Gerald Incandela: In Touch With the Negative

Careful to differentiate his photographic output from photography as such, Gerald Incandela's  series of  "photographic drawings" take on the figure study as a tool to propose the erotics of the sketch and the formal potentials of the nude. Incandela alters his photographs of men in relaxed poses and various stages of undress by hand-brushing developer on the print. The results are the sitters are coaxed out of their isolation with vivid, highlighted lines and broad, expressive brush strokes; or else entirely erased, literally pushed out of the frame by Incandela's touch.

The artist has had time to think about depicting the figure, having sat for Derek Jarman, and having played muse to collector-curator Sam Wagstaff before the latter met Mapplethorpe. Here we ask Incandela about the relationship between muse and maker, the situation of his relatively expressionistic photographs between portraits by Warhol and Hockney, and why his male nudes contain no nakedness:


ALEX GARTENFELD: Is there a reason you call the works drawings? You've said that your London gallerist for a time, Robert Fraser, used to call them "photo-images." So it seems there's a continuing tension for you between the medium you frequently employ, and the term "photograph."

GERALD INCANDELA: I call these works "photographic drawings," because I think they're different from the traditional function of photography. Photographs are perceived as being able to stop time, or at least they make an effort to extend it with narrative. My works do not make that same effort. And in terms of procedure, when developing the negative in a tray, I use a brush to create expressionistic marks, so there's an element of handwriting. (THE BENCH, 2009. COURTESY EDWARD CELLA, LOS ANGELES)


READ THE FULL INTERVIEW ON INTERVIEW MAGAZINE.

"NEW PHOTO-DRAWINGS" IS ON VIEW THROUGH FEBRUARY 27. EDWARD CELLA ART AND ARCHITECTURE IS LOCATED AT 6018 WILSHIRE BOULEVARD, LOS ANGELES. THE ARTIST WILL GIVE A TALK ABOUT HIS WORK JANUARY 16, 6–8 PM.