim Connor, All rights reserved.

More photos on my Flickr site.

Self Ps

"Alexander the Great," Tim Connor, All rights reserved


"A growing boy," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

Truppe Fledermaus and the Carnival at the End of the World

"Greenman," Kahn and Selesnick, All rights reserved

“Truppe Fledermaus & the Carnival at the End of the World,” at Yancey Richardson, might be described as a performance of the imagination. Concocted by two English-born, U.S. educated artists, Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick , the show creates just enough semi-plausible historical authenticity to soften up viewers for the artists’ outlandish – but not impossible – vision of the future.

Kahn and Selesnick have collaborated before – for the past 20 years in fact – creating fictitious histories from both the past and future (on both Earth and other planets) that combine impeccable pseudo-erudition with no-limits weirdness. I have to admit I’ve never seen anything quite like this work. The artists’ mastery of photography, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and creative writing is matched only by their showmen’s fervor to wow their audience. In fact, trying to think of comparisons, I could only come up with the Monty Python Flying Circus –likewise fervently theatrical, over-educated, British and willing to try anything.

These guys are having fun.

"Der Letztze Mann," Kahn and Selesnick, All rights reserved

The world conjured by this show is framed by an invented traveling theater of hustlers, freaks and spiritualists called “Truppe Fledermaus” (Bat Troupe). Next to the gallery entrance, an entire wall  is covered with posters and handbills advertising the Truppe’s strange offerings.  Stylistically, these ads -- with copy in German – refer to everything from German Expressionist cinema  -- “Ich bin Nosferatu” (I am the Vampyre) -- to fanciful medical charts – “Tod Frucht” (Death Fruit) – to a colorful, full-figured nude woman covered with roses that suggests P.T. Barnum via Manet  -- “Das Tatowierte Wunder” (The Tattooed Wonder).  

I’m not entirely sure why these ads are funny, but they made me laugh.  The artists’ decision to use the German language is part of it.  If you’re a linguistically unsophisticated American (like most of us) try booming out “Ich bin Nosferatu!” over and over in a small room and you’ll know why. This prejudice is unfortunate and probably worse than that (I remember my parents telling me about neighbors who refused to take Hitler seriously because his speeches on the radio made them laugh). But, here, as elsewhere in the show, Kahn and Selsenick seem determined to go with their guts. Funny is funny. I’m sure John Cleese would approve.

"Demon man," Kahn and Selesnick, All rights reserved

In the room with the prints are a few sculptures – created, we are told, from “…ceramic, wax, Styrofoam, paint, plaster, glass antlers and silicone caterpillars.” Like the posters, the sculptures suggest a new world in which genetic boundaries are exotically shifting. For instance, a bust of a top-hatted man mounted on a tripod is densely covered with pitch black feathers, as though he is morphing toward a new consciousness as a crow. By now,  it’s clear this theme will repeat throughout the show. Still, with the tangible three-dimensionality of the sculptures, the idea gains a special kind of fetishistic power.  I’m guessing many people wouldn’t want this Crow Man to spend the night in their bedroom.

The remainder of the show (five walls out of six) consists of photographs. Taken in both black and white and color with an 8 X 10 view camera, many of these are aesthetically superb (Kahn and Selesnick studied photography together at Washington University). Their technical control makes them wonderfully incongruous with the subject matter, which is primitive and truly bizarre.  It’s not clear if the Truppe Fledermausers themselves are taking part in the activities or simply witnessing them. “At the end of the world” I’m not sure it matters.

Human populations have collapsed. Individuals and small groups of humans make their way on foot, by hand-drawn primitive wagons and carts or in rough canoes, through a bleak, boggy, apparently drowning world of rampant vegetation and mutant creatures.  When they gather in groups it seems to be for the purpose of creating strange tableux or engaging in wild revels of unclear purpose.

Nearly everyone wears a mask. From Hieronymous Bosch alone, the artists have stolen bird beaked, owl-eared and wide-eyed grinning demon masks. Furry bat (fledermaus) masks are also popular and, in a pinch, simple Ku Klux Klan-style bags with cut-out eyeholes, pulled down over the face, will do.

