Start with this: that bike in the middle of the gallery floor is a rider’s bike, not a show queen. The detritus of the road, the dings and marks of life, are evident on it everywhere. But that’s part of what makes it and this show special. Alanna Airitam and Wayne Martin Belger have brought biker street cred to my current favorite LA gallery, La Luz de Jesus, and I’m here to tell you about it.
If you know me, you know I’m a sucker for motorcycles. I owned them, fixed them, and rode them starting at thirteen and kept riding them till I turned near forty. I still love them and write about them. Then there’s photography. I started when I was fifteen, and I’m still at it as I stare at 84. So when Alanna Airitam brought her thoughtful portraits of outlaw bikers and their rides to La Luz de Jesus, you know I had to be there.
The Chosen Few is an outlaw biker club, and the first integrated one. Wayne, Alanna’s partner, introduced her to them and biker culture when they first met, and Alanna became fascinated by the questions they raised.
Think about it. To be a motorcycle rider is to take a step away from the norm. To be an outlaw biker is to take another step outside society’s bounds, and to be black or brown, riding a motorcycle, and wearing colors is a recipe for oh hell, I don’t know, adventures maybe…?
Anyway, Alanna conceived a project that mixed portraiture with conceptual design elements; bikes and riders staged in front of painted backdrops showing them in an imaginary world, but the camera sees off the sides of the backdrop, revealing the real world the riders are in, often garages or the circumstances of their lives.
These pictures are not grab shots or guys acting up for the camera. They are outlaw bikers viewed as human beings; people seen with dignity and respect, and stature in their community.
Wayne deserves a story of his own, but here, let’s just talk about his hand-built bike sitting in the center of the floor. It informs the photographs, lends its physical reality to the images on the wall. It tells you that the pictures are about heavy iron and people who go fast, people who take chances, and sometimes pay a price for their freedom.
I asked Alanna what was on her mind as she worked on these pictures, and here is some of what she said: “…at the root of it, it is really about history and our collective stories, and the erasure of those stories. I guess the question that I keep in the center of focus is what happens to our future when we abandon our past?” “….I couldn’t imagine Boss Mike from the Chosen Few getting on his motorcycle and riding from Compton to Florida with no problem. There was a lot of stuff going on … all I could think of was how could these guys possibly find that freedom that they were looking for? Sitting in Boss Mike’s garage and listening to his stories, I was enamored by his love for motorcycles and his vision for wanting to build this beautiful machine and ride.”
One more thing, near the end of the evening, I glanced over and saw a biker looking at one of the portraits on the wall. Even though he was back to camera, I knew right away he was looking at a picture of himself because the guy in the picture had a big Bowie knife on his belt, and this guy had the same knife on his. So I wandered over, introduced myself, and we started talking. Slug told me it was the first time he had seen this portrait of himself, and as I watched him looking at it, I saw again how looking at a well-seen picture of yourself can reveal something new in yourself, the photograph as a different kind of mirror.
These are good portraits, and you should see them, but the La Luz show is over, so the best way to do that for now is to head over to her website: https://www.alannaairitam.com/index
Still, seeing these pictures on a wall is a whole other thing, so hey, all you curators, isn’t it time to have a few bikers up on your wall?
Written by Andy Romanoff
LA Luz de Jesus – https://laluzdejesus.com/
Andy Romanoff Website – https://www.andyromanoff.com/
