#mossless4

Timothy Briner, Parallax Eyes

Meet Tony Gum, a Cape Town-based artist who is incredibly proficient at the selfie as a medium. So good, in fact, she proposes it as a commercial vehicle altogether. Art is inevitably tangled with commerce, and her approach to the selfie is particularly unique, which is why I really wanted to feature her work in Mossless 4.

In a post about her work with Coke, she writes:

Figured Coca-Cola needed a black woman in their presence. This is evidently not a racist remark - just a proud one.

A woman derived from the 60's, as well as an African woman (which explains why the crate is on my head) merged into one to create an image of Black Coca-Cola lady. An image relatable to every Mom, Pink and Larry.

Basically Coke, can we just make this happen? Mama Letta's song even agrees.

Rachel Stern, Zak's Armpit, 2015

MOSSLESS [Matthew Leifheit]: Why are you using your own body?

Rachel Stern: One thing that artists do is that we look at what we have access to and then we use that. We look specifically for what we have special access to. Something that I have access to, and that I feel a responsibility to is a… we’ll use the term “non-normative body”. Although one might argue that my body is particularly normative. But it’s non normative in the way that bodies and particularly female bodies are typically imaged. So my interest in using my body with a character like Medea is twofold: on the one had Medea is a character who is both violent and sexual — she is murdering family and child and brother for love or for want of power. But she’s also often imaged as a classically beautiful woman, so I like the idea of subverting that by using my body, adding something else into the murky glamour. In that photograph I’m wearing sort of a sheer gown and you can kind of see my gut and whatever else is happening, but I also look good. And scary. Another thing is that I just like that she is this cool violent badass witch lady, and I wanted to see myself as her because I feel some kinship for her desire to destroy everything in order to get what she wants.

Also, I would say that I feel a responsibility to use my body because I happen to have it and I’m willing to show it. Bodies like mine don’t often get shown in the way that I display mine - more or less suspended between glamorization and self loathing. So that’s part of the reason I use myself. And another part is that it’s fun! I like getting to suspend my own reality in front of the camera. I can give a little more of myself a little more directly to the lens than I can in most parts of real life.

ML: Would you say that you’re playing character?

RS: Yeah, I think of myself as the leading lady and these are roles I get to take on.

ML: How does the efficiency of the construction of the photos and the sets come into play? It seems like you’re assembling things in an ad-hoc way, and the props are kind of accessible consumer items that often appear again and again in your photos.

RS: I’m interested in a sort of acceptable opulence, so I like the idea of using objects that are mass-produced for suburban consumption on the East coast of the United States that might talk about the history of decorative arts in subtle ways that are embedded in the object but maybe are betrayed by the material of the object, or their construction and details. And I’m interested in how those objects go into people's homes and exist as parts of contemporary life that talk about history, and how they’re read and how they function. So I like being able to use those kinds of materials, and they way that they’re installed is sort of equally easy. It’s dress-up in the same way I’m dressing up as the character, and it’s not pretending to be anything more than a stand-in to create an image — it’s not asking you to read it as real space, it’s asking you to read it as imaged space, you can see how it was put together.

And it also lends itself to say something about photography that I’m interested in. Actually, you and I did work about this together in undergrad, thinking about the cultural space that allows us to feel a distinction between the studio and the world. You and I talked about it as a snapshot versus a portrait, but it’s the same idea: we are able to think about photographs functioning totally differently based on what room they were made in. I like to think about my studio as a living character that has its own place in my work. So the objects I use I’ve collected throughout my life. Some of them are from my childhood dress-up box, some of them I bought last week, some are things I shoot and then return. I like that the objects can have a lineage in the work themselves. It also references the early photo studio, where you might go to a specific studio because they had painted backdrops, regardless of how they used the camera.

ML: How would you say all of that relates to the ways people can construct their own identities in 2016?

RS: We’re in a moment of the hyper-constructed identity and I like being self-conscious about that, and this idea of everyone having their own lifestyle brand and promoting it through social media and what have you. I think those things are seen as generational or dangerous or indulgent, but I have a hard time accepting those critiques of that culture. I think for the most part it exists in places that are empowering. I like the self-contained authorial role of the Internet persona, and it’s exciting to me to see people be able to create and brand themselves. There’s obviously risks, because at the same time as you can create something and put it out into the world, you’re also receiving all of that information and it might be stifling in some way. But I think the RuPaul quote “You’re born naked and the rest is drag” is something that really is true and resonant. And it’s always exciting for me to see it take hold beyond someone’s body. I think it’s really easy to forget that as a goth or a preppy person or whatever we want to do, the go-to is how we present our physical selves. I’m interested in how our physical surroundings have real effect on how we behave and how we understand things. So the idea of a lifestyle brand where you’re presenting your body and you’re also presenting the space in which you’re making a video and it starts to spill out and become object-based is really exciting to see happen.

