Wow, that’s an interesting way of dealing with people asking for money. How about The Mannequins? I found that one really interesting and creative!
I think I call this series “Desperately seeking Susan”, because I love that movie and also,rest my sister soul, I lost my sister to an overdose at 21-22 to heroine.
Dealing with my sister, her drug addiction all her life, then moving from Pennsylvania to Miami at the age of 13 because my mom could not handle me anymore because I was getting into fights and she was like , “go live with your father”, and my dad was dating a young girl named Margarita, beautiful, slightly older than my sister, and I just didn’t understand the whole situation. So it was that person that was attractive enough that I wanted to be with them that started it all. And this was my father’s new wife, so I had a hard time dealing with the fact that my dad was dating someone that was a couple of years older than my sister.
So, I’m in Miami, this woman or my new stepmom, she is doing laundry for me, and she is giving me food but she was like this mannequin that was in my life, and although we tried to have a relationship, I just didn’t respect her as my superior because she was slightly older than my sister, so fast forward , I got this mannequin catalogue on the mail, and I flipped through it and I couldn’t believe it they had all types of mannequins, so I ordered a few and decided to play with them in my house, I would set them up as people, like my stepmom, I would repositioned them around my house for a couple of years, I think in photography people focus on the gaze because as humans we have a desire to connect with our counterparts, and the same goes with photography, people want to connect with what they see, but I love the idea that when I photographed the mannequins up close, they looked like a person but there was no soul there, there was no one to connect with and that is the way I felt with my stepmom, there is a person there that is intimately in my life, but I can’t connect to this person, so she might as well be a mannequin.
So that series came about me dealing with trying to connect with people but being unable to do so because they felt like a mannequin.
That was really powerful and than you for sharing some of those hard moments in life. Zachary, you have so much work out there that is hard to choose just a few of your shoots! I know we’ll be doing a follow up next year, so it’s ok! We can do a part 2 then! For now, tell us about Intimate Strangers! I know people will enjoy learning about that one too.
I believe that, the best artwork comes out of me or maybe people in general when you are not trying to make artwork. Like I said, photography, a camera, printing images, they have become a way for me to essentially find out what's wrong with me.
I like to observe people, to study people, it informs me. At some point I realized, because I’m a white guy with a camera and I take good pictures, that all of a sudden I start to have access to these environments, people, art, houses that previously I did not have access to, so to me as an artist, I was like, the equivalent of putting on a Burberry shirt, Burberry pants and walking down the street and people, shouting at you because you have a Burberry shirt on.
I thought that that was really weird, that all of a sudden my social status changed because I’m a good photographer. And I’m being escorted through some of the most elite homes in Miami, and another places, and part of me was bored after a while of taking real state pictures.
No matter how big or beautiful the real state home was, it just became another monotonous ritual, so in order to liven it up for myself, I started to take pictures of myself while the realtor wasn't looking in the houses.