Duane Michals
It was 1971 and I was living in Maine on a 53-acre piece of land I had bought two years earlier. We had a small commune and were, as my father quipped, "intentionally poor." We grew our own food for the most part, cut our wood, raised an egg or two, and were trying to regain a positive outlook on life after attempting, and failing for a number of years to stop the war and "change the system." The Whole Earth Catalog, Mother Earth News, Euell Gibbons' "Stalking the Wild Asparagus, and "Living the Good Life: How to Live Simply and Sanely in a Troubled World" by Helen and Scott Nearing were the primers of the back-to-the-land movement, and we memorized many chapters. We were searching for a more mindful way to live.
With very little cash it was hard to justify buying photography books. I don't believe that at that time I owned any. At some point I heard about Duane Michals' new book, "Journey of the Spirit After Death." The book consisted of a single sequence of 27 images illustrating the death and afterlife of a single person. I bought it and have been delighted by his work ever since. His book took a different path toward an expanded kind of mindfulness. Duane had perfected a method of producing short narratives in images alone or more often with a small handwritten texts below each image. His sequences were not the abstract spiritual koans of Minor White. Nor were they the photo essays of Life magazine. Rather they were closer to storyboards for a new visual language that could magically apprehend the ineffable. Even now his interest is in a full frontal assault on the invisible verities of life, death, desire, memory, religion, dreams…all things that are not readily photographable. He is not often interested in photographing pretty nouns, nor does he mistake the appearance of things for their reality. And he is funny. Often very funny. I don't need to go deeper into his work, as it's easy for anyone to locate authoritative texts about Duane and his prolific career.
In 1988 I was back in Maine to give one of the keynote presentations at the Maine Photographic Workshop's annual Congress, a large gathering of passionate photo people, in Rockport, Maine. Another program on the schedule was a sort of debate between Joel Peter Witkin, dressed in black and taking the role of the Prince of Darkness versus Duane Michals, dressed in white as the Prince of Light. There was a good deal of humor, and of course Darkness scorned Light and in return Light loved Darkness. Perfect casting and a sharp lesson in how a finely balanced societal organization invites entropy. The Bible tells us that God made the light, but as soon as he turns his back, someone switches it off. As Leonard Cohen's final lesson to us intimates, "You want it darker? We kill the flame."
It was that week that I first met Duane, the Prince of Light, the man in white.
I can't relate all of our visits in this format. I brought him to San Diego to give talks on three separate occasions, each time to large crowds. In 1988 I had the photographer and rock star Graham Nash present Duane and Arnold Newman the Museum of Photographic Arts' Century Award for lifetime achievement.
In 1991 I curated his retrospective exhibition that traveled to nine museums in the US. For months I tried to think of a title for the show. Nothing seemed to capture his cleverly entertaining spirit, his profoundly inventive voice. One day as I was explaining my predicament to a friend, "I don't know what to call the Duane Michals show," it hit me…."The Duane Michals Show." That was it. In each venue the reports came back that it attracted the largest crowds they had ever experienced. I recall that Duane and I took a cab to the opening at the International Center of Photography in New York and we could barely get in! The crowds were so intense that it took us 20 minutes to squeeze our way into the galleries. At the Milwaukee Art Museum, the director, who was not a photography person, arrived at the overcrowded opening and as he walked in he saw me and asked, incredulously, "Who is this guy?"
To attend a Duane Michals lecture is to have an experience that will stay with you till you can no longer retain memories. He arrives at the podium as if spring loaded. He explodes into a disquisition about time and how it can't be stopped, and now is gone and time doesn't flow, it rockets. He lunges at politics, and the hypocrisies of the Religious Right, churning out disparaging commentary. He has audiences cheering, applauding and laughing till they can't breathe.
It's standup comedy with as much wisdom as humor. He tells awful jokes that make you look around to see if others are laughing before you dare.
For years I have phoned Duane in hopes that he wouldn't answer the phone. That's because he made hilariously funny phone messages and changed them every month.
In 1993 I was invited by the rock and roll photographer Linda McCartney to attend a concert by her husband Paul at Meadowlands in New Jersey. She gave me backstage passes and asked if I knew Duane Michals and if so could I invite him to come too. They had never met Duane but admired his work. Thus I brought Duane to his first ever rock and roll concert. Paul dedicated a song to Duane, saying…"This one is for our friend Duane, who is attending his first rock concert. I'll be gentle."
Almost every time Duane and I are together I make photographs of him and of course, he loves posing. With a penchant for surrealistic airs, he affects forlorn and sober expressions in the manner of Buster Keaton. But in the right character a dour expression can project humor and sadness at the same time.
Duane's life, at the age of 85 has its rough parts. He had open-heart surgery a few years ago and he takes care of his partner of more than 58 years, the architect Fred Goree, who bears all of the indignities of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Duane and Fred married in 2011, a few days after it became legal in New York. And Duane has determined to take the difficult path of keeping Fred at home till the end. Yet a few minutes into any conversation the healing balm of his wit leavens the mood without diminishing his clear view of mortality.
No photograph of any subject can capture its full reality. I often feel I could make a hundred images of Duane Michals and make no dent in identifying him. On the other hand there is probably a way to make one image that exquisitely identifies his essence. I hope to make that one someday.