This time we're back bigger and harder than ever... SLURP IT!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Get A Load of This...
cum here tomorrow night... just say you're on Scotty Potty's list. (there will be another party at The Cock next Wed/Slurp night).
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Juliet Jacobson: Narcissus, Spirits in the Material World
Next in our series of round-robin interiews, I introduced Jan Wandrag to my awesome friend, Juliet Jacobson. The title of this post is borrowed from one of Juliet's beautiful large format pencil drawings. I first met Juliet last winter in her graduate studio at NYU—I was immeditatly drawn to the sensuality of her work. I invited her to create a special piece for issue #6 (make sure to check it out if you haven't seen it yet!). It's fun playing match-maker—Jan & Juliet hit it off and I'm excited to have them both on TheBullet. – hugs
Jan Wandrag: Hi Juliet,
Juliet Jacobson: Hi Jan—How are you?
Jan: I'm good, you? So you're at work?
Juliet: Yes. I 'm working on the Jimmy de Sana Estate. Laurie Simmons is the estate's trustee and I've been working out of one of her studios for the past six months or so.
Jan: Sounds great. How did you get that job? Seems perfect for you as far as day jobs go.
Juliet: Last fall my friend Adam Putnam curated a show called "Blow Both of Us" and included a number of JDS images in the show. When he mentioned to me that Laurie might be looking for someone to help her organize the estate I got really excited.
I wrote Laurie about my enthusiasm for the work. She responded to my interest in the JDS stuff as an artist. I feel really really lucky to get to work with this material.
Jan: The images of JDS you sent me are great. But better yet is how well they relate to your own work ... do you find working with it inspiring?
By the way, feel free to cut the chat short if Laurie storms in demanding a Mocha Frappuccino ;-)
Juliet: Laurie's actually been the most wonderful boss. I've really enjoyed working for her. And, yes, I find the material really inspiring and interesting.
Because the source material I work with is termed gay and because so many people have voiced concerns about what it means for me, being a woman, to use these images I thought engaging with a gay photographer's work on a really deep level would be a good idea.
And some people have been concerned about the way I've used images that symbolize death along side images of gay sex—because it reminds them of the AIDS crisis or a negative valuation of gay love/sex. JDS died of AIDS in 1991 and, you know, made really sexually explicit work for most of his career. So, in the beginning I wanted the job because I wanted to try to be responsible to the imagery I'm working with.
Jan: I was going to ask you about the implied violence and morbid themes. Some of the images can almost be read as a warning against gay sex. I have a real fear of snakes, so in my mind they do become these menacing phalluses. But then you pair it with such beautifully drawn boys and roses and it becomes more complex. I'm interested to hear more about your relationship to sex ...
Juliet: Before I made sexy pictures of boys I was making sexy pictures of girls in much the same visual vernacular. The source images for these pictures were mostly 60s and 70s soft porn magazines like Penthouse. Making these drawings and paintings I thought a lot about how the women oscillated between subject and object. For me they were really unstable and fascinating images. The women's bodies in these old magazines were treated much like bodies (both men's and women's) are today in advertising. Initially when I substituted boys for girls I just wanted boys' bodies that were treated the same way: vulnerable, available, on display, but also with a little distance and romance.
So when I started making these pictures they were really about a kind of mediatized sexuality and not about eroticism that you might experience interpersonally. To answer your question, these pictures were conceived as a response to a culturally pervasive sea of images where sex is ubiquitous—though I would say the modes of sexuality deployed are few. When I started using boys, my relationship to the images changed dramatically. Boys can be my imaginary love objects in a way that girls aren't. The idea of idealized romantic love got all tied up with sex and this is where all the really heavy symbolic imagery came in.
Jan: Do you have a boyfriend currently? What does he think of your interest in these boys? Does he look like one of 'em? People always expect you to be with someone that looks like your pictures I've found.
Juliet: I love this question... Yes, I have a boyfriend. He's really into my interest in boys and has been really supportive of the work. He's super smart and we have enough cross over in terms of our interests that we've been able to read books together—which I love! We read Judith Butler together and he introduced me to William Haver. I've convinced him he absolutely must read this Michael Taussig book next.
He does not look like my drawings. He told me he would never ever be in one when we started dating.
Does your boyfriend look like your pictures?
