We first saw the work of Jesse Finley Reed a few weeks ago at a group show curated by Dylan Peet at Brooklyn’s Like the Spice Gallery. His large format prints of an all too familiar bathroom, the original Cock on Avenue A in New York City, were disconcerting in their conspicuous lack of… inconspicuousness. So… we got in touch to talk about seedy bars, trashy boys, naked strangers and anonymous online hookups, yet somehow ended up covering everything but that. All for the best because his work is as rich as it is varied, with a decidedly atypical gay perspective and a very serious queer agenda.

Weston Bingham: Unlike a lot of gay photographers, you don’t even appear in your work. Tell us at least five personal things about yourself.

Jesse Finley Reed: Early on I made an entire body of work where I was the central figure in the frame. I think it just became too complicated to be objective about the meaning behind the image with me staring into my own eyes. Maybe I was uncomfortable with the implied narcissism, as I tend to be insecure

Ok, five personal things:

1. I grew up in the distant suburbs of Boston Massachusetts, in the quintessential New England town of Duxbury, Massachusetts.

2. My trajectory for my “developmental years” was desperately trying to fit into a mold, accompanied by a torrential storm of verbal attacks by my peers. Despite not being out, I held the role of the town faggot. I rebelled of course and became a powerful outsider.

3. In ninth grade (1990) I made this sculpture that ended up being displayed in the principal’s office, called ‘Three American Families’ using Barbie and Ken dolls. Ah, teen angst [laughs] - liberal conservative Massachusetts. I organized them in the diorama of sorts in three couples - gay, lesbian and heterosexual - and glued one of those Jesus nightlights to the top. This was of course highly controversial, but in many ways set the tone for the individual I would become. I wish I had a picture. I think there was a painting of an American flag with pink triangles as well.

4. I am a Sagittarius on the cusp of being a Capricorn - December 20th. All I know about astrology is that I shouldn’t date Tauruses.

5. I subscribe to the Economist, but always read Star at the grocery or on my friend’s toilet.

WB: On to your artwork. You received a grant from the German government a couple years ago? What did you do with it?

JFR: Following graduate school at Yale, I stayed living in New Haven to complete everything I didn’t have time to do while in grad school - it was actually my best year at Yale. My work at that time had been very focused on exploring queer space. This is when I produced the ‘Nightclub Interiors’, ‘Entrances and Events’, and ‘Passageways’ along with some installations. I had taken a class in the History of Medicine Department at Yale on the medical history of homosexuality, which in many ways served as the initial interest in Berlin as a potential site for my artwork, as individuals such as Hirschfeld and Ulrich’s were doing really progress scientific/activism back around the turn of the century.
Berlin is a city unlike any other, with a number of histories colliding in what is now one place. This was and continues to be very exciting to me. Having traveled there twice before to make and show my artwork, I knew the lay of the land, but I wanted to explore it more deeply. Germany, and specifically Berlin has played a unique role in queer history, having had some of the most progressive as well as the most radically conservative attitudes towards homosexuality.

My DAAD grant project focused on the evolution of queer space in Berlin between the Weimar Republic and present day. Using the resources of the Schwules Museum Archive (Gay Museum), the Staatsbibliothek (The City Library), and the Bibliothek der Universität der Künste (University of the Arts Library), I came to understand more broadly the development of the landscape around me. My ideas expanded beyond literal conceptions of sexuality, and I became interested in how the concept of queerness could be applied to the city as a whole. In many ways, I began to see Berlin itself as a queer space, both in terms of its population and its urban landscape.

I also began the ‘If You’re Lonely…’ series here, inspired by online communities in Berlin. Some of these images are currently on view in an exhibition at Sloan Fine Art in New York’s Lower East Side, curated by Becky Smith of Bellwether Gallery. The exhibition, Love is a Cannibal, looks at the various ways artists are depicting gay-male longing by using staged, constructed and manipulated photography.

WB: Bright lights in typically dark seedy locales. Make up to make boys more masculine, not more feminine. Atypical territory. Where does your perspective come from?

JFR: My perspective, of course, comes from what I see, my experiences, what I read/have read - really everything around me. Similarly to academics, I spend a lot of time researching my ideas, while thinking about what I want to make. My artwork, despite being reductive and cold at times, it comes from a very personal place.

With the ‘Nightclub Interiors’ I was interested in “outing” these spaces that are normally imagined and experiences cloaked in color lighting and darkness. Using lighting and the large format photography, I wanted to create a detailed record of these places that are so often mythologized.