It’s a wild, wild world.

Climate change and rising sea levels are clearly the subtext here, although the artists’ invented future has little in common with what we might expect from a real post-warming planet. Instead of huge ruins and the ubiquitous trash of billions (whether or not killed off by plagues) -- we get deserted swamps, bogs, mudflats, dunes, beaches, rocky outlooks and placid bodies of water.

Apparently, we are returning forward to a world of harsh threats and magical remedies. In this world even the most basic technologies of the past have been erased.  In response Nature Herself seems to be trying something new. Parts are somehow being swapped among humans, other mammals, birds, fish and plants to produce bizarre human-other and other-other hybrids. Among the shambling-bramble-plant-human mixes alone, for example,  we see Yew Man, Lichen Man, Seaweed Man and the more generic Greenman, who starred in an earlier Kahn and Selesnick show, “The Pavilion of the Greenman,” in 1997.

All this may not convince as dystopia, but it thoroughly seduces as pure imagination.

"Lady with antlers," Kahn and Selesnick, All rights reserved

I’ll end this review by describing two favorite pictures. Both represent what to me made this show so unusual  --  its willingness to go anywhere imagination might take it. We get jokes and parodies, horror and tragedy, winks and warnings, all blended into visual stories that range from dadaesque to heartwarming.

One: A young woman in Victorian dress is running away, across a drab, wintry field, holding up her petticoats.  From her piled-up hair two giant antlers rise against the sky. I can feel this woman’s distress. Suddenly, I realize it’s Jane Eyre fleeing in tears from Mr. Rochester.  I become a cynical English Lord in love. My legs are twitching to follow.  

"Leaf man painting Leaf man," Kahn and Selesnick, All rights reserved

Two:  Next to a curving river, Leaf Man, the artist, sights over his brush at the plein air portrait of his friend and subject, another Leaf Man. The two Leaf Men appear to be having a jolly chat. What a pleasant way to make art, they are saying.

Long live art! How do you say that in German?

This review also appears in The New York Photo Review.

Crossing Manhattan Bridge

"Crossing Manhattan Bridge," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

Fay Weldon -- an excerpt that made me laugh

From an essay in The NY Times Book Review: "Writers of a Certain Age," by British novelist Fay Weldon. Funny, sad and too true.

"Like the gap between rich and poor, the gap between young and old widens. The New Young increasingly resent theNew Old -- those whom medical science keeps in their prime without the will to accept obscurity and fade away gracefully. There are more of us, and we don't look nearly as nice as the New Young. We move slowly, get in their way on the sidewalk, lose our glasses, hold up the line using coins not cards, take forever texting, irritate by asking for help with smartphones, can't manage tablets and take forever in the powder room. Having destroyed the planet, the New Old now encroach upon Facebook and Twitter, invented by the young for the young, to try to sell our own books. For the New Young it must seem intolerable, but for us, what a great boon it is to be judged by our words and ideas, not by our looks."

Here, kitty kitty...

"Nice kitty," Tim Connor, All rights reserved.


"Pretty kitty," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

With Adam Pantozzi in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Young Davey

"Young Davey," Tim Connor, All rights reserved
When Mom and Dad were alive, and the strong young men were still babies.

Shoot the shooter

"This is the one," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

Avant garde

"Water warriors," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

My flickr

David LaChapelle's "Earth Laughs With Flowers"

"Lady Gaga, Pink Room," David LaChapelle, All rights reserved

Since Andy Warhol anointed him in the 1980s, David LaChapelle has reigned as the naughty boy of American photography. Unlike Warhol, whose provocations could be tangential and snide, LaChapelle’s outrages are disarmingly direct. In his most famous pictures semi-nude celebrities cavort in richly detailed sprees of lavish self-indulgence and orgiastic simulated sex. In others bewildered-looking models lift off the planet – raptured! -- in a sudden uprush of blown clothing and white light. In still others attractive young people impersonate characters in cracked, religious parables – the Madonna (original version), say, as a bleached-blonde Hollywood starlet wearing only a thong, or Jesus Christ himself, surrounded by deep-ghetto homeboys. One never knows.