Jan: No, my boyfriend doesn't really have a stereotypical boy look like a soldier or skater. Maybe a little of both, come to think of it. When I'm shooting I'm looking for a specific type of guy, not always the same. He is cute though and that's important in my pictures too.
Maybe your boyfriend doesn't want to be in your drawings because he doesn't want to be nude in an artwork ... or is it that he doesn't want to be perceived as being gay?
Juliet: He's a total Victorian and would never be naked in public.
He doesn't exactly have a tough guy image. I would hazard a guess that he's been mistaken for gay once or twice.
Jan: He's an anthropologist?
Juliet: No, an artist.
Jan: Oh, sorry. You think it's better to be with a fellow artist? I thought an anthropologist would be a good match for you. You're kind of doing some art anthropology with the JDS stuff.
Juliet: Actually, my best friend is an anthropologist! Her investigations are a lot more rigorous than mine though.
Most of my thinking about JDS, contrary to what I expected when starting to work with the material, has been about the way he treats bodies in images. I haven't thought so much about situating these in a political or social history outside the contemporary moment. I've ended up really admiring his treatment of the body where it's first a beautiful object and ethnicity or gender is a later concern.
Jan: I think it is interesting that your source images are probably all shot by gay guys in the seventies. You're acting as a medium in a way resurrecting these images of boys that had a much more short-lived purpose in mind. I wonder how you think using a live model or photographs you commissioned would change your relationship to the work? Direct interaction with a body as object ...
Juliet: I think a lot about using models. The longer I work with this material the more specific my ideas about what I want—I get.
On the other hand I feel like it would mean something really different. My ideas about what art is and should be really come from looking at Pictures Generation artists. Something about engaging with material that is at large in a cultural arena seems important—though I just use it as a cipher to focus on ideas about identity and personal experience. I think there is something important for me in translating this distant photo from the past that you can hold in your hand into a life size image. I think the time spent tracing over every little bit of a life size body makes these drawings really personal for me. It's a really satisfying way to fulfill the desire for possession this kind of image creates.
Jan: I can imagine you sitting in your studio for hours working on one body part. It looks like you're always very focused on the boy's dicks. Sometimes you would leave a face unresolved but I never see any unresolved penises ... why?
Juliet: That question actually made me laugh out loud. You are right; the penises are usually the most labored over part of my drawings.
I think this kind of treatment of penises owes much to religious iconography where the erect penis symbolizes male fertility and creative powers.
Usually when the penis is symbolic like this it's called the phallus—a highly contested term in Psychoanalysis and Feminist redresses there of. Usually in these systems the possession of the phallus—a symbolic representation of male generative powers is comparable with divinity. Some people think the woman is it, some people think the man has it and the woman wants it. It's basically always deployed in a heteronormative framework, which requires a privileged and a secondary term.
I think this system sucks, but I think boys and their penises are great. My hope is that lavishing attention on the boys' penises gives a positive valuation to a symbol of masculine creativity, as an organ grounded in pleasure in the imagination, and as a symbol of agency in the Other. Representation of the penis like this draws on a history that goes back to the Greeks, with figures like Priapus.
Jan: So you're saying some people might say this is you're way of possessing a phallus. Quite an intimate bond you have with your images. How do you feel about exhibiting and selling them, letting them go—some castration anxiety?
Juliet: I haven't sold any of the really big ones yet—and those are what I get really attached to. I'm just starting to show and am really excited about it. There's a show that opens September 20th at Syracuse University's Warehouse Gallery and I'm working on a show for November in London. It's a two-person show at gallery called Ritter/Zamet.
Marlene McCarty is the other artist. She's a long time idol of mine. I'm a big fan of the work and also have always been inspired by her integrity as an artist. I'm a little intimidated by the pairing but really excited too.
Jan: Sounds really great. Congratulations, that's amazing to be in a two-person show with your idol.
I look forward to seeing some of the installation shots from that...
Well, thank you very much. I really enjoyed our chat. Anything happening with the JDS images?
Juliet: Thank you! And actually, yes, I think I just found the original transparency for a 1979 piece called Dishwasher.
Jan: Will there be a JDS show?
Juliet: Right now a portion of the estate is being donated to the Fales Collection. I'm moving the last 6 boxes in tomorrow. I hope there will be a show. It would be great to see this work in a presentation space.
Jan: Definitely. Keep me posted.
Juliet: Awesome Jan. Thanks so much. It's been really fun to talk to you.
