An Artist at Work

So I just finished reading Annie Leibovitz's biography "At Work." If you don't know who that is, she was a photographer for Rolling Stone back when Rolling Stone really mattered. She eventually went on to work for Vanity Fair and she's most famous for her pics of Yoko and John Lennon and various celebrities in surreal settings or poses (re: a pregnant Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair). I'm not a huge fan of hers. I don't "get" the depth or magic in her pictures. And to be honest, celebrity shots bore me. Maybe I've just been too inundated with EXTRA and US Weekly to give a hoot.


But Leibovitz's place in culture fascinates me. In this book she talks about working with Hunter Thompson during Nixon's resignation--taking mescaline --only because Hunter told her too. And getting invited to all the swank parties with Tom Wolfe. She was the official photographer of the Rolling Stones. And throughout the book you'll see shots of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards jamming, wrenching about onstage and passed out. There are photos of Andy Warhol and Truman Capote socializing and working in warehouses, restaurants. I happen to think these folks are really icons of history--unreal and unreachable. To think about their influence on one of the most radically shifting era is astonishing to say the least.

At the conclusion of this book I was left with another emotion: disappointment. Here's a paragraph from the book:

“The people I worked with at Rolling Stone in those early years didn’t tell me what to do. It never occurred to them. Most of the time I could respond to what was happening without preconceptions or an agenda. I was never thinking about the magazine when I was on the road. I was in the thick of it and I made my own decisions based on what was possible. Things happen in front of you. That's perhaps the most wonderful and mysterious aspect of photography. It seemed like you just had to decide when and where to aim the camera. The process was linear and it never stopped."

Today I feel most things are contrived. Marketing is so pervasive. Art is so measured and commercial. When was the last time you felt so strongly about something that you took part in changing it? It's a complacency that's killing what's magical and revolutionary about art. And I'm not just talking about photographs or paintings. If I had a camera, I don't know what I would shoot. The events don't unfold like they did. Or is it just me? Maybe I'm just blind to the wars that make my community.

I don't know. In many ways the 60s and 70s have been glamorized. And I'm sure it wasn't all love-ins and drugs. But at least people felt a part of something that was bigger than themselves. And I can't help but wish I could have been a part of that.