"I want to do something a little different," said photographer David Hilliard in his lecture's opening disclaimer. This was not going to be a seminar simply regarding mythology – the artist's breadth of work. Instead Hilliard was going to focus on motivation. It's easy enough to view a photo collection, he elaborated, but it's much more difficult to discern how those pieces actually came into conception.
From adolescence onward, Hilliard utilized photography as a therapeutic tool. It was a way of making a disordered world have some semblance of order, he explained, and the camera was his means of control. And so he successfully channeled his frustration to the arts.
Hilliard struggled with several issues growing up in the industrialized city of Lowell, Massachusetts. Not only was he a child of divorce, but he also had to come to terms with his identity as a gay man. These hardships visibly manifest themselves in his art – sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, but always present. Hilliard explained that if there was one overarching theme to his work, it would be that of the masculine identity: the overwhelming majority of his pictures portray "a man being true to himself." And frequently Hilliard takes pictures of men that he "won't be" or that he "can't have" – these relationships are both romantic and platonic.
Hilliard began with a series of pictures documenting his father, a blue-collar worker and conspicuously tattooed war veteran. At first glance, Hilliard's father appears the strong silent type – but with not a few quirks, including an affinity for floral Hawaiian shirts. The first picture, titled "The Lone Wolf," displayed Hilliard's dad reclining on a rainbow of a bed. Newspaper sections and smutty magazines litter the afghan quilt, and a small dog naps in the foreground. In the father's "fleshy hands" is a Playboy magazine. Subsequent photos presented scenes with father and son together: in one, they hug; in another, they feed the family dog; in a third, they cook in the kitchen. In one of the final photos, Hilliard's father stood in a pair of white briefs in a snowy forest. Hilliard explained that, more so than anything, this photograph represented how far his bond with his father had come. There was a time when his father wouldn't even entertain such an idea; in this respect, photography had bridged a connection where there might not have been one.
The next set of pictures documented different aspects of Hilliard's sexuality. The photo "A Kiss" portrays two men kissing in a whitewashed bedroom, while the bucolic "Rising" displays two men swimming in a calm river. However, one of the most visibly subdued photographs, "Shirts vs. Skins," was supplemented with one of the most interesting back-stories. Hilliard mentioned that, back in junior high, he intensely disliked physical education. He felt especially uncomfortable when forced to remove his shirt to play basketball, and so he was compelled to render an artistic work from these past feelings. In a humorous moment, Hilliard described how he went from high school to high school asking whether he could "take pictures of shirtless young boys. Needless to say, that didn't go over too well." But he finally found a willing high school ("in the Bible Belt, of all places"), and "Shirts vs. Skins" came to be. The picture depicts two basketball teams staring each other down, with the boys standing in different poses: some crossed their arms, others placed their hands on their hips. Hilliard elaborated that the most fascinating element about its composition, however, was that the boys modeled themselves. Even after he directed them in their poses, Hilliard discovered that the very first negative, which depicted the boys acting "naturally," was the best one.
Hilliard ended his lecture by listing six "balances" that define his breadth. The first, personal/foreign, emphasizes the importance of the viewer's experience while looking at a personal photograph. The second, resolved/unresolved, refers to the "narrative" that exists within each work ("each picture tells a story"). The third, real/fictional, recognizes the schism between the genuineness of emotion and the contrivance of posture. The fourth, film/photography, refers to the different types of media used. The fifth, form/content, emphasizes the contrasts between style and substance. And the sixth, ordinary/extraordinary, alludes to how that which is seemingly unworthy of being photographed can be a central, and often fascinating, subject.
-- by Alex Pure '12
From adolescence onward, Hilliard utilized photography as a therapeutic tool. It was a way of making a disordered world have some semblance of order, he explained, and the camera was his means of control. And so he successfully channeled his frustration to the arts.
Hilliard struggled with several issues growing up in the industrialized city of Lowell, Massachusetts. Not only was he a child of divorce, but he also had to come to terms with his identity as a gay man. These hardships visibly manifest themselves in his art – sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, but always present. Hilliard explained that if there was one overarching theme to his work, it would be that of the masculine identity: the overwhelming majority of his pictures portray "a man being true to himself." And frequently Hilliard takes pictures of men that he "won't be" or that he "can't have" – these relationships are both romantic and platonic.
Hilliard began with a series of pictures documenting his father, a blue-collar worker and conspicuously tattooed war veteran. At first glance, Hilliard's father appears the strong silent type – but with not a few quirks, including an affinity for floral Hawaiian shirts. The first picture, titled "The Lone Wolf," displayed Hilliard's dad reclining on a rainbow of a bed. Newspaper sections and smutty magazines litter the afghan quilt, and a small dog naps in the foreground. In the father's "fleshy hands" is a Playboy magazine. Subsequent photos presented scenes with father and son together: in one, they hug; in another, they feed the family dog; in a third, they cook in the kitchen. In one of the final photos, Hilliard's father stood in a pair of white briefs in a snowy forest. Hilliard explained that, more so than anything, this photograph represented how far his bond with his father had come. There was a time when his father wouldn't even entertain such an idea; in this respect, photography had bridged a connection where there might not have been one.
The next set of pictures documented different aspects of Hilliard's sexuality. The photo "A Kiss" portrays two men kissing in a whitewashed bedroom, while the bucolic "Rising" displays two men swimming in a calm river. However, one of the most visibly subdued photographs, "Shirts vs. Skins," was supplemented with one of the most interesting back-stories. Hilliard mentioned that, back in junior high, he intensely disliked physical education. He felt especially uncomfortable when forced to remove his shirt to play basketball, and so he was compelled to render an artistic work from these past feelings. In a humorous moment, Hilliard described how he went from high school to high school asking whether he could "take pictures of shirtless young boys. Needless to say, that didn't go over too well." But he finally found a willing high school ("in the Bible Belt, of all places"), and "Shirts vs. Skins" came to be. The picture depicts two basketball teams staring each other down, with the boys standing in different poses: some crossed their arms, others placed their hands on their hips. Hilliard elaborated that the most fascinating element about its composition, however, was that the boys modeled themselves. Even after he directed them in their poses, Hilliard discovered that the very first negative, which depicted the boys acting "naturally," was the best one.
Hilliard ended his lecture by listing six "balances" that define his breadth. The first, personal/foreign, emphasizes the importance of the viewer's experience while looking at a personal photograph. The second, resolved/unresolved, refers to the "narrative" that exists within each work ("each picture tells a story"). The third, real/fictional, recognizes the schism between the genuineness of emotion and the contrivance of posture. The fourth, film/photography, refers to the different types of media used. The fifth, form/content, emphasizes the contrasts between style and substance. And the sixth, ordinary/extraordinary, alludes to how that which is seemingly unworthy of being photographed can be a central, and often fascinating, subject.
-- by Alex Pure '12