(Photographs included here by Jimmy de Sana, courtesy the Jimmy de Sana Trust. Images from 101 Nudes (1972), Eggs and Sofa from Submission (1977 - 1978). The final image is from transparency and was used for collage in the unpublished folio Salvation.)
Jan Wandrag: Hi Juliet,
Juliet Jacobson: Hi Jan—How are you?
Jan: I'm good, you? So you're at work?
Juliet: Yes. I 'm working on the Jimmy de Sana Estate. Laurie Simmons is the estate's trustee and I've been working out of one of her studios for the past six months or so.
Jan: Sounds great. How did you get that job? Seems perfect for you as far as day jobs go.
Juliet: Last fall my friend Adam Putnam curated a show called "Blow Both of Us" and included a number of JDS images in the show. When he mentioned to me that Laurie might be looking for someone to help her organize the estate I got really excited.
I wrote Laurie about my enthusiasm for the work. She responded to my interest in the JDS stuff as an artist. I feel really really lucky to get to work with this material.
Jan: The images of JDS you sent me are great. But better yet is how well they relate to your own work ... do you find working with it inspiring?
By the way, feel free to cut the chat short if Laurie storms in demanding a Mocha Frappuccino ;-)
Juliet: Laurie's actually been the most wonderful boss. I've really enjoyed working for her. And, yes, I find the material really inspiring and interesting.
Because the source material I work with is termed gay and because so many people have voiced concerns about what it means for me, being a woman, to use these images I thought engaging with a gay photographer's work on a really deep level would be a good idea.
And some people have been concerned about the way I've used images that symbolize death along side images of gay sex—because it reminds them of the AIDS crisis or a negative valuation of gay love/sex. JDS died of AIDS in 1991 and, you know, made really sexually explicit work for most of his career. So, in the beginning I wanted the job because I wanted to try to be responsible to the imagery I'm working with.
Jan: I was going to ask you about the implied violence and morbid themes. Some of the images can almost be read as a warning against gay sex. I have a real fear of snakes, so in my mind they do become these menacing phalluses. But then you pair it with such beautifully drawn boys and roses and it becomes more complex. I'm interested to hear more about your relationship to sex ...
Juliet: Before I made sexy pictures of boys I was making sexy pictures of girls in much the same visual vernacular. The source images for these pictures were mostly 60s and 70s soft porn magazines like Penthouse. Making these drawings and paintings I thought a lot about how the women oscillated between subject and object. For me they were really unstable and fascinating images. The women's bodies in these old magazines were treated much like bodies (both men's and women's) are today in advertising. Initially when I substituted boys for girls I just wanted boys' bodies that were treated the same way: vulnerable, available, on display, but also with a little distance and romance.
So when I started making these pictures they were really about a kind of mediatized sexuality and not about eroticism that you might experience interpersonally. To answer your question, these pictures were conceived as a response to a culturally pervasive sea of images where sex is ubiquitous—though I would say the modes of sexuality deployed are few. When I started using boys, my relationship to the images changed dramatically. Boys can be my imaginary love objects in a way that girls aren't. The idea of idealized romantic love got all tied up with sex and this is where all the really heavy symbolic imagery came in.
Jan: Do you have a boyfriend currently? What does he think of your interest in these boys? Does he look like one of 'em? People always expect you to be with someone that looks like your pictures I've found.
Juliet: I love this question... Yes, I have a boyfriend. He's really into my interest in boys and has been really supportive of the work. He's super smart and we have enough cross over in terms of our interests that we've been able to read books together—which I love! We read Judith Butler together and he introduced me to William Haver. I've convinced him he absolutely must read this Michael Taussig book next.
He does not look like my drawings. He told me he would never ever be in one when we started dating.
Does your boyfriend look like your pictures?
Jan: No, my boyfriend doesn't really have a stereotypical boy look like a soldier or skater. Maybe a little of both, come to think of it. When I'm shooting I'm looking for a specific type of guy, not always the same. He is cute though and that's important in my pictures too.
Maybe your boyfriend doesn't want to be in your drawings because he doesn't want to be nude in an artwork ... or is it that he doesn't want to be perceived as being gay?
Juliet: He's a total Victorian and would never be naked in public.
He doesn't exactly have a tough guy image. I would hazard a guess that he's been mistaken for gay once or twice.
Jan: He's an anthropologist?
Juliet: No, an artist.