Cold As Clay by J.A. Mortram

Throughout the course of 2014, I’ve visited David frequently [pictured here, leaving the house to walk into town to buy food], documenting his daily routines, listening to his memories, fears, dreams and frustrations as he has navigated a year filled with challenges as a result of his being blinded in a freak accident, and the loss of his beloved Mother, Eugene.

Eugene’s passing has left a wound, for David, every part as brutal as the loss of his sight. Days, weeks alone, isolation and enforced solitude permeate every waking day and night.

Fear of the outside world has taken centre stage, fear of bullying, verbal abuse from unseen strangers, as he makes his way through the crowded streets and roads into market town for food.

“It’s no good pretending things have got better, they haven’t, they’ve got worse, much worse since Mother died. This year has been the worst of them all. It doesn’t improve, it all just seems to get worse and worse.”

“I can manage all right in the house, I don’t have any problems managing things indoors, strangely enough, I know where I put all my things and if you’re there on your own, as I am, they don’t move, do they, like, I’ll put a box of cup a soup in my cupboard, and I know where I put them, so they’ll be there, and I can go straight to them. So, things have been relatively ok inside the house, it’s just a pity the rest of it, going outside, is not as easy.”

“I get very lonely. Sometimes when I go out and have an unpleasant experience, people saying things to me in the street, having a go and saying nasty things, then I’m thankful to get back home and I think to myself, perhaps it’s not such a bad deal after all, staying here, alone, if all I find is trouble when I venture outside. It’s a catch 22, there’s no one having a go at me if I stay here, but if I stay here, I’m always on my own, so then I have to deal with the constant loneliness.”

Ashley McNelis on Alex Matzke 

Alex Matzke enrolled in an MFA in Photography program soon after the ban on women serving in combat was lifted in January 2013. While women have been on the front lines for centuries, they have only recently been allowed to attach themselves to combat units. Matzke’s thesis project, If She Isn’t Working Miracles, What Is She Doing On The Battlefield?, concentrates on the private lives of servicewomen. Women, a minority in the military, deal with inequality and marginalization throughout their careers. Matzke interviewed and photographed several servicewomen for the project; the strongest correlation between the narratives was the experience of inequity.  

Women have always been distinctly disadvantaged in the military. Despite the rescinded combat ban, they are still on uneven ground. Even if a woman and a man started their basic training on the same day, for example, it is likely that the latter would be more advanced in their career later. Without a history of combat service, women are not eligible for the same pay, promotions, or PTSD treatments. If a woman joined the military before the combat ban was lifted 2013, their previous combat experience will not be counted.

These bureaucratic barriers are compounded by daily distractions and hindrances: the uniforms and gear, for example, are not outfitted for female bodies. This makes it uncomfortable and even dangerous to serve, as is evident in Matzke's photograph, Gender Panic after Action Pants (2016). Sexual harassment, one of the most rampant issues facing women in the military, has been exposed on an international level. Despite this, sexual harassment remains highly problematic. As the frequent target of unsolicited attention from their peers and even their superiors, servicewomen are forced to vigilantly navigate the military status quo.

When Matzke first spoke with a young servicewoman named Erin about her life in the military, discussion quickly turned to sexual harassment. Almost immediately, Erin offered to share the archive of unwanted graphic images and messages she had received from male colleagues. In the featured photograph, Where is your wife mr (2013), Erin displays a text conversation on her phone in which her sergeant sent her a dick pic, to which she responds with the phrase that became the photograph’s title.

In her thesis essay, Matzke relates that she chose this particular exchange because of Erin’s ambivalence toward the incident. Matzke marveled at the line Erin has been “forced to walk . . . between taking a stand—breaking with protocol and going above her higher ranking officer, the man who sent the text—or being complicit to the abuse and say[ing] nothing.”[1] If the alarming amount of unsolicited material Erin—and undoubtedly, other servicewomen—has received from her colleagues and superiors is any indication, women cannot separate the personal from the professional in the military.

MOSSLESS [Jonah Rosenberg]: It seems like a big part of your work is activities and parts of life that many would view as private, taking place in public. Is the privacy of your subjects something you think about a lot?

