So, speaking of death, Henri Cartier–Bresson has passed on to that great darkroom in the sky.
Frankly, I was never a big fan of his work. His technique is beautiful, to be sure, but it always feels calculated, like he’s telling the viewer what to think. I mean, there’s not much room for interpretation in a photo like Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1954. Then again, he considered himself a photojournalist in many ways, and I suppose that’s what photojournalists do–they tell stories. Still, it’s not my cup of cafe au lait.
That said, it was with a bit of trepidation that I attended a showing of his work here in New Orleans a couple of years ago. On the walls were the usual suspects: starkly beautiful landscapes; people in pain; people in love. But there was something else, too: a piece entitled Naples, 1963. In the photo, a man in a suit sits on another man’s lap. He looks away from his friend, toward a nearby newsstand–one that the friend presumably owns. The friend holds the man’s tie in his hands, caressing it, pulling the man closer to him. It is decidedly, tantalizingly ambiguous.
I was stunned. Art doesn’t have that effect on me too often. It happened at a Bill Viola show once. And the first time I saw John Currin‘s work. And a few other times. But not often.
What’s going on there, I wondered. The mood of the piece is hardly romantic–if anything, there’s an undercurrent of tension. The man in the suit looks embarrassed The newsstand owner looks desperate. And to complicate the image even further, it’s taking place on a city sidewalk in 1963.
I began to fantasize that the man in the suit had once been a hustler, working the streets to pay his way through school, and the newsstand owner was one of his regular clients. Eventually, the boy earned enough to finish his degree and moved on to a good job in a different part of town. Every day, the newsstand owner, secretly, passionately in love with the hustler, looked up and down the streets for his paramour–nearly jumped every time he saw someone from a distance who could, might be him. But nothing. Then one day, the boy-turned-man, forgetting where he was and the life he left behind, strolled casually through his old neighborhood. The newsstand owner spotted him right away and was beside himself with joy, begged the man to come and sit on his lap. But the boy he’d once known was recognizably different: he worked in an office now, had a wife and kids. He couldn’t be the person he’d been. And the moment captured on film is the awkward one–the one where both realize that things cannot, should not be what they once were.
But you make up your own story.
Anyway, I know it’s hokey to say that something–a song, a movie, a cheeseburger–“haunted” you, but in this case, it’s kinda true. I couldn’t stop thinking about the photograph. Neither could Jonno. So, a few months ago, we took a big breath, tightened our belts, and bought it. Well, began buying it. It was sort of an installment plan. And I’m glad we did–we could never afford it now that the artist is deceased. But ultimately, I don’t care about it’s monetary value. I’m just glad I get to look at it every day.
Maybe it’s bourgeois, or snobbish, or naive to say this, but everyone should have something on their walls or on their bookshelves or on their stereo that affects them like that.
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