Bruce Gilden is as entertaining in conversation as he is while taking pictures. He speaks warmly of his special, uncompromising relationship with photography, and the incredible results of his uninhibited approach. “If I want to take a picture, that’s reason enough,” he says. “If you start asking yourself how someone is going to react, you’ll never get a good picture.”
Surprise, anger and complicity distort the faces he photographs. He crops his photos as he takes them.
“I never reframe, even if it’s difficult to get close enough, to jump right in people’s faces. If I were looking for certainty, I could give it up, but I’ll never get the same result.” This is a self-imposed constraint, true to his teenage temperament, his taste in bad boys inherited from a gangster father, and his need to challenge himself.
“I am my father’s son. When I was a young man, I wanted to have a monkey, to be a boxer and play the drums!” He feels comfortable around people he respectfully calls “toughs,” like Sergey Smirnov in Russia, or Mick Gatto, suspected of being involved in several illegal activities in Melbourne, Australia, whom he followed for nine days for an Esquire UK story. He speaks their language, confident and firm. “My strength is that I believe in what I’m doing, and if I think I’m right, I go with my gut. I stand up for my rights. Mick’s tough, but he’s a charming, intelligent and polite guy. I spent some of the best days of my life with him.”
He’s full of anecdotes from the streets of Haiti and Japan. The streets are his turf. He glorifies their furious energy, their eclectic chaos, photographing passersby and snapping shots of details: the black-and-white dominos of a toothless grin, flowing locks held in place by hairspray, cigarette butts pinched between lips, shaved heads with intimidating folds, medleys of size, color and shape. “I see things quickly and I usually act quickly,” he says. “These are instant decisions. My eye is drawn to detail: a tie, a toothpick, tiny things with emotional content.” He photographs what interests him and instinctively goes beyond the concept: “If I want to take a photo of a tough guy, first I have to think about taking a good picture. People say I photograph characters, but these characters aren’t easier to photograph than others, because you have to avoid trapping them in a cliché.”
In his individual portraits, Gilden offers a portrait of society. This is what led him to travel across the United States documenting forced evictions, and to produce works for The Archive of Modern Conflict in Columbia and in Middlesex, England. To celebrate the publication of A Complete Examination of Middlesex, a compilation of black-and-white and color portraits—”I’ve always been afraid of color, but here its seems to work. I’m very traditional and it’s difficult for me to start something new, but I like to push myself. Everything is a challenge!”—the Higher Pictures gallery has chosen to make, for the first time in a commercial context, 100 x 150cm prints of five of his photographs.
Seen in this enormous size, the broken teeth, clogged pores and fresh scars are all the more revolting, adding to the gut-punch effect of his unflattering portraits.
Exhibition
Bruce Gilden:
A Complete Examination of Middlesex
Until January 18th, 2014
Higher Pictures
980 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10075
USA
Tél. : +1 212 249 6100
http://www.higherpictures.com
Book
“Bruce Gilden: A Complete Examination of Middlesex”
104 pages, 22.5 x 33.5cm
ISBN 978-0-9570490-5-5
50£
http://www.amcbooks.com/a-complete-examination-of-middlesex
http://www.brucegilden.com
http://www.magnumphotos.com
