Through his portraits, Giovanni di Mola says he is revealing the vulnerability and the poetic, visual and spontaneous unspoken truths of his subjects. Despite abandoning the East Village for swimming holes and open fields (sounds crazy to me) 130 miles North (even crazier still), we still somehow love his work.

Weston: How’s life in the Hudson Valley?

Giovanni: A mixed bag. Great because of the convenience of being able to walk to most of my jobs and friends, not spending most of the day traveling back and forth from work, having time to focus on my art, living healthy, getting fresh fruits and vegetables, seeing nature on a regular basis. Bad because it can be a bit isolating - harder if you’re a single guy - you have to create most of your entertainment.

W: Why did you leave New York?

G: Needed change - and to simplify things… had lost inspiration… too many billboards and advertising on every crack and corner including the damn bathroom stall… bring things down to their core so I could restart… try to remember why I was in New York City… many years of drugging and clubbing fried me… I forgot who the fuck I was… felt more like a machine part - a cog in the wheel of industry… got a bit bitter… needed to be excited by life again.

W: How do you find your models up there?

G: It’s different up here I build up friendships over time and repeated introductions before I ever ask them to pose for me. I never ask anyone to pose nude. They feel comfortable enough to introduce the idea when they’re ready. It’s a smaller community so you eventually see the same people over time at friends places and outdoor gatherings. I meet many on nights that I throw my alt dance party. Some are just passing through living in Hudson until they figure out their next move.

W: An alt dance party in Hudson?

G: It’s a once a month bash that mixes up the Hudsonians, northern New Yorkers, the Berkshires, New York City weekenders, drag queens, trannies, homos and lesbians to party and dance together. Many times based on a theme. It was my way to cure my homesick and melancholic feelings about Boy Bar, Pyramid, The World, SqueezeBox, and that incredible mix of people from completely diverse backgrounds.

W: Your models are very unselfconscious. How do you get them comfortable in front of the camera.

G: The setting is very informal. I don’t use assistants, makeup, etc. I use available light and my camera. Maybe a tripod. It’s just me and them. Many of the models have a very strong sense of self-identity. A punk sort of attitude which I connect with since I was once the same - living and partying in the LES and the East Village in the late 80s and early 90s.

W: Were you a punk? What was your story back then?

G: I was a guido (not yet a fag) from Astoria Queens, that got to be a new waver/punk on the weekends in New York, which eventually became a part of who I am today. I used to see punk bands like Murphy’s Law, Kraut, Black Flag and early Beastie Boys (Cookie Puss) at CBGB, doing too much acid and waking up on the sidewalk - but psyched I woke up in New York instead of Queens. Places like Boy Bar, Pyramid, The World, Rock and Roll Fag Bar were where I got to figure out who I was - or wanted to be. You could be gay and love rock, you could be straight and dance to disco, you could be a business man and wear your best leather gear out and beeeee.

W: OK back to your work. Can you explain what you mean when you say your work is “revealing and subverting identity”?

G: I like playing with the lines that separate gender, sexuality, the sort of roles that we play without knowing it. The person or identity you bring to a portrait session. I like peeling away at those layers, showing what I see, and hopefully sharing it with everyone else. People always say “Huh, I look like that? I didn’t know I had that in me. Cool!”

W: How do you think that identity-play comes through in your work?

G: By whom I choose to photograph, and leaving the sitter/model in the room to do whatever they feel they want to on-camera. I project that freedom because I still am constantly challenged by inner battle of masculine versus feminine. Through them I get to work through some of that dialogue.

W: There’s not a lot of manufactured idealism about your work. The models, the setting, the lighting - all very raw and ‘as-is’, but at the same time nearly everyone is posing for the camera.

G: It’s that contradiction that I love so much. It’s sort of like catching a word in the middle of a conversation that sticks with you. That’s what my portraits are. Does that answer it or confuse it more? [laughs].

W: So, like a narrative fragment.

G: Yes, but without planning or setting up the image. Those narratives are played out through the natural personality and physicality of the sitter .

W: Seems like a stupid question, but most of your models are nude, or at least half-naked. Except for the women. Beyond the obvious, why?

G: I feel more like myself when I don’t have my clothing (AKA uniform) or layers on. It turns out that many of my models and friends feel the same way!

W: You’re black and white and Polaroid work have a very different approach. Simple backdrops, models vamping for the camera, fairly close-up, more controlled ‘traditional’ portraiture.

G: It’s my earlier work. My first attempts at portraiture. While studying photography at SVA by day, and photographing the club scene - dancers, drag queens, performers - by night. Michael Formika Jones, Miss Understood, Sherry Vine, SqueezeBox and Michael Schmidt all gave me the chance to explore and document while partaking in all of it!

W: Some of your photographs involve multiple exposures of different poses. Are you trying to show movement? Ambiguity? Neither? Both?

G: I love playing with movement and time. I enjoy working with dancers - the freakiness and beauty of their bodies and movement. Brian Brooks Moving Company is what got me started. I don’t shoot multiple exposures, but long exposures, so that after sitting still long enough something has to give.

W: You’ve said you are influenced by Caravaggio. In what way?

G: His light and subjects. The way he would paint with light. The purity and rawness. The contrasts between beauty, sacrilege, and undesirability. I found some of that light up here along the Hudson River, and my subjects - especially those passing through - carry many of the same circumstances that his models did.

W: The “same circumstances”, as in they’re hustlers?

G: Along the way some of them lived on the streets, some were drug dealers, addicts, petty criminals. I see real humanity and striking character in these people. They are beautiful to me in a way that fashion models and movie stars are to most people. Photographing them gives me a chance to place them on a virtual pedestal of sorts, which Caravaggio did with his religious paintings.

W: You’ve said lately you’ve starting to move more towards abstraction and ephemera. How do you go from very visually descriptive portraiture to that?

G: During the warmer seasons my outdoor portraits and landscapes get more of my attention. Hidden swimming holes, open fields in the middle of nowhere, reflections in streams, herbal supplements [laughs], etc. I do more self-portraits as well.

W: What are you working on now?

G: A portrait series of the people of Hudson, whether they were born here, passing through, or just starting to make a life for themselves. The ones I feel that really represent this place, and a bit of our future. They are all non-typical. Very individual. The lines of their gender and sexuality are blurred which I feel is much closer to many of our true natures - if we allow ourselves.

W: What’s next?

G: Late Summer early Fall I’ll be heading back to Israel to complete my project that I started working on in 2005 on Israel, specifically Tel Aviv and it’s people, and then ending the trip in India to start a new project. I’m also going to head back to New York. I’d like to re-explore it and the characters and cast that make it up now. There is a whole new generation of New Yorkers, especially in my second home the East Village, that I’d love to connect with and capture.

all photographs ©Giovanni di Mola

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