"But No Man Moved Me Till the Tide Went Past My Simple Shoe," David LaChapelle, All rights reserved

LaChapelle’s pictures are meticulously created in a high-gloss, color-popping, hyper-realistic style, but no one is likely to mistake them for reality. Even the professional actors who appear in these fantasies seem compelled to chew the scenery. Their performances may be inevitable, given the sets, hair, wardrobe, lighting and props, which push past fabulous into giddy realms of extreme high camp. Yet the pictures somehow work. Despite the sleek narcissism, rampant nudity and wall-to-wall gender-bending (intended to shock), they somehow feel accessible, even good-natured. LaChapelle’s pictures crackle with subversive – or at least hilarious – ideas, rude energy and laughter. They are full of juicy life.

Thus, as a fan, I take no pleasure in reporting that LaChappelle’s latest show of 10 large floral still-lifes, “Earth Laughs With Flowers,” is a bore. According to the gallery’s press release, the show is the latest result of LaChapelle’s decision in 2006 – having already conquered the worlds of fashion photography, celebrity portraiture, music video and documentary film – to “minimize his participation in commercial photography and return to his roots by focusing on fine art photography.”


"Concerning the Soul," David LaChapelle, All rights reserved

That sounds good. Expanded horizons, more freedom! But LaChapelle’s new photographs, the release continues “… appropriate the traditional Baroque still life in order to explore contemporary vanity, vice, the transience of earthly possessions and, ultimately, the fragility of humanity.”

Wait a minute. From Lady Gaga wearing only bubbles to Baroque still life? I do my research. Apparently, LaChapelle’s new photographs were conceived as updates of the 17th century Dutch and Flemish still-life painting genre known as “vanitas.” The name comes from the Book of Ecclesiastes (1:2): “Vanita vanitatum omnia vanitatus,” which translates to "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity." In the 1600s vanitas paintings combined symbols of transitory wealth and pleasure with skulls, rotting food, crawling worms, burning candles and the like. To a religiously conservative northern European Protestant 350 years ago they demonstrated the insignificance of human life and underlined the importance of turning to God.

I try to connect this information with the photographer who lives on a Hawaiian estate with its own private jungle. The one who photographed a naked Paris Hilton tied up in microphone cord bondage and Elton John leaping from his spotted piano into a cluster of cheetahs. The photographer who, in fact, seems to understand contemporary excess, vanity and what Divas of both sexes want better than anyone around.


"Two Tutus," David LaChapelle, All rights reserved

Did LaChapelle just run across this stern idea in a book on art history? Does he really expect us to believe he made these photographs to warn us against the pitfalls of vanitas?

I hope not. LaChapelle doesn’t need some bogus-scholarly art historical imprimatur to justify his work. And he has no business adopting high-minded moral stances about “the transience of earthly possessions” or “the fragility of humanity.“ He’s a photographer, not a philosopher, and, let’s face it, possibly the last person on the planet who should be mounting the pulpit with dour old Dutch preachers to intone, “All is vanity.”

His entire career has done that! And very nicely, too. He’s our Cecil Beaton with skin and a sound track, whose theatricality dazzles and delights us.


"Jesus Is My Homeboy," David LaChapelle, All rights reserved

This show is a letdown from LaChapelle’s usual standard. But -- lose the musty art history references -- and it’s not without its charms. There’s a certain pleasure in standing back from the gorgeous grab bag jumble of these colorful, beautifully lit, six-foot-high studio productions. There is further fun in moving in close to the prints and discovering all the tchotchkes tangled up with the fruit and flowers -- multi-colored cell phones, styrofoam skulls, smouldering cigarettes, glitter-covered plastic bugs, Get Well and Good Luck balloons, a torched American flag, silicone prosthetic boobs, half-empty Starbuck’s iced coffee cup with branded green sipping straw, see-through ceramic phallus, pill bottles, squirt gun, Barbie dolls, raw chopped-off chicken feet in ziplock bag and, of course, many, many more.


