Bill Klein Is Dead. Long Live William Klein, We Need The Tenacity of Photography. Now.
The Prerequisite of Visual Criticism To Photography
Halloween Highland Park, Los Angeles, 2020 © Bil Brown
William Klein was one of the greats of photography. That is enough of an epitaph, but I am going to go on. He was one of the greats. Period. In a time when we are losing them all, and who is there to replace them? Maybe no one. Maybe a new art is needed.
I was recently watching the doc of another great photographer who died in the last few years, Robert Frank. There was a section where he filmed Julian, the schizophrenic brother of Allen Ginsberg’s long time husband Peter Orlovsky, saying something I thought was important:
“Well the camera is a reflection of disapproval, or disgust or unexplicability. To disclose and real truth that might possibly exist.”
Sounds about right.
I knew in this Substack I would eventually get to the point of what photography means. It is so damn new, and even now in the throes of its imminent death by AI, it has this uncanny ability to keep our attention. Photography is so new and has moved so fast in its 180 years that there hasn’t even been a chance to come up with a language to describe it. Gallerists and museums to this day still don’t know where to put it, really. They typically pick the wrong things to focus on (in an art that is all about focus). Photography is powerful. That is, if we take the time to understand its innate power – photography is real. Even if imagined, photography can only exist if what is in front of the lens has existed at one point or another. This is true with constructed realities and found art. Photography, this writing with light, needs whatever it is to be illuminated.
Barthes called it Punctum, that innate thing that a photograph has that makes it great. Klein was someone that did it constantly. I don’t know if people know how to do what he did anymore. I don’t know if its common to be an artist like that and work on your vision enough. Maybe Klein didn’t have to. His painting and sculpture did it. He was just following what he found interesting. It was said he picked up a camera and did some motion study and realized what that blur looked like, and something in him stirred. This was the days of film. This was the day where just taking a perfectly stable photo, perfectly in focus, wasn’t as easy as buying the latest Sony A7IV or newest iPhone 14. This was the time when it was up to the photographer and completely based upon their ability. One person, instead of 100 engineers and one algorithmic machine learned thusness. What are they learning anyway? How to be human?
William Klein was human. My friend Bruce Gilden relates a time when Klein wasn’t very nice. Maybe I shouldn’t say what it was about, so I won’t. Needless to say, two great visual minds came to an enforced agreement to keep a distance from one another. Klein wasn’t much better to Diane Vreeland (I know her granddaughter and yes, she wasn’t exactly the nicest person either but Klein did this film that made fun of the fashion industry and no, it didn’t kill his career. Honestly, it never really does.
Klein famously said, “I came from the outside, the rules of photography didn't interest me. Sometimes I would take shots without aiming just to see what would happen.” If you’ve seen the way I shoot, you might think I took that to heart (or to its logical extreme). What I think about Klein is not just the shots he got, but HOW he got them. He lived. He had the energy to do it. He was his own personality or character. Why is it that we aren’t more like Klein?
Real.
Rest in Power, William Klein. You deserve it.
I’m doing a portrait workshop in DTLA Halloween weekend. I’ve extended the discount, so get it while its cheap. I won’t keep this discount forever.
I really appreciate you sticking with me. Let’s keep supporting and making good work!
BB