Jan: Oh, sorry. You think it's better to be with a fellow artist? I thought an anthropologist would be a good match for you. You're kind of doing some art anthropology with the JDS stuff.
Juliet: Actually, my best friend is an anthropologist! Her investigations are a lot more rigorous than mine though.
Most of my thinking about JDS, contrary to what I expected when starting to work with the material, has been about the way he treats bodies in images. I haven't thought so much about situating these in a political or social history outside the contemporary moment. I've ended up really admiring his treatment of the body where it's first a beautiful object and ethnicity or gender is a later concern.
Jan: I think it is interesting that your source images are probably all shot by gay guys in the seventies. You're acting as a medium in a way resurrecting these images of boys that had a much more short-lived purpose in mind. I wonder how you think using a live model or photographs you commissioned would change your relationship to the work? Direct interaction with a body as object ...
Juliet: I think a lot about using models. The longer I work with this material the more specific my ideas about what I want—I get.
On the other hand I feel like it would mean something really different. My ideas about what art is and should be really come from looking at Pictures Generation artists. Something about engaging with material that is at large in a cultural arena seems important—though I just use it as a cipher to focus on ideas about identity and personal experience. I think there is something important for me in translating this distant photo from the past that you can hold in your hand into a life size image. I think the time spent tracing over every little bit of a life size body makes these drawings really personal for me. It's a really satisfying way to fulfill the desire for possession this kind of image creates.
Jan: I can imagine you sitting in your studio for hours working on one body part. It looks like you're always very focused on the boy's dicks. Sometimes you would leave a face unresolved but I never see any unresolved penises ... why?
Juliet: That question actually made me laugh out loud. You are right; the penises are usually the most labored over part of my drawings.
I think this kind of treatment of penises owes much to religious iconography where the erect penis symbolizes male fertility and creative powers.
Usually when the penis is symbolic like this it's called the phallus—a highly contested term in Psychoanalysis and Feminist redresses there of. Usually in these systems the possession of the phallus—a symbolic representation of male generative powers is comparable with divinity. Some people think the woman is it, some people think the man has it and the woman wants it. It's basically always deployed in a heteronormative framework, which requires a privileged and a secondary term.
I think this system sucks, but I think boys and their penises are great. My hope is that lavishing attention on the boys' penises gives a positive valuation to a symbol of masculine creativity, as an organ grounded in pleasure in the imagination, and as a symbol of agency in the Other. Representation of the penis like this draws on a history that goes back to the Greeks, with figures like Priapus.
Jan: So you're saying some people might say this is you're way of possessing a phallus. Quite an intimate bond you have with your images. How do you feel about exhibiting and selling them, letting them go—some castration anxiety?
Juliet: I haven't sold any of the really big ones yet—and those are what I get really attached to. I'm just starting to show and am really excited about it. There's a show that opens September 20th at Syracuse University's Warehouse Gallery and I'm working on a show for November in London. It's a two-person show at gallery called Ritter/Zamet.
Marlene McCarty is the other artist. She's a long time idol of mine. I'm a big fan of the work and also have always been inspired by her integrity as an artist. I'm a little intimidated by the pairing but really excited too.
Jan: Sounds really great. Congratulations, that's amazing to be in a two-person show with your idol.
I look forward to seeing some of the installation shots from that...
Well, thank you very much. I really enjoyed our chat. Anything happening with the JDS images?
Juliet: Thank you! And actually, yes, I think I just found the original transparency for a 1979 piece called Dishwasher.
Jan: Will there be a JDS show?
Juliet: Right now a portion of the estate is being donated to the Fales Collection. I'm moving the last 6 boxes in tomorrow. I hope there will be a show. It would be great to see this work in a presentation space.
Jan: Definitely. Keep me posted.
Juliet: Awesome Jan. Thanks so much. It's been really fun to talk to you.
(Photographs included here by Jimmy de Sana, courtesy the Jimmy de Sana Trust. Images from 101 Nudes (1972), Eggs and Sofa from Submission (1977 - 1978). The final image is from transparency and was used for collage in the unpublished folio Salvation.)
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Happy Fingers
Last night Jimmi & I went to Socrates Sculpture Park and saw this free Dr. Seuss movie from 1953, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T... it's soo rad and gay—there's only one woman in the entire movie (the kid's Mom)! My favorite line: 'You should totally believe what kids say, even their lies.'