"Foto Painting," David LaChapelle, All rights reserved

In LaChapelle’s world of absolute excess, there is nothing quite like total immersion. In fact, after several bemused minutes admiring the ruby red roses at the center of one composition, I realized the rose petals were molded in wax . I quickly scribbled in my notebook, “Glorious kitch” (sic). And I’m not ashamed…

This post also appears in New York Photo Review

Simen Johan says "Hallo dahling"

"Untitled," Simen Johan, All rights reserved

Simen Johan is a Swedish photographer, born in 1973. I saw his show, "Until the Kingdom Comes," last week at the Yossi Milo gallery in Manhattan. The prints started at $20,000 each.

Unfortunately, the show is now closed, but here's a link to all the pictures.

This is from Yossi Milo's press release:
"Photographs from Simen Johan’s ongoing project, Until the Kingdom Comes, depict an unsettling natural world hovering between reality, fantasy and nightmare. Johan merges traditional photographic and sculptural techniques with digital methods. Having originally photographed a variety of plants and animals in natural preserves, zoos, farms, museum dioramas or his own studio, the artist then resituates them digitally into new environments constructed from images photographed elsewhere."

And this is from an earlier write-up at the Robert Koch Gallery.
"In his most recent images, from the series "Until the Kingdom Comes", Johan depicts animals in scenarios where their actions or demeanor mirror human conventions. The images allude to our inclination to anthropomorphize and domesticate what we see and find around us, and they speak to realms of emotion, our fears and desires, rather than reason."

Items for Extremists

"A satisfied customer," photoshop by Alfred

Gourds by Cocksure
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Grape boy at the orgy

"Grape boy," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

Shrink-wrapped boats

"Shrink-wrapped boat," Tim Connor, All rights reserved


"Shrink-wrapped boat 2," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

These were sitting in the boat yards at Montauk a little more than a week ago.

Are movies "cursed"? Are photographs?

"Tim at 'Beast' opening," Lucy Winner phone cam

Saturday's opening of the show "Beast," in which I had two photos, was a big success. In the picture above, taken at the gallery, I can be seen crossing in front of one of my photos, the one titled "Esther."

Today a lady from the gallery called to tell me that last night the "Esther" picture inexplicably fell off the wall, shattering the glass in the frame & gouging the print. Part of a series of gigantic building-sized ads for upcoming movies that I've been photographing for several years, "Esther" advertised a movie called "Orphan." The tagline read, "Something is wrong with Esther."

Let me explain.

In the movie Esther is a strangely beautiful child adopted by a couple who are grieving their recently stillborn baby. These parents think Esther is nine years old, but in fact she's a 33-year-old woman named Leena Klammer who suffers from hypopituartisim, which has stunted her growth. Esther has escaped from an asylum for the criminally insane & is making her way across the country, posing as a little girl. Along the way she has committed a string of gruesome, bloody murders. In this movie she gets angrier & angrier. First, she kills an unfortunate nun & then the good-hearted husband. Finally, she tries to kill the wife and her two children. At the end of the movie Esther ends up getting kicked in the teeth by her new mommy & sinking beneath the surface of a frozen lake.

After all that, she must be really, really pissed, right? I mean poltergeist-smashing-glass-pissed? I mean psycho-killer-on-the-loose pissed? Am I right?

When the gallery lady reached me with the bad news, she said, "We couldn't figure out why the picture fell. The frame wasn't broken... In fact..." she said, it's as though... the picture... jumped off the wall."

Oh god...

Too true

"If cinema teaches us anything, it is that no tough guy has ever borne the name of Tim..."

-- Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

America rawks!

Yeah, this is for all you dickless liberals whining that America's greatest days are behind her. That we better get used to kowtowing to socialistic commy countries cause America can't think big anymore. America can't make things anymore. Well, I got news for you Comrade! We still got freedom in America & just like this video shows you, AMERICA RAWKS!!

Relax

"St. Anthony & Christ child with Relax sign," Tim Connor, All rights reserved


"Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Diego with basketball," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

Ask a broke-ass grouch today

WASP lady with tasteful pearls goes baby-mama bonkers on the mean streets of Brooklyn.

Go ahead, Ask her!

Twin Peaks, San Francisco

"Smilers," Tim Connor, All rights reserved


"A boy & his uncle (Dennis & Ted)," Tim Connor, All rights reserved