The thing I love about the ‘Interiors’ project is how it operates on the one hand as an almost typological, documentary photography. On the other hand, this wouldn’t be enough to keep me interested.

Nightclubs provide a location for the creation of the LGBTQ community. The closest thing I suppose to a national gay holiday is the night of the Stonewall Riots, which began in a gay bar in the West Village in 1969. Even before this, academics such as George Chauncey wrote about the significance of these places in his book Gay New York, dating back to the early 1920s I believe (it’s been a while since I read it). Looking back at my own life, the club was the first place I could really perform my sexual orientation in a semi-public space. Despite their limitations - and there are MANY - it provided a location for me to express my sexual identity, and I am certain, for many others.

It’s interesting how these younger generations have entirely different views on expressing their sexuality. I would guess that it all takes place virtually - a virtual outing of ones self if you will - using their online profile and persona. The benefit of this is that people can more readily meet one another, find community, and see that others are out there like them. The down side of course, is the anonymous sex, and increased rates of stds which seem to be going hand in hand with this new community. This is where ‘If You’re Lonely…’ was born.

As for the men transformed with make up, men have finally become subjected to many of the issues surrounding their appearances that have plagued women for decades. It’s interesting how as we evolve these things become more pronounced than deflated. Make up is a temporary and superficial redressing of the face to alter experience.

In both cases, whether it’s a body or a club interior, it’s the superficial transformation and then documentation of the subject where meaning is located for me as a artist. It’s the tension that is created in the queering of my subject.
WB: Your airbrushed men make the average body sexy, and your interior shots make sexy spaces average…

JFR: It’s all about transformation. In many ways the work is simple and aesthetically plain, but for me, and I hope my viewers, rich in meaning.

WB: Any atypical gay activities in your personal life?

JFR: Gay activities… besides looking for sex? Ohhh atypical. Well, I don’t know that there still are atypical gay activities.

WB: Subversion is a common gay artist theme, but in your case it’s subversion of purpose, of surface, of conventions, of expectations, of purpose. Why is this important to you? What are exploring?

JFR: Subversion is certainly a common practice in contemporary art. That said, it often leaves viewers scrambling to find something of lasting thought after the shock factor wears off. With my work, the subversive qualities are what I attribute to the queer factor. It is where meaning is located for me. Soap is wet with residue, rather than pristine and clean. Nightclubs are void of activity, a population and darkness, but it’s not simply about its sexual connotations for me. It’s more than that.

WB: Is there a queer agenda in the idea of brightly lighting your subjects?

JFR: For me, the style of lighting is one of the paramount factors in generating of meaning in my photographs (and in the installations for that matter). Lighting is about bringing something to the surface, whether or not its an interior of a nightclub, or showcasing a model in studio lighting. It’s about taking something conventional and putting a spin on it.

WB: Are you often surprised by the brightly lit boys you wake up to the morning after a particularly sloppy night?

JFR: No, that’s not when they are surprising, as I always tend to keep my head on my shoulders. For me, the surprise is the difference between virtually and physically meeting someone - an important distinction in our modern world - specifically how your expectations and individuals personas sometimes don’t match their self descriptions, to put it very, very gently.

WB: What was your biggest virtual-then-real meeting disaster?

JFR: So much of the online thing is fantasy. In many cases it’s about performance and constructed personas (in my humble opinion and experience). I think the hunt is better than the catch in most cases. For me this is one of the most intriguing aspects.

People often ask me, how did you get the guys to come, pose, and leave - for free - as they often don’t believe nothing else happened. I have concluded that the men who participate want the attention. They want to be sought out. They want to perform some aspect of their masculine identity, and in the case of ‘If You’re Lonely…’, remain anonymous.
There was only one person who came to pose for ‘If You’re Lonely…’ with a bottle of wine in-hand - things didn’t go well, and lets just say he didn’t end up posing, or anything else.

WB: A lot of the people we’ve interviewed for EVB have found their subjects online, as you have. Are social networking sites just making things easier or do you think it’s actually changing the art making process and agenda?

JFR: Well, I can’t generalize what other people are doing, but it is a new form of communication and community. In my practice it was a logical trajectory following the nightclub interiors. Online communities are a new form of queer space. In some respects, they provide the illusion of more inclusion, but at the same time, they are saturated with manufactured bodies and personalities. It’s a little worrisome how many headless chests you see (of course, this was the inspiration for ‘The Merchandise’)

WB: Any trashy tales to share with us about the guys you picked up online for the ‘If You’re Lonely…’ series?

