"Boys" is a TWO PAGE layout for a magazine article.

IMAGES

TITLE

Self Evident

BY LINE

David Hunt

INSET QUOTE

Artists portray their favorite muse: themselves.

IMAGE CREDITS

Anthony Goicolea

(clockwise from top left)

Warriors, 2001, B&W C-Print

(triptych), ed. of six, 40" x 269"

Morning After, 2000, C-Print

ed. of six, 40" x 120"

After Dusk, 2001, C-Print

ed. of six, 40" x 101"

Images Courtesy of RARE Gallery

BODY TEXT
Control, control, control. this is the kind of advice you're likely to get if you've just graduated from NYU film school. Even Steven Soderbergh added cinematographer to his list of credits in Traffic, padding a resume that included writer, director and screenplay adaptation. As every Sundance entrant knows, by the time the big studio coughs up six figures for your heartfelt version of Welcome to the Disfunctional Dollhouse, or Dazed because I smoked Too Much Pot in High School, Therefore I Am Confused, a committee of earnest script doctors, myopic producers and sentimental shareholders will be turning your nitty gritty verite version of life in the seamy underbelly of Paducah into an ABC After School Special designed to wow the Dockers crowd in Des Moines. The lesson in all this? The more control you cede to micromanagers like studio execs, publicists, agents and_ god forbid- actors, the less chance your original vision has of making it to the final cut. The solution, if you have a camera, is to become an artist and do it yourself.

Choreographing, shooting and then appearing in your own photograph is the quickest way to eliminate the middleman. You become both costume director and soundtrack coordinator, key grip and best boy. In fact, as sole creator of your own unique vision, you instantly qualify for almost every Academy Award. And some, likeCindy Sherman, are soon destined to grab a statue for Lifetime Achievement. Sherman's historic Untitled Film Stills, which feature the artist in a black cocktail dress mugging for the camera like she's auditioning for a spot in Fame, bear mentioning because, if not the first, she's certainly the most well-known of a generation of artists that use drag, costumes, disguises, alter-egos or simply their own photogenic faces (and often, nether regions) to create an entire fictive world. And, unlike in film, there's no messy narrative to get in the way of what is usually a deeply personal fantasy life.