ANTON PERICH Petti Hansen, Studio 54, 1978, © Perich
INSIDER INTERVIEW
ANTON PERICH
verbrachte viele Abende in den legendären Clubs von New York, wohnte über Wochen im Chelsea Hotel und dokumentierte filmisch wie fotografisch die High Society. KRAUT wollte wissen, wie er die Zeit erlebte und wie Glamour sich durch die Jahrzehnte verändert hat.
Interview geführt von Banu Alpsü und Vera von Laufenberg
How did you experience the 60s/70s? Do you miss the culture of that time?
In the sixties, I lived in Paris. I was there during the revolution of ‘ 68. I slept a few nights in the chairs of l’Odeon, the grand national theatre of France.
Is there anything more glamorous than that? I was with the Lettrist art and revolution movement. Isidore Isou predicted it all, the youth uprising against the culture, industry
and history. Making it all new, radical and original. The revolution of ‘68 was the first
glamorous revolution. In the future all revolutions are going to be glamorous.
It was completely misunderstood. The great revolution was the blueprint for the Velvet Revolution, and other recent massive bloodless revolutions in Europe.
Eventually Paris became some kind of limbo, so in 1970 I moved to New York, my pockets full of revolutionary writings.
No, I don’t miss the culture of that time. Culture is like a tree ring, or a coral membrane.
It is a living emulsion. It has the expiration date built in. It never repeats itself. It remains fresh like fresh flowers. It reinvents itself with each generation.
How did you live back then?
Not from day to day. From night to night. Actually, from hour to hour. That‘s how I would describe life in NYC in the seventies. Night hours were very long, endless, open to lots of satisfaction. Crystal clear. Days were brief, foggy, annoying and disorienting. The culture of the night had nothing to do with the culture of the day.
Life was just a little different from death. Sometimes you couldn’t tell them apart. Your friends were walking out the windows, disappearing in the avalanches of white substance. Wrists dancing on razorblades …
All in fast - burning passion and desperation.
Which of your photos is the most representative of the 60s / 70s?
I didn’t do photography in the sixties, I was shooting in NY in the seventies. I shot portraits while other people were shooting everything else. I guess my photographs of Warhol, Halston, Bianca, Truman Capote, etc. defined the bigger - picture glamour scene. But there was another glamour scene, much closer to my heart. Rather closed and more secret, it was the Back Room of Max’s Kansas City restaurant on Park Avenue South. That’s the place where punk glamour was born. Not London or Paris. Fresh, new, lethal, devastating. Glamour that killed with its looks. Glamour of being Taylor Mead, Candy Darling, Victor Hugo ( the artist ), Andrea Feldman, Jackie Curtis, Lou Reed Johnny Waters, Johnny Thunders, Divine, Cyrinda Foxe, David Doll, Nico, Gerard Malanga, Francis Francine, Jack Smith, Michel Auder, Apollonia van Ravenstein, the great Tiger Morse, of course the legendary Charles James and definitely Ronnie Cutronne. Just to name a few.
That was the time when Interview Magazine defined glamour. It was much harder to be on the cover of Interview than on the cover of Vogue. Vogue was the lowest common denominator of glamour. Interview was the underground glamour, in watertight secrecy, impossible to penetrate. At the time I had the two most glamorous jobs in the NY punk scene: shooting pictures for Interview and working as a busboy at Max’s. Everybody wanted to go to Max’s and everybody wanted to be in Interview. Only the best looking and the most talented did. Underground glamour is unforgiving, it’s a strict religion.
ANTON PERICH, David Johansen, Cyrnda Foxe, Max's, 1973 © Perich
What do you think is so fascinating about that time?
The full moon was much brighter then. Studio 54 was a new phenomenon. Disco music was new. It was physical, loud like a hammer. We were all smitten by it. You could have sex at Max’s phone booth and on the floor of Studio 54. You could have sex in the bathrooms, too. They were all unisex and gigantic. Women used pissoirs then, peeing standing up.