JFR: Actually, that is how my first Manhunt profile got created – happygofuckme - recruit models for my projects, and I wanted something funny and memorable. I was partnered then, and was taking my work too seriously to mix business and pleasure… most of the time.

With ‘If You’re Lonely…’, it was more like a transaction. Participants were told exactly what was going to happen before they came over. They would arrive, remove their shirt, get photographed and leave. Nothing more.

WB: Visually, a lot your work is filled with angst, anxiety, loneliness, denatured contexts. Shadowy ominous portraits of strangers from ‘If You’re Lonely…’ Judy Garland impersonator portraits are accompanied by her quote “If I’m famous, then why am I so lonely?”. Not the usual hot-boy fest that so many gay photographers gravitate to. What is it about these concepts that attracts you?

JFR: I guess it’s again personal experience. Although I don’t know him, in many ways I feel like my work shares the perspective that Stephen Merritt (of The Magnetic Fields, The 6th, and various other projects) writes about in his lyrics. I don’t know if these perspectives are so unusual to gay men and gay culture, they are just probably less publicized as they would sell far fewer magazines. Americans want the Bruce Weber on their coffee table, rather than, shall I be so bold, a Jesse Finley Reed, which is something interesting about us as a culture. As conscious as we are about the production of images and their influence, many of us just want to be dumb and look at the eye candy. I can’t say that I don’t do it from time to time myself.
I like the disjunction between my work as a gay artist/photographer, and that of the Bruce Webers of the world. I say more power to them. It’s perfect that a raging fag makes faggy pictures for middle American jock boys to buy. In a way, that is the perfect piece in and of itself - the lovely contradiction that is American social politics. Even though we are informed by feminism and have seen the commodification of the female body for decades, we, as members of the opposite sex, are following the same model - the unrealistic body. Personally, I am very excited that the airbrushed models from ‘Boys Showing Off’ and ‘The Merchandise’ will be included in a new collection titled Gay Photography Now, a book put out by David Leddick, where much of the work is in a similar vein to Weber. The tension between my work and that work makes it the perfect place to be located.

With Judy, I think that I, along with many others (Rufus Wainwright and countless other performers), are engaging in conversation about the construction, meaning and image of this gay icon. I see the images I am making as adding to the complexity of her character. One impersonator said to me, “people always want me to play the boozed up Judy, but there was so much more of her than that.” I guess that is what I am nudging at.

WB: Your images are is visually hyper-aware, but somehow there’s a lot of story in your shots that we’re not seeing - as if something just happened, or is about to. What is that missing story?

JFR: The missing stories are left out intentionally. It’s your entertainment darling.

WB: Your Cock bathrooms have been getting a lot of press. What’s your best Cock story?

JFR: What Cock story? I remember and take responsibility for nothing. Isn’t it all just cultural mythology? It’s just a dank box that serves booze - and charges admission.

WB: For a gay artist, you have a conspicuous lack of cock in your work. It’s often the first place a gay artist heads. How do you choose your subjects?

JFR: Well, I think we have to be careful saying that cock artwork equals gay. Think about all those precious cherubs in paintings from decades and centuries past… though actually, in the spirit of full disclosure, there are about seven cock shots on my website.

Subjects are chosen based on what I am interested in at that time. I’m never going to be an artist that makes one type of picture or thing. This is something that I have come to accept, and have wondered if it will hurt me professionally. But my work is very personal, and therefore, heavily influenced by what I am reading about, looking at, or doing with my life at the time being.

WB: Is being a gay artist that isn’t automatically drawn to stereotypical queer themes a result of the changing social climate in this country, or is it more personal for you?

JFR: It’s definitely more personal for me, and my hope is that my work can take people places beyond just gay sexuality. Changing social attitudes are allowing us to see our similarities a bit more - like the fact that all men are whores, not just gay men.

For me, the use of the word queer is twofold. First, as an indication of sexual orientation, and then it’s traditional implication of strangeness or difference. I think that is why my work is so queer. It takes something we have a conventional idea of, such as a naked boy in a room or a nightclub interior, and fucks with it slightly.

WB: Is there anyone you’d like to collaborate with?

JFR: Stephen Merrit, Jonathan Horowitz and anyone that will fly me to their country to work on something.

WB: Any dreams for future projects?

JFR: I have some new ideas in the works, which continue the themes I am currently engaged in. They are performance-based works involving men drinking beer. I won’t say more now though [laughs].
All images are ©Jesse Finley Reed
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