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BY JULIE HANNON
I
nternationally renowned artist Duane Michals is a
consummate storyteller, and Pittsburgh is the root of
his storyline. That’s why more than half a century after
leaving for Denver, and eventually New York City, his
longtime home, he returns to the Steel City every chance
he gets—for commercial assignments, for high school
reunions, for visits to the museum that introduced him to
art and is now home to his archive. Among his favorite
haunts: The Café at The Frick in Point Breeze, City
Books on the South Side, and of course his old stomping
grounds in his beloved, albeit now worn, hometown
of McKeesport.
The oldest son of Slovak immigrant parents, Michals,
now 78, grew up in a three-story brick home on unpaved
High Street, where his active imagination, which dreamed
up adventures in the Big Apple, blossomed. Fellow art star
Andy Warhol thumbed his nose at his Pittsburgh roots
and never looked back, but Michals—who in the 1960s
reinvented the role of photographer from spectator to
agent of thought and emotion—has always embraced his
modest blue-collar upbringing, relishing its impact on his
work ethic.
“I’m a fanatic about Pittsburgh, especially McKeesport,”
Michals says from the cozy basement office of his 19th-
century brownstone on the east side of Manhattan. “I
guess it was such an important part of my life and I have
good memories. My grandmother told me that if I
worked hard, anything was possible. That if I wanted
something, to go get it; that nobody was going to give it
to me. So that’s what I did.”
(continued)
It was in the bookstore of the former sequences in a cinematic frame-by-frame “I had my own interests by then,” says
downtown Kaufmann’s that Michals discov- format in order to tell a story. He didn’t wait Michals. “I used to go to the library and look
ered one of his greatest inspirations: Walt for things to happen; he staged events for at art books. I always had the instinct for the
Whitman. At age 17, he forked over five the camera. He was also the first to write aesthetic. But until the classes I didn’t yet know
dollars earned by delivering the Pittsburgh on photographs. where to scratch, you know, the