There was so much white substance in the air. Everybody was high. At that time there were other venues in NY. I could mention Mudd Club and Xenon. But Studio 54 and Max’s were the best, the most inspiring and creative. Every night you could talk with poets, fashion designers, models, actors, painters, writers, photographers, explorers, movie directors, movie stars… There were sound-proof areas, where you could talk. In today’s nightlife you can’t talk, the noise is everywhere. Parties today are more like trade events, for networking and multitasking. In the seventies, boys looked like girls and girls like boys, today they look like business people more than anything else.
Was New York in the 60s / 70s really how it was shown by the media and how it is remembered today?
The media is often superficial. They make incomplete reports, from the outside.
In the seventies the media in NY went to bed early, totally missing the essence of night. They could never penetrate the inner circle. They could never get the beauty or ugliness of it.
How would you define glamour?
I would say that beauty is ubiquitous, and glamour is rare. Glamour reverses our beliefs. It says that we are not created equal. There is nothing democratic about glamour.
Glamour is pure blue blood.
Do you think that there is something such as glamour left today? If yes, how / where / in which person?
Yes, what is left of it. I would say the filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and his two movie stars, Isaach De Bankole and Tilda Swinton.
I have been making movies the past few years with the four most glamorous young women on the scene today. Andrea Langdon, Misha Sedgwick, Kristina Korsholm and Francesca Renzi from North Carolina, San Diego, Copenhagen and Rome. Glamour exists, you just have to find it.
One of your videos shows a night at Chelsea Hotel. Were you a frequent visitor?
Can you tell us something about how it was back then?
I was not a visitor at Chelsea hotel, I lived there for a while, on and off. That video is packed with glamour. There was the great filmmaker Shirley Clarke, the Tinkerbelle of my and Warhol’s movies. There was the fabulous Victor Hugo, the Halston lover and father of art performance. And Elsa Peretti, the great designer.
There was Richard Bernstein, who designed all the Interview covers at that time and Zandra Rhodes, the great fashion designer. Yes, it is definitely the masterpiece of the seventies.
You couldn’t pack more glamour in it.
What aims did you have when you launched Night Magazine? In what context was it created?
It was 1978. That was the time when Interview became more Hollywood than New York. I was shooting non stop in the New York night scene, so I needed a large size newspaper to publish hundreds of my photographs. Interview would publish only a few. The first issue had only the visual content. It was like the Facebook of Studio 54. It had hundreds of photos of extremely beautiful and glamorous people. No names printed, because everybody knew who was who.
Patti Hansen was topless on page 3 as an undercover girl. The same month, she was
on the cover of Vogue totally dressed. At that time, Night Magazine was a nightlife and photography paper. Soon it included poetry, short stories, interviews, painting… On the cover there are mostly featured young movie stars. Night Magazine and its radical design had a big influence on many large size underground and commercial publications. Still today, I am often surprised by the newly
published magazines that look like Night.
I guess I should be flattered, I designed it in 1978.
ANTON PERICH, Nancy North, Night, 1978, © Perich
What do you think about the fact that Nicola Erni ( the collector ) shows your photos in an exhibition called »Zeitgeist & Glamour«?
Well, that is wonderful, I am pleased. I didn’t know that they own my work. I don’t keep track of my pictures. They have their own life. It is always good to hear that somebody enjoys them … I guess they are in great company.
Ab 2011 tritt Anton Perich mit einer eigenen TV-Show auf, in der seine alten und neuen Filme gezeigt werden. Diese steht in der Tradition seiner ersten Show
aus den 70ern, die aufgrund ihres offen sexuellen Inhalts und des expliziten Sprachgebrauchs zum Skandal und kurz darauf verboten wurde.
www.antonperich.com
ANTON PERICH, Patti Smith, Max´s, 1979 © Perich
ANTON PERICH, Robert Mapplethorpe, Chealsea, NY, 1979 © Perich
ANTON PERICH, Bianca, Andy Warhol, Studio 54, 1979 © Perich
ANTON PERICH, Grace Jones, Studio 54, 1979 © Perich
ANTON PERICH, Candy Darling, 1972, © Perich
ANTON PERICH, Tennessee Williams, Marisa Berenson, Studio 54, 1978 © Perich
ANTON PERICH, Andrea Feldman, 1971, © Perich
ANTON PERICH Petti Hansen, Studio 54, 1978, © Perich
ANTON PERICH, Apollonia van Ravenstein, 1972, © Perich