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Project P-town
This weekend we took a bus ride to Provincetown to party with John Waters... it was sooo FUN! Thank you Michael & Mr. Waters... There will be a movie... stay tooned... it will premiere at Mix Fest... watch for the trailer coming soon...
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Jan Wandrag: Raised by Lions
Interview by Josh McNey
When Scott told me that he wanted me to interview Jan Wandrag for this next installment of the Bullet Interviews, I was curious to see what the connection would be. When I had a chance to look at his photos and videos, I figured out the obvious connection right away. Jan Wandrag loves boys! There are, of course, a lot more reasons but you’ll have to check out his website and decide for yourself. Jan is a super-sweet guy with a really interesting personal history. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I enjoyed meeting him and learning about his work.
jsm22ca: Happy Sunday, Jan! What have you been up to?
Jan: Very unusually highbrow Sunday. I went to go see Fables de la Fontaine at the Lincoln Center Festival.
jsm22ca: Sounds fancy pants.
Jan: It was. Robert Wilson did the stage design—very avant-garde. Should have been video. Lots of cool animal costumes, though.
jsm22ca: I have some rich memories of animal costumes going back to elementary school. I was never very fond of tights.
Jan: I know. I was a frog and a "Devil fish."
jsm22ca: All this in South Africa? You were born there. Did you grow up there, too?
Jan: Yes, born and reared. I came to NY in 1998 after college.
jsm22ca: Did you grow up near the beach? I noticed lots of surfer boys in your videos.
Jan: No, not at all. I just love surfer boys, for that matter any boys. I grew up next to a big famous game reserve, lots of wild animals. It's called the Kruger National Park. We would drive in a lot and just watch the animals. Sometimes the animals would come into town. People would be jogging early in the morning and come across a pride of lions or elephants.
jsm22ca: I'm trying to imagine what that would be like. I'm having some trouble. It was a small town?
Jan: Yes, a small mining town. About 12,000 white people in the town, and another 40-50,000 black people in townships around it. They would be bussed into town everyday to work there, in the homes and on the mines. It was a very rich and well educated town called Phalaborwa. It's next to the second largest open mine in the world.
jsm22ca: Do you like living in New York? I assume you do since you've been here a few years now. Do you really miss home?
Jan: I love New York! Couldn't imagine living anywhere else.
jsm22ca: Brothers? Sisters?
Jan: Two older brothers and a younger sister, you?
jsm22ca: One older and two younger—all brothers.
Jan: Wow. I always wanted a younger brother.
jsm22ca: Haha, why? No fun being the boss of your little sister?
Jan: Thought I could help make a nice gentleman out of a younger brother.
jsm22ca: That's sweet. Younger brothers are a good thing. Are you close with your family?
Jan: Yes, as close as I can be 8,000 miles away. I try to call often and visit once a year.
jsm22ca: Do you have family here or were you like the astronaut? Jan, the pioneer!
Jan: No, nobody here when I came. I've built up an extended family though, so it's easier now. Sort of pioneer, almost more like Midnight Cowboy.
jsm22ca: I am loading up one of your war videos now. I have to ask you about the panoramic montages on your old site, though. Those are really, really nice
Jan: Thanks. Haven't looked at those for a while.
jsm22ca: Do you still make those? Are they things you discovered on contact sheets?
Jan: I started pairing snapshots in college. I don't do that much anymore. I guess I would get a batch of 4x6 prints back from the one-hour lab and then start playing with pairings.
jsm22ca: Do you think your video work is an extension of that practice?
Jan: Yes. I want to be a film maker. I started with photography and immediately wanted the pictures to do more—you know, tell a story. So I just paired pictures together. Sometimes I would do like a whole grid of 12 or so.
jsm22ca: Are you still making prints or concentrating more on video?
Jan: I'm doing both—kind of stuck between the two now. I would love to just make a feature movie, but there's still a lot I have to learn.
jsm22ca: So you see film as more mature?
Jan: Not really mature, just more difficult. I enjoy still photography a lot too. To make a movie you need other people to help. Photo is something you can do on your own. Or the kind of videos I do I can do on my own. I made this movie, David+Jonathan, and I did it all on my own. Now I want to do one with real actors and cinematographers etc.
jsm22ca: What's the source of all the images for David+Jonathan? I know you work with found images but some of those look staged and deliberate.
