The 3rd Rail, a site-specific installation by photo giant Clay Patrick McBride, will open at Foley Gallery this week; part of the gallery’s ongoing storefront window curatorial series. McBride sculpts and pastes his black and white 35mm photographs of people riding the NYC subway to replicate a sense of anxiety and anonymity. The work, exhibited inside the long glass corridor windows on either side of the Gallery entranceway, is meant to convey the subway rider’s dark and chaotic claustrophobia experience.
McBride’s bold portraits of top athletes and musicians have appeared in countless magazines, among them Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated. His commercial work includes dozens of album covers for Sony and Atlantic Records, as well as print campaigns for Pontiac, Boost Mobile and Nike; and he expanded into moving pictures with a number of short film projects. But in 2013, McBride underwent a sea change, going back to the School of Visual Arts – where he had also served as an instructor for almost 10 years – into the in-depth Masters in Digital Photography program. He is currently a professor at the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology.
W.M. Hunt, Curator and author of The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious told me, “When I was Clay’s mentor at SVA, he was completely trusting and jumped at every suggestion. He was very much into the Starn’s then and he seemed to be bursting into a sculptural 3rd dimension. His final project for the Mentor’s program was a seemingly enormous 6-foot combination with wood, photographs and drawings that looked like the bowsprit on a ship. At the beginning of the evening reception, Duane Michals walked in, took a moment to consider what was in front of him, sized it up, and pronounced it “Primal!” It doesn’t get better than that.”
I spoke with McBride last week about his past, present and future in Photography:
EA:Tell me what your series 3rd Rail in the upcoming FOLEY exhibition is about.
CPM: Oh boy, that’s a deep well! Bruce Parent, a Jungian Art therapist had me doing a lot of work with the shadow. The subway is a sort of purgatory. A world between worlds full of strangers smashed together like sardines.
My camera reports less about how the subway looks than it does about how this fearful space feels. The photographic frame becomes a kind of prison for our uneasy consciousness. Travelers are deformed as they are captured in my 35mm cells and crushed by the weight of the world. Witnessing the mass of people robbed of their identities; my camera turns them all into phantoms.
After a very successful commercial career shooting many top celebrities including LeBron James, Jay Z, Kanye West, Norah Jones, Kid Rock, Metallica, to name a few, you seem to have changed mid-stream, entering the Masters in Digital Photography program at the School of Visual Arts. What made you change direction?
“Enlightenment is not about making figures out of light, it is about making the darkness visible.” –Carl Jung
When I picked up a camera, I was a lost kid. It became a compass for me. I traveled everywhere with it. A passport. I went to the places on old pirate maps that say “here they be monsters.” It gave me a place to slay dragons that were haunting me as an angsty teenager. It gave me confidence. Somewhere along the way the camera became a way to make a living and I lost how it was hardwired to my heart. It became a cash resister. The music business was a little hallowed and empty. It lacked any real depth. Pushy micro managing publicists making my life difficult, none of that Leibovitz John Lennon access. It was a job. I wanted to go back and understand why I use this thing called a camera – to see into the darkness. I wanted to make pictures from my depths. I had new dragons and monsters to deal with. It was time to get lost and wander around the subway. My underworld.
When did your career in photography begin?
I dropped out of high school and was living in New Hope PA. I was taking classes at Bucks County Community College (kind of like high school with ashtrays) trying to figure out what to do with my life. I studied business and took a photo elective. I had this rad teacher, Judith Taylor, who told me I had a gift for it and I should follow it further. She was awesome. She turned me on to Robert Frank, Larry Clark, Meatyard, Avedon, Penn, Arbus and all the greats. I wanted to be a photographer at 18. I picked up a camera at a thrift store and said to my buddy Derek, “I am gonna be a photographer”
And after?
I studied at the Leo Marchutz School in Aix en Provence, France in 1998 with a bunch of expat hippies. A charming place indeed. They pushed the Impressionists hard. We painted in the same landscape as Cezanne, in particular Montagne Sainte-Victoire. I would ride my moped to class at 9am. We would grab our backpacks with oil paints and easels and head out into the countryside for the day; usually I packed a baguette. We would come back with a half dozen small paintings and have a one on one critique. We were only about 10 kids in the class. I loved the process of painting (mixing color and the transcendental meditative qualities) but I wasn’t blessed with the gift of drawing like some.
I then went to Venice and painted, saw Titian, frescoes, and studied art history in Paris. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I had a blast. Even then I had a camera with me, a Mamiya 6×4.5 I bought with money my grandma left me.
Did you assist anyone when you first started your career in photography?
I assisted. Hated it and set a day that I would stop FOREVER. I did have the pleasure to work with the camera legend James Porto who later was my teacher in the SVA MPS DP. Full circle.
Were you successful right away or was it a long climb into that position?
It was a long long slow road, but I met some people along the way who really opened some doors. A couple of great Art Directors like Don Morris and Sally Berman at XXL Magazine, and Larry Freemantle, really gave me some stand out assignments.
I saw a portrait you took onstage of Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich – a full blown Metallica moment. How did you have such close access?
In 2008, I was on assignment with Metallica, for the heavy metal magazine, Revolver. The surreality of this fact, I can only equate to a miracle. If you cut me in half, and examine my soul, you will find a copy of ‘Kill ‘Em All’, embedded in my DNA. Truly, a dream come true.
