Bruce Wrighton, my American cousin
I have been inhabited by L’homme au Chapeau Rouge (Man with the red hat) ever since I saw it this fall at the Françoise Morin Gallery. It remains in my shadow. On a sunny day in 1987, Bruce Wrighton (1950-1988) was taking pictures at the Johnson City carnival, just east of Binghamton (New York State), where Wrighton lived. They spoke a bit, the young man with the sad eyes confided that he would soon be leaving for the army. The American photographer noticed how his pink hat, his red hair, and his red hat all matched perfectly.
For the first time, I noticed the disheveled personality, from head to toe, and his intensity, nearing depression. Later, troubled by this attachment to an anonymous person, I realized that he reminded me of a late friend. His bad luck. His hearty appetite for fate. And the way he was absent from his body, squatting his own identity.
My friends preferred the man with the golden vest, coquettishly holding his glasses, to the overtly depressing Man in the Red Hat. Or the fat girl who seemed to have put her shirt on backwards. Or Fred with his big white knitted sweater, like his unshaven cheeks. I also love them, I met all of them, the street is my kingdom. Bruce Wrighton liked low class people, drunks, eccentrics and infidels, those who will forever remain on the fringe of society, abandoned: the un-united of Reagan’s America.
He wasn’t the kind of person who walked lightly, as can be seen in each picture. He had a heart. Mine beats for this new American cousin. Ever since Charlie Chaplin created Charlot, it is no longer indecent to be sentimental. I am taking advantage of that, naturally.
Brigitte Ollier
It is still possible to see pictures by Bruce Wrighton at the Douches Gallery in Paris.
And on Laurence Miller’s website, in preparations for an exhibition this spring.