Jan: I shoot video of guys on the street without them knowing—like street photography. Then I choose guys from different frames and Photoshop them into a new fictional scene. I call it non-straight street photography. The guys in the movie have no idea that they're in my film. Some of the images are obviously a lot more Photoshopped than others. To me it's like painting. I take an arm from here and a face from there.
jsm22ca: Are you filming with a particular narrative in mind or are you shooting a bunch of street footage and then editing to build a narrative?
Jan: Usually I just shoot. But once I start a project I have a particular guy in mind, so then I shoot more selectively. Like right now I'm interested in guys that look like they can be soldiers.
jsm22ca: I used to say that I liked all kinds of guys except cowboys. Then I realized how much I dig cowboys. Do you find yourself fixating on a certain type of masculinity and then moving on to another one?
Jan: It's more fluid than I thought it was. I'm very into military type guys now.
jsm22ca: What do you like about them?
Jan: I can't imagine putting myself in that situation. It's such a super-masculine environment, and I've never seen myself as being very manly. So I'm very curious, but also baffled as to how you survive something like that. And now with this awful war I feel really bad for the soldiers and everyone else in Iraq to have to live in such an impossible situation. I also like the idea of camaraderie—men being so close to each other, in love in a way. And then losing your friends in war seems very unimaginable. In South Africa there was a war going on while I was growing up so everyone around me who was old enough was involved in the military. We had military classes in school. I refused to shoot a gun. Also, David and Jonathan were both good soldiers, so it's a continuation of that story in a way too.
jsm22ca: How long have you been telling the David+Jonathan story? It seems to be an ongoing narrative that you're building with video and stills.
Jan: I've worked on it since 2004. My dad is a minister in the Dutch Reformed church. So I've known about the story since I can remember. Growing up gay in the church, it meant a lot to me to know there was this very prominent man on man relationship in the Bible, though no one acknowledges the sexual aspects of it. The Bible is pretty R rated if you read the right translations.
jsm22ca: Spoken like the son of a minister. I'm really glad we got a chance to chat, Jan. Scott said you're headed to LA this week. Work or play?
Jan: It's Outfest, the gay and lesbian film festival. David+Jonathan is showing there on Saturday, so "work" I guess. I've never been to LA, so I'm very excited to go. Any hot ex-marine bars?
jsm22ca: I'll email you. It's fun times and hot boys. You'll enjoy it.
Jan: Can't wait. Thanks for the chat. Good night.
When Scott told me that he wanted me to interview Jan Wandrag for this next installment of the Bullet Interviews, I was curious to see what the connection would be. When I had a chance to look at his photos and videos, I figured out the obvious connection right away. Jan Wandrag loves boys! There are, of course, a lot more reasons but you’ll have to check out his website and decide for yourself. Jan is a super-sweet guy with a really interesting personal history. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I enjoyed meeting him and learning about his work.jsm22ca: Happy Sunday, Jan! What have you been up to?
Jan: Very unusually highbrow Sunday. I went to go see Fables de la Fontaine at the Lincoln Center Festival.
jsm22ca: Sounds fancy pants.
Jan: It was. Robert Wilson did the stage design—very avant-garde. Should have been video. Lots of cool animal costumes, though.
jsm22ca: I have some rich memories of animal costumes going back to elementary school. I was never very fond of tights.
Jan: I know. I was a frog and a "Devil fish."
jsm22ca: All this in South Africa? You were born there. Did you grow up there, too?
Jan: Yes, born and reared. I came to NY in 1998 after college.
jsm22ca: Did you grow up near the beach? I noticed lots of surfer boys in your videos.
Jan: No, not at all. I just love surfer boys, for that matter any boys. I grew up next to a big famous game reserve, lots of wild animals. It's called the Kruger National Park. We would drive in a lot and just watch the animals. Sometimes the animals would come into town. People would be jogging early in the morning and come across a pride of lions or elephants.
jsm22ca: I'm trying to imagine what that would be like. I'm having some trouble. It was a small town?
Jan: Yes, a small mining town. About 12,000 white people in the town, and another 40-50,000 black people in townships around it. They would be bussed into town everyday to work there, in the homes and on the mines. It was a very rich and well educated town called Phalaborwa. It's next to the second largest open mine in the world.
jsm22ca: Do you like living in New York? I assume you do since you've been here a few years now. Do you really miss home?
Jan: I love New York! Couldn't imagine living anywhere else.
jsm22ca: Brothers? Sisters?
Jan: Two older brothers and a younger sister, you?
jsm22ca: One older and two younger—all brothers.
