| Teng Chao-Ming: How did you start doing photography? Christophe Kutner: I started working as a photographer when I was 24. I worked as the assistant of Horst P. Horst. From his teaching, talking with him, and after that, with my own experience, I cross the whole history of photography. TC: So you didn’t go to art school. How did you discover photography as your medium for expression? CK: No, I didn’t. I studied medicine when I was in university. I am not from an artist family. My mom always told me that you could make it a hobby. Hobby? I think it’s a very bad word. |
 |
Christophe Kutner, interviewed by Teng Chao-Ming
Teng Chao-Ming: How did you start doing photography?
Christophe Kutner: I started working as a photographer when I was 24. I worked as the assistant of Horst P. Horst. From his teaching, talking with him, and after that, with my own experience, I cross the whole history of photography.
TC: So you didn’t go to art school. How did you discover photography as your medium for expression?
CK: No, I didn’t. I studied medicine when I was in university. I am not from an artist family. My mom always told me that you could make it a hobby. Hobby? I think it’s a very bad word. I think I was more like a frustrated painter. I like the idea of intervention on the reality, and so I do that with my pictures. I was interested in reality and the reality in images, and I like a lot women and girls, and I wanted to make photos of them, and that’s how I got into fashion photography. So that was the beginning. And then I started collecting photographs, and I realized fashion photographs never attracted me. I like Larry Clark, Bruce Davidson a lot. I have been really impressed by those photographers.
TC: But you have been doing fashion photography for a long time.
CK: Yes. But I found that the fashion industry has changed a lot. They are now very stuck in this idea of luxury and celebrity business, and I don’t like that. So I started to work with more underground and indie magazines like Metal in Spain. They let me do the type of work I want to do.
Even the way we work has changed. Year 2000 was a big change. I remember before 2000, you could do planning for a whole year, and now we shoot for a season in one month and half around December and then another round in June or July, and for the rest of the year we don’t do any editorial for the magazine. So before we can have all these visions, you are more in touch with what’s happening. You might draw inspirations from a great movie that’s coming out, for example. You don’t care about that today anymore.
Like in the 90s or 80s, they would go to fashion shows, and found one collection by a designer, and were like, “Wow, this is the best collection this year!” And then they would do a cover feature for this best collection instead of Chanel, for example. Today it is not possible. They sell the advertisement two years in advance; they do all these contract things. They know already two years in advance who will be on the cover for the September issue. So, the designer can do a shitty collection, and still have the cover of the issue.
TC: I am in particular, interested in a series of your work called Party Animals.
CK: I started this series for Metal, the Barcelona-based magazine I mentioned. It’s also part of the response to the fashion industry issue we talked about. I was interested in the Gothic tribes in Europe. Those people, who got their own very strong sense of style and fashion, are not following the trends out there. And then I was talking to one of the editors of the magazine, about this movie called Party Monsters, the old story about the Limelight, you know the club, and the club kids in the late 80s. They were known for their outrageous, extravagant costumes, big themes. They all get like overdressed, almost drag, living just for party, this whole club kids culture. And now in Paris and London, there is this kind of reviving the idea of the club kids. To me this work is also a way of talking about reality, and touching the total fantasy. I decided that I would shoot them as portraits, the way they are going out to party.
TC: Are they real partygoers? Or models you hire for shooting?
CK: They are all real people, who go to the Club Sandwich parties in Paris. I shoot this series in Paris. I asked them to pick their clothes, they chose what they are going to wear, the character, the persona, and they are playing. I wanted it to be a real play. Everything is close to the reality, but the images would give the impression like extreme people who are part of something that really exists.
TC: Who in this series gave you the biggest surprise?
CK: There’s this woman Samantha; she was a men! So it’s like an extreme makeover, much more than a drag queen. And it’s different from you ask a model to dress like a cowboy or something. They live this kind of life; that’s their reality. Even though when you see these images, or read about them, you feel you are seeing some fantasy.
TC: What are you working on now?
CK: I now do more photography for institutions or companies, to make a living. They allow me to shoot the way I want it. I am working on a photo book for my Road Trip series. All the images are ready, but I am having a problem with whether to have text in them. I know the power of text, but sometimes they can be a distraction.
TC: What about the Facebook idea we talked about?
CK: Yes, maybe we should really do this! And speaking of the online world, I am starting a new blog-like Web site called “Lost and Found Diary.” It’s not online yet, but basically it will be a space for a group of curators, artists, and writers, who share the same vision, to put up online shows that address issues we want to talk about. I think online space is the future. No one reads magazines now. It’s a space to grow a community.
