Reconstructing Memory: The Family Photographs of Three New York Artists
Lori Don Levan
Jerry Vezzuso,
Darin Mickey and Rod Morata all have something in common: they photograph their
families. While this may not seem like an unusual activity — we all photograph
our families at some point or another — these three artists take family
photography out to an ambitious new terrain whose distant center remains the
living room photo album. Vezzuso’s work has emerged over a thirty year period
where he has stood as an observer looking at his Staten Island family and feeling
at times like an outsider. Mickey’s family photographs began as a project
following his father and documenting his life as a salesman. In that process
he was able to become closer to his father and reconstruct memories from his
childhood. Morata’s work grew out of his desire to connect to a past that
he was too young to have experienced, yet that past has served to create a portrait
of family life in which he participates as a young adult. Mickey and Morata studied
under Vezzuso at the School of Visual Arts in New York, an education whose quality
is evident in the genuine artistic autonomy of each photographer. This article
is based on interviews conducted with these three artists in July, 2003. They
all have their work on self designed web sites and show their work regularly
in New York City and surrounding areas.
Vezzuso considers the work that he’s done over the past ten years to be
his most important. Although he never includes himself in his pictures, Vezzuso
explains: “I feel so strongly that my pictures are about me. It’s either
something I can reflect on or something I wish I did as a boy and young adult
like bonding.” Indeed, the images featured on his web site (www.artistportfolios.net/JerryVezzuso)
tell that very kind of story. The young men and boys appearing in his work are
familiar somehow. Cousins, Uncles, Nephews, Brothers, all seem to grow and mature
from young to old as their roles shift in this circle of bonding that emerges
in families over time. In one image titled “Burger King,” three boys
sit on a stoop in front of an expansive driveway. One is sporting a Yankees jacket,
another a backpack and the third has his hand to his mouth. They are viewed from
the back as Vezzuso’s quiet observation captures the comfort of three friends
hanging out on a warm evening. Another image, “The Haircut,” is a very
sensitive portrait of an adolescent boy. The soft lighting reveals the profile
of his shaved head and pierced ear. To the left and in the background is the
shadowy figure of a woman, perhaps his mother. To the right is empty space, perhaps
an absent father or an unknown future. A clash of generations is portrayed in
a humorous image of a teenage boy at the edge of an above-ground pool. The close-up
shot is in color and the heat of the day is implied by the sunny light dancing
on the water’s surface. Vezzuso’s point of view is looking over the
shoulder of an older man who is reaching into the pool in order to brush the
hair out of the boys grimacing face. A loving portrait of father and son where
the son will always be a young child no matter what his age.
Vezzuso’s credits include work as a master printer for artists such as Tina
Barney, Philip Lorca-Di Corcia, Nan Goldin and Gregory Crewdson. He currently
teaches at the School of Visual Arts, International Center for Photography and
Teachers College Columbia University. His work is featured in many collections
including The Brooklyn Museum of Art and The Museum of the City of New York.
Publications include work in DoubleTake Magazine (2001) and Fotofolio (2000).
Vezzuso has published his own book titled “New American Haircuts” (Ballentine
Books, 1985). He shows his work regularly, runs workshops and lectures on photography.
Darin Mickey studied under Vezzuso at the School of Visual Arts and graduated
in 1998. As an emerging artist, Mickey has developed an observational style that
most recently is reflected in his “Kansas Pictures” project (on view
at his web site www.darinmickey.com). In June of 2001 Mickey began to photograph
his father, who “sells storage space in converted caves and abandoned mines
throughout the state” of Kansas. While Mickey’s style is not as intimate
as Vezzuso’s, the body of work reveals a complex portrait of his father
that reaches back into time, gradually includes what Mickey calls “his satellites,”
and constitutes a mirror of working class society in the midwest. His father
is portrayed in several settings throughout this project. The color photographs
reveal a man whose work takes up most of his life. We see him in his office,
attending meetings, and driving the company cart in his underground storage facility.
His father’s well-earned leisure time includes Masonic membership, watching
sports on TV with Mickey’s grandfather and having a beer alone in the back
yard. Seeing his father cleaning guns with a family friend reveals Mickey’s
concern with larger social issues, yet the image is very matter of fact, and
on a human scale: the setting is his mother’s kitchen table.
