nikki

“You’re in the car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him you love him, and you’re trying to choke down that feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for.” -Richard Siken

Le donne ubriache dell'artista svedese Nick Alm (b. 1985).

Sam is a psychiatrist filling in for a colleague. He meets Henry Letham, a young artist planning on killing himself. As Sam tries desperately to stop Henry’s suicide, learning everything about Henry and his past, Sam starts to lose his own grip on reality. He can no longer tell what is real and what isn’t.

Stay (2005) is a surreal film that asks questions about existentialism. Every shot is dripping with surrealism, the whole film feels like a disorienting dream. The in-your-face stylistic flourishes serve the story, and they make the film more engaging too. 

The location (118 N. 11th St) now

The Grace album shoot happened at Arcadia Studios in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in December 1993. My friend Billy Basinski had this amazing loft space, Arcadia, where he hosted cabaret and music shows. The space was very opulent and textural and I used some of the surfaces as they were and also built some sets to shoot against. There was a small stage and the space was decorated with unusual vinyl pieces and his boyfriend Jamie's art works. When Jeff and Sony hired me to do the album package, I thought this would be a wonderful backdrop. For the day of the shoot I made some stage sets and used much of the existing features of the space.

It was once again a high-pressure situation for Jeff and he was pretty nervous coming in, knowing that a lot was expected from him. There was quite a few business people there watching, so part of my job was to distract him from feeling self-conscious and ease him into the moment. Of course it is easier to photograph people on a one-to-one basis, but when that's not possible it is important to create a relaxed space in whatever way you can conjure so people lose their self-consciousness. With Jeff we started on a black backdrop to warm up and let him jump around to throw off some of the nervousness. Then he did what came naturally and started writing in his notebook, sitting under a table with clocks all over it. As things warmed up images started evolving, the atmosphere lightened, and we started to experiment. The amazing thing about photographing Jeff was his willingness to try almost any idea I put forward.

One of my favourite shots of John Frusciante from 2004. I think it really captures a special moment of vulnerability and strength. He had been crying in the interview shortly before and you can still see his tears on his t-shirt.

— Scarlet Page

“I had so many years of terrible, terrible…” He breaks down. “I’m sorry,” he says, turning the tape recorder off and drying his eyes. “Sometimes I get into situations of just being so overwhelmed by what I’ve been through, so many years of regretting everything, all the things I could have done when I was 22 years old…” The tape is back on. “But I was totally incapable of it, I had just so many mental problems. It wasn’t until I was 28 that my brain actually felt like a spacious place. When I was 18, 19, 22, my brain was just clogged all the time – non-stop voices. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. There was a lot of confusion inside me, this flood of voices, often contradicting each other, often telling me stuff that would happen in the future and then it would happen, voices insulting me, telling me what to do. I might have made things a bit more balanced if my head had been a little clearer, but it wasn't the amount of pot I smoked – 24 hours a day by the time I was 20. I had this feeling that there was something else I needed to do for myself the inside that had nothing to do with my outward presentation to the world, so playing in the Chili Peppers was making me severely depressed. If I had quit at the end of Blood Sugar, I think I could have gone through this stuff easier, without becoming a drug addict. But by the time I did leave, hard drugs were the only way I could be happy enough to live and not just be the most hopeless person who can’t even listen to music and is about to die. I took a clear-cut decision that I was going to be a drug addict.”

— MOJO magazine, July 2004