Jan: Wow. I always wanted a younger brother.
jsm22ca: Haha, why? No fun being the boss of your little sister?
Jan: Thought I could help make a nice gentleman out of a younger brother.
jsm22ca: That's sweet. Younger brothers are a good thing. Are you close with your family?
Jan: Yes, as close as I can be 8,000 miles away. I try to call often and visit once a year.
jsm22ca: Do you have family here or were you like the astronaut? Jan, the pioneer!
Jan: No, nobody here when I came. I've built up an extended family though, so it's easier now. Sort of pioneer, almost more like Midnight Cowboy.
jsm22ca: I am loading up one of your war videos now. I have to ask you about the panoramic montages on your old site, though. Those are really, really nice
Jan: Thanks. Haven't looked at those for a while.
jsm22ca: Do you still make those? Are they things you discovered on contact sheets?
Jan: I started pairing snapshots in college. I don't do that much anymore. I guess I would get a batch of 4x6 prints back from the one-hour lab and then start playing with pairings.
jsm22ca: Do you think your video work is an extension of that practice?
Jan: Yes. I want to be a film maker. I started with photography and immediately wanted the pictures to do more—you know, tell a story. So I just paired pictures together. Sometimes I would do like a whole grid of 12 or so.
jsm22ca: Are you still making prints or concentrating more on video?
Jan: I'm doing both—kind of stuck between the two now. I would love to just make a feature movie, but there's still a lot I have to learn.
jsm22ca: So you see film as more mature?
Jan: Not really mature, just more difficult. I enjoy still photography a lot too. To make a movie you need other people to help. Photo is something you can do on your own. Or the kind of videos I do I can do on my own. I made this movie, David+Jonathan, and I did it all on my own. Now I want to do one with real actors and cinematographers etc.
jsm22ca: What's the source of all the images for David+Jonathan? I know you work with found images but some of those look staged and deliberate.
Jan: I shoot video of guys on the street without them knowing—like street photography. Then I choose guys from different frames and Photoshop them into a new fictional scene. I call it non-straight street photography. The guys in the movie have no idea that they're in my film. Some of the images are obviously a lot more Photoshopped than others. To me it's like painting. I take an arm from here and a face from there.
jsm22ca: Are you filming with a particular narrative in mind or are you shooting a bunch of street footage and then editing to build a narrative?
Jan: Usually I just shoot. But once I start a project I have a particular guy in mind, so then I shoot more selectively. Like right now I'm interested in guys that look like they can be soldiers.
jsm22ca: I used to say that I liked all kinds of guys except cowboys. Then I realized how much I dig cowboys. Do you find yourself fixating on a certain type of masculinity and then moving on to another one?
Jan: It's more fluid than I thought it was. I'm very into military type guys now.
jsm22ca: What do you like about them?
Jan: I can't imagine putting myself in that situation. It's such a super-masculine environment, and I've never seen myself as being very manly. So I'm very curious, but also baffled as to how you survive something like that. And now with this awful war I feel really bad for the soldiers and everyone else in Iraq to have to live in such an impossible situation. I also like the idea of camaraderie—men being so close to each other, in love in a way. And then losing your friends in war seems very unimaginable. In South Africa there was a war going on while I was growing up so everyone around me who was old enough was involved in the military. We had military classes in school. I refused to shoot a gun. Also, David and Jonathan were both good soldiers, so it's a continuation of that story in a way too.
jsm22ca: How long have you been telling the David+Jonathan story? It seems to be an ongoing narrative that you're building with video and stills.
Jan: I've worked on it since 2004. My dad is a minister in the Dutch Reformed church. So I've known about the story since I can remember. Growing up gay in the church, it meant a lot to me to know there was this very prominent man on man relationship in the Bible, though no one acknowledges the sexual aspects of it. The Bible is pretty R rated if you read the right translations.
jsm22ca: Spoken like the son of a minister. I'm really glad we got a chance to chat, Jan. Scott said you're headed to LA this week. Work or play?
Jan: It's Outfest, the gay and lesbian film festival. David+Jonathan is showing there on Saturday, so "work" I guess. I've never been to LA, so I'm very excited to go. Any hot ex-marine bars?
jsm22ca: I'll email you. It's fun times and hot boys. You'll enjoy it.
Jan: Can't wait. Thanks for the chat. Good night.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Saturday, July 14, 2007
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