Oscar Niemeyer’s Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
My camera discovers the light in darkness
As I stood in the middle of Uriah Maggs Antiquarian shop, I could collectively imagine holding Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis, imagine listening to hundreds of the Codex Sinaiticus vellum sheets being shuffled like a “Carney” man shuffling cards of naked girls, and imagining reading every collection Uriah had accrued in history.
When I stand in the middle of history my mind feels like it is ghosting Hieronymus Bosch’s surreal as he steps to his canvas. I imagine the DNA from Vasari’s Lives to Olafur Eliasson’s. My camera pauses. I take a cultural breath. My camera holds steady as history unfolds.
My destiny is to dance naked atop a pod of blue whales. My destiny is to navigate a pod of whales atop the pinnacle of all the cresting waves of the seven seas. It is the only time my mind and body feels nuclear acceleration into new horizons.
When I was pinkish young, I was fearless. Now that I have spotted a tuft of grey hair, I am anticipating history to repeat itself: Fearlessness reappears in my destiny.
I have chased visual desires since the day my father bought me my first camera. My camera is akin to Aladdin’s lamp. Everyday single day I pray for its magic. Every single frame is magical. I write my blog to remember the magic I am destined to forget.
My career sometimes feels like I am straddling my private Bardo (like George Saunders’ “Lincoln in the Bardo”). I speak to thousands of cultural soldiers whose lives have passed and posed before my camera. I speak with them with every breath: they are me, I am here because of them.
Overtime I have realized that so many sessions have left me with so many questions. My camera is my memory. I need more. “Chasing Ghosts” is about those I am prevented from sharing additional discourse with ever again unless we meet in the Bardo.
I spent hours with the fabulous architect Oscar Niemeyer. It would be a highlight that Zaha Hadid and Santiago Calatrava would have loved to been able to share.Later my camera met his contemporary museum in the Niterói. I never got the chance to talk with him about the feeling of poverty and crime that lurked in the municipality surrounding the museum. I needed the story. I merely wanted to hear his voice again. I wanted a greater discourse with one of architectures’ greatest creator about anything and everything.
The mercurial Jean-Michel Basquiat and I had finished off a couple of bottles of peppered vodka. After hours of joyful conversation, what remained were some unanswered questions. I wanted to address the inappropriate: Fame and success. He was on a rocket to fame. I wanted to know what it felt like.
Jean-Michel Basquiat in Andy Warhol’s studio 1984
The darkest hours of the morning surrounded me. I was walking north on Park Avenue South. My photography equipment slung over two shoulders. The resident avenue prostitutes moved in on me. It seemed like there were 500 girls in various acronyms of sexual orientations and stages of nakedness. A taxi beckoned me to get inside. I told the driver I needed to walk a bit further. I wanted to return to Basquiat’s studio get answers. I reluctantly jumped into the taxi. A head filled the rear window. I motioned to drive on. It seemed like an hour before the taxi accelerated. I would never return to Jean-Michel’s studio.
I spent hours looking at Roy Lichtenstein on a beautiful summer morning in Southampton, New York. For me it was one of my greatest days. After I felt I had made my final snap, he handed me a beer and told me to take a walk on the beach. “When you come back, we’ll have a bite for lunch”.
Roy Lichtenstein in his studio 1990
I took the beer and tried to take a measure of the day. It was what I had hoped. The perfect picture, if there is such a thing.As I walked a bit further, I turned for no particular reason. Roy’s eyes were trailing me. I stopped and asked him why he was looking after me. “I wanted to make sure you were ok”. After lunch we sort of bowed accordingly. As I drove home my brain felt like it was twisted like a pretzel. I just wanted to drive back and get a real answer to why his eyes were trailing me along the beach. I felt like a character out of “Dr. No” or “The Prisoner”.
One Fall day in East Hampton, New York I waved goodbye to Willem deKooning. Before I turned away from him, I wanted to ask him the question: He was standing at his studio doorway, waving to me. But I needed to ask him if it was true that he had early stages Alzheimer’s. I needed to know.
Willem deKooning in his studio 1982
We were together for nearly three hours. He was as lucid as a Myna bird on Red Bull. So many people had warned me about his mental health. None of what anybody had warned me about made sense. But as I walked, my karma was begging me to turn to him for just a moment. I just wanted more of what brilliance is about.
The hundred thousand visuals my camera has seen is like a symphony of movements. The notes of my past play in my mind. The history remains. The archives are frozen like a scorpion in amber. A glimpse or a word from the Bardo emboldens my future. I will always chase my ghosts.