Elk’s Lodge #93 on Clinton Avenue was the 32 room mansion of beer baron, Franz Kastner, the owner of the Phoenix Brewery. In July, 2005, traveling west, i detoured in Newark to grab a shot of the old mansion since it semed alsmost sure to go. It was bought for one dollar from the Elk’s in 2011 by but it burned in an arson fire in 2019.
The art world thinks that what i do is elaborately staged and is some kind of recorded performance. Nothing i say will convince them otherwise.
The denial on Mr. RealStill’s part, that he is not a set-up photographer let alone an art photographer, has only contributed to the mystique surrounding the strange works by Mr. RealStill. The fascinating quality of Mr. RealStill’s denial is that he is utterly convincing in his delivery – claiming he is in reality a simple architectural photographer trying to make a living. It’s this ultimate jokester postmodern stance that makes Mr. RealStill quite literally an architectural version of Wegman and his dogs, or, reality, manufactured by the all is a set-up, and all is self-contruction crowd, that think, that they, both prove that photogrpahy is a scam when it comes to truth, and, that these well-educated photo-artists are simply just so much smarter than the rest of us.
Ann Rand had the Fountainhead, i have the crack head, or, the story of an architectural photographer that, whenever he sets up a shot, two crack ‘hos show up and one bends over and moons, thus destroying the shot. It’s an ironic story since all the main character wants to do is serve his architecture clients. Instead he’s flung into the New York art world where he becomes an instant celebrity for his famous set-up work called architectural mooning by MOMA anf the Met and the Guggenheim, and praised extensively in the NY Times especially in the article “Children of Architectural Darkness: How RealStill Subverts the Staid World of Architectural Photography.”
Whatever the case, by focusing on ruined but grand architecture with his mooning collaborators, Mr. RealStill produces a strong depiction of architectural objects while calling into question the nature of such endeavors, indeed, the very foundation of what architectural photography means in a post industrial world of fictive imagery, reinvention and appropriation.
Don’t let Mr. RealStill fool you. He’ll say that photography, for him, it’s just this, time, place and, a coincidence of events. In this case, somebody from Brooklyn shows up in Newark at sunset to shoot the old Elks Lodge of Newark, and, there happens to be two street people hanging out, while, one of them pulls down her pants and moons the camera, just as a Newark patrol car is passing by.
But don’t believe it, like Banksy, RealStill is being playful or satirical about being a realist, when we all know that it’s a game and a set-up, and it’s all staged by Mr. RealStill and his co-horts. Don’t listen to him or his pleas, it’s just part of his many tricks, all designed to prove that photography has no special interest when it comes to reality and truth, whether he likes it or not.