I am with the band for two days, with nearly unlimited access. After shooting the cover in a makeshift hotel studio, I roll with them to the legendary Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. Metallica is the headliner for the Saturday night lineup.
The legendary Eddie Adams taught to me the two paramount techniques necessary to create a great photograph:
1. Where to stand
2. When to push the button.
With Eddie’s advice in mind, I managed to strong-arm their publicist into letting me shoot the last three songs from the stage floor. Head to toe in black, looking much like a roadie, I blend well into the blackness of the towering Marshall stacks. As the music becomes mass, my body is shaken, my brain rattled. They rip through an amazing set of classics, as a sea of sixty thousand fans bang their heads, as the waves of an angry ocean might crash into a rocky shoreline. Like a marksman sniper, I am shooting, not to kill, but to encapsulate my metal heroes.
Point blank, I am creeping into the wings, as close as I can get without going too far. I am now on the drum riser, photographing Lars. Watching his foot pound the drum pedal, I am in a trance, when some pyrotechnic explosions snap me back into coherency. I glance at the song list. Last song, no encore! As a sonic finale of monster riffs draws to a close, I know what I’m going to do next; snap the shot I was born to take. Metallica is now bowing in front of a raging audience; this is going to be an all-time banger. A classic shot, destined for the annals of rock history, akin to the epic Marshall/Stones shot, only better. We’re talking Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, epic. Having seen them one million times, I know the bow, the gratitude, and the exit. I am ready. I find my position, just four feet behind them. I frame my camera, and squeeze off a few decent shots. I take a peek at my LED playback, and I am sickened… It’s all wrong. The picture blows. The band is standing too far apart, and the light sucks. Quickly, I grab a second camera, and take a knee. Trying a different lens, doing my damnedest not to blow this potential lifelong dream. I am now hot with anger, with only myself to blame. This is all wrong! Then, it occurs to me; everything is quite right… STOP! I put the camera down, and I look at what is in front of me. Where am I standing? I am standing in FRONT of an ocean of people, BEHIND my favorite band. I am on top of the world. How the hell did I get here? Here I stand, a dropout of Sullivan County High. And then it occurs to me; I got here the same way they did. Practice. I did something I loved a little bit, but every day, for twenty years.
Put the camera down, and pick it up. Put the camera down, and pick it back up. Never put it down forever.
You recently created the innovative new posters for The School of Visual Arts, which are plastered all over the New York Subways. How were you involved with SVA?
I taught editorial photography, as well as studio and location lighting for 9 years at SVA. It was awesome to teach and create in the halls that Keith Haring walked and David LaChapelle studied. The school looks after their professors and allows them to take classes. I got an almost free ride on a master’s degree. As part of my grad school thesis show in the Masters in Digital Photography program, we had an exhibition in the main building of SVA. I took a remote corner of the room, one of the least desirable locations to put my installation. There is a door that I hung a photograph over. It happened to be the entrance to Anthony Rhodes office, the Executive Vice President of SVA. He loved the work and bought all three 40”x 60” wheat pasted prints for his office. During this time he discussed commissioning me to make the new ads for SVA. SVA is the MTA’s longest running advertiser. It has a huge legacy of outstanding artists like Milton Glaser and Stefan Sagmeister. I was blown away by the honor. It was a very poetic way to say good-bye to the institution that had been so much a part of my foundation.
This year you joined the prestigious Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) as a professor in the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences. How did this come about?
For several years I have had the pleasure of being a team leader at the Eddie Adams Workshop. Eddie was a mentor and hero of mine. I even have a tattoo of him on my shooting arm. The community is full of talent from all over the world! I worked with the amazing editor William Snyder (4 Pulitzers at the Dallas Morning News). He moved to RIT and courted me for a couple years about a position that was becoming available. I was always impressed by the level of talent I saw at EAW coming from different schools. RIT was at the top of the list. As a shooter, several RIT grads worked for me as I transitioned to digital. Their knowledge was always bleeding edge, and they educated me for the change over in the medium. I knew that if I wanted to step up my game as an instructor I had to step up in school. Katrin Eismann and Tom Ashe, my teachers in grad school were both RIT grads, so the school has been influencing me for sometime now. Some of the most brilliant people I know studied and taught there. Minor fucking White, for example.
What do you teach at RIT?
Being a Bad-Ass Photographer, silly. Studio Lighting, Advertising, Portfolio Development, and DSLR Video.
How are you transitioning from living in the heart of hippest Williamsburg Brooklyn to upstate Rochester, NY?
They put a Starbucks on Union Ave in Willyberg, Brooklyn and it was like a nail in the coffin. I made my mark on NYC. There I always felt like I was burning the candle at both ends; teaching and working as a professional. Now 46, I want to slow down, put one of the ends out and light some other candles. Easy living here in the ROC and there is such a rich history and legacy in photography . I have talked to many of Minor White’s students, visited the George Eastman House, and bought a 4×5 Weegee style Speed Graflex camera for $300. Mint condition, BTW.
EXHIBITION
3rd Rail. Clay Patrick McBride
January 21 – February 22, 2015
Foley Gallery
59 Orchard Street
New York, NY 10002
http://www.claypatrickmcbride.com
http://cias.rit.edu/schools/photographic-arts-sciences