Khalik Allah: My photographs seem to provide a look into my subject's private lives even though they're in public areas. This is because most of them are homeless. Their bathroom and kitchen is right there on the corner and everyone is walking through their "living room." Many don't notice this and many pass by trying to avoid the area. That's how this block became gold for me. My subjects took to me because of my loyalty and dedication to them. They recognized the passion behind my lens. My photography is predicated on love and trust. This is how I've been able to achieve intimacy. I call what I do "camera ministry."

“Camera ministry” is about resurrecting the dead through light. Baptizing people. My camera is a sophisticated instrument. I use it on behalf of God. After so many times asking people to walk with me into the light I realized the magnitude of that statement. And I didn't get into photography for people to like my images. I was in a real desperate place when I began. The souls of the people in my photographs, "camera ministry" — that's what it feels like I'm doing. I didn't expect anyone to follow me here, but my photography opened up a whole new world. 

ML: How do you think the work would be impacted if it was made by someone who is an outsider to the neighborhood? 

KA: I don't think an outsider can make this work. Nothing outside can take these pictures. It all came from going inward anyway. Man I grew up in the 5% Nation. There's nothing more of the environment than that. Sometime long ago, I don't remember, I made an agreement with God to do this work. This is part of my destiny. 

Stacy Kranitz: I don’t know if you want the context of the character I play in Appalachia — Chr.. Christy, do you need that context?

MOSSLESS [Romke]: I wasn’t aware that you were playing a character. So it’s not exactly Stacy Kranitz in the photos?

SK: I’m Christy.

ML: [laughs] I worried for a second you said Chris Christie!

SK: [laughs] Oh no no no, he has no relationship to Appalachia... My first understanding of Appalachia [is with movies]—and again that’s what I was thinking a lot about, when we travel or make a body of work, we research that place—we have a fantasy. And then we go to the place, and the actual place pushes against that fantasy, it’s almost like a wrestling match because the fantasy still sticks around, you’re still looking for it even though in reality, it’s not there. That insider-outsider relationship is so significant…

Christy was the first thing that I saw with a novel, and then it was a mini-series, written by this woman named Catherine Marshall. It was about her mother. It came out in the 1960s and the mini-series came out in the 1980s, so I saw it when I was a child. I have the 900 minute mini series… so good, so bad. So basically, it’s based on a real story of her mother's experience in 1910 or 1912, she was living in Asheville when it was a city, so it was kind of sophisticated. There was lower, middle and upper class. And as a Christian—think they were Catholic—they were given the opportunity to go and work in the mountains with these mountain communities.. she was eighteen or nineteen and she was sent to work with this mountain community in the Smoky Mountains of Appalachia to teach children how to read/write and clean themselves. That’s what missionaries did at that time and I see a correlation between being the missionaries asserting a right and wrong onto a group of people, I think that’s similar with the [role of] photojournalists.

ML: Is this explicit in the series when you present it, or is it more subtle?

SK: I have an essay that goes with it that very much details my feelings and that was something I did for the Oxford American, so it’s publicly available.

ML: So people should be aware of it when they look at the work.

SK: Yeah, it’s very central… I am enacting a contemporary Christy. So Christy goes into the mountains, she has this idea of what she’s supposed to do and how she’s supposed to help these people—they need to not be illiterate and they need to learn how to have more sanitary ways of living.

So what happens in the narrative is that Christy meets all this Appalachian families and she becomes undone by them. Over the course of the story, she learns that her ideas of right and wrong are not at all… they don’t make any sense everywhere in the world. It becomes this huge, beautiful lesson where they sort of undo her belief system, her value system. She comes away with this beautiful merging of the two, of her life from her upbringing, and the things that are so beautiful and so wonderful about how this group of mountain people live. There’s also this romance, she has this love between the preacher and the doctor so it’s like logic versus spirituality. I think it’s a very beautiful narrative, so that’s where my sexuality comes in...and that’s the truth, we’re constantly turning the world into a romance novel.

ML: Right, that’s absolutely true. So is [Christy] something you use in your presentation, or when you meet your subjects? Do you present yourself [to them] as Stacy or Christy?

SK: I’m Stacy, but Stacy is there to become undone. Christy is something I keep in my mind and in those images of me in that project, I am enacting Christy.

ML: Do you talk about that to your subjects?

SK: I think I talk about Christy to everybody, across the board… when I’m working with subjects to make those images, of course, I will try to explain what I’m doing but I think that the relationships I have with subjects, they sort of have their own weirdness. What I end up talking about with them in terms of the project, like right now with Pat, I talk a lot about poverty theory. So Christy doesn’t really come up, it’s just like every different person I talk to… when I’m talking to certain people who are interested, that might come up and I would talk to them about it.