His mother is also present in images like the bathtub garden where she has established
a plant haven in a little used shower stall. His sense of humor is revealed in
a collaborative image of his father pretending to work out on an exercise bicycle.
Mickey acknowledges that he has felt disconnected from his childhood home since
he left, just after graduating high school. This project has allowed him to reconnect
with his childhood memories — dad coming home, having a beer, cleaning guns
— recreated through a heightened, photographic reality. Many of his images
are staged where lighting and color reveal textures, shapes and shadows that
read like a film narrative. His father becomes an iconic image whose back-lighting
often forms a halo behind his head and point of view makes him seem to float
like an angel. This project has caused Mickey to ask himself, what did he take
for granted when he was growing up? He seems to be coming back to something he’s
been running away from all of his life. Mickey will continue to photograph his
father and has plans to extend the project with his grandparents’ 60th wedding
anniversary in August (2003) and a road trip to Texas with his father to visit
his uncle in September (2003).
Mickey teaches at the International Center for Photography and does professional
work as an exhibition printer. He has published work in DoubleTake Magazine and
his clients include The New York Times Magazine, Discover Magazine, Newsweek
and PDN. He shows his work regularly and is included in the collections of The
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum of the City of New York, Museet for Fotokunst,
Denmark and Fyns Kunst Fond, Denmark.
Rod Morata is the youngest of the three artists having recently graduated from
the School of Visual Arts in 2002. Like Mickey, his work is observational in
nature, yet his sense of humor is ever-present in his projects. Two distinct
bodies of work overlap to create a series of portraits and self portraits that
reference family memories and document his parents homes in Staten Island and
Florida. The first body of work, The 70’s, document the life of a fictional
character, Carmine Alfano who is a typical Italian-American macho male. Morata
has used artifacts from his childhood home to recreate settings that reference
a 70’s lifestyle that was experienced by his parents (he was born in 1976).
He has inserted himself into this lifestyle by creating images of living room
interiors, backyard hammocks, bedrooms, and kitchens in which his gaze and the
gaze of other characters is direct and emotionless. He explores the nature of
male relationships and how male values are passed down from one generation to
the next. Unlike Vezzuso’s intimate portraits of his family or Mickey’s
specific portraits of his father, Morata chooses to portray composite characters
in contrived settings. His mother plays the role of dutiful housewife as she
sews Alfano’s pants while he waits, pants-less, looking at his watch. The
setting is his mother’s living room. She sits behind her sewing machine
with curlers in her hair.
In reality, the
setting is his boyhood home, the sewing machine was acquired when his mother
went to college and would have been in use when Morata was a boy. From this body
of work emerged a series of self portraits that bridge the 70’s images with
portraits of his parents. These self portraits include his father at times, himself
alone at others. A self portrait with his father is set in his parents’ bedroom.
The two of them sit at the end of his parents’ bed. The shot is from the waste
up and space has been collapsed so that the setting becomes almost claustrophobic.
Both subjects gaze directly into the camera, unsmiling and are framed by the
bed’s headboard. The image is split by the shape of the headboard forming
a mirror image on each side. Father and son sit with their arms around each other
referencing a form of male bonding between the two. The portraits of his parents
began when they retired to Florida and explore his parents as real people in
the setting where they live. Most of the images are posed and, again, feature
a direct unsmiling gaze into the camera. We see his parents in their bedroom,
in front of the Christmas tree, in the living room and in front of the house.
These images are every bit as directed and staged as the 70’s images only
Morata has retreated behind the camera.
Morata’s work can be viewed at his web site www. rodmorata.com. He has a
BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts where he also studied under
Jerry Vezzuso. He is currently working as a freelance photographer doing editorial
and commercial work. He has recently done a campaign for 55 DSL where he designed
and photographed their Spring/Summer 2003 catalog. The theme was domestic life
and referenced his 70’s photographs.
These three artists, through their work, allow us to glimpse their private lives.
The point of view is decidedly white, male and middle class but speaks to universal
issues concerning family, relationships and social conditions. It is important
work that helps us to gain insight into how we form identity and reconstruct
social memory through the photographic image.
