|
News
&
Events
Words
Images
Links
Archival Abby
Abby's Bio
|
American Gothic
by Carlos Batts
Carlos Batts has
enjoyed a successful career as a fetish/fashion photographer. He has
captured dominatrices and strippers, rap stars and rockers, celebrities
and wannabes. His work has appeared in numerous porn mags, including
Hustler, Taboo, Oui and Nugget, as well as the magazine I used to
publish, Extreme Fetish. He’s also had fashion and music shoots printed
in While You Were Sleeping, Vibe and Sportswear International (?!?!).
And after moving to LA, Carlos even dabbled into video porn, shooting
Love Hurts 1 and 2 and Girl Trouble.
His photography has also been published in two books, Wild Skin and
Crazy Sexy Hollywood, both of which are primarily erotica. His latest
publication is American Gothic, a collection of altered images. “The
title comes from the painting,” Batts confirms. “At the time, the
painting was a big deal because it was saying, ‘This is what America is
right now.’ It’s rural. Big country. Farmland. Manifest destiny. So the
book is what I think of America now. This is my world. I live here. I
breathe here. And this is the visceral planet that I’ve created.”
The book is a return to the artist’s original style, a conglomeration
of photo deconstruction utilizing, among other things, duct tape,
collage and a deft exacto blade. Disembodied eyeballs, animal
carcasses, disturbing illustrations and other nightmarish imagery sum
up a life influenced by comic books, death metal and bloody slasher
movies. “In this book, I’m focusing in on my art,” Batts says. “The
celebrities I’ve photographed, they don’t represent me. Nor do the
girls. I wanted to go back to what was most important.”
Faces and poses are recognizable from his previous books, shots from
magazine spreads, party fliers and gallery exhibitions. They’ve all
been sacrificed, tortured and given new life. He grabs whatever’s
handy—nail polish, spray paint, duct tape—and disfigures his
photographs, morphs them into something more. Or something less. But
definitely something...else.
The visceral foreword, by cult noir crime and murder author John
Gilmore, compares Batts to a pathologist, paying homage to his slicing
and splicing. He is clearly a big fan: “Art beyond the cusp of
convention, shrieking originality and defiance, announces the arrival
of the real artist: Carlos Batts, stepping off some limit of mind and
falling at a hurtling pace through the special and terrible space of
his renegade spirit.” Huh. His hard-bitten prose braces the reader for
the jarring images.
Phoenix New Times columnist Stephen Lemons penned the introduction,
offering up lines of lyrics from Fearless Vampire Killers, by Bad
Brains as his opener. Lemons speculates about artistic inspiration and
political influences and what has driven Batts to create. But Carlos
admits to a rather normal childhood, replete with G.I. Joe and lessons
in etiquette. His early interest in comic books and slasher films was
followed by a fascination with Black Sabbath and serial killers, and
Batts began incorporating these influences into his art work. Combine
the base appeal of Charles Manson and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with
the sensibilities of Avedon, Leibovitz and Newton and you begin to
understand the simultaneous aesthetic scrutiny and artistic insanity
that exist in each Batts photograph. And that’s before he whips out his
exacto.
These two writers serve up the artsy mumbo jumbo, but the accompanying
CD provides the screeching soundtrack. Nine disturbing tracks of
death/thrash/metal by bands with names like Pig Destroyer and Mastodon
approximate the aural equivalent of Batts’s nightmarish images. Taken
all together, it is a very scary package. But as with any work of art,
you’re welcome to draw your own conclusions. The book shrieks for
itself. Whether you see an apocalyptic present, a fucked up future or
merely a manipulative artist is, like beauty, in the eye of the
beholder. Or that disembodied eyeball on page 48.
[Written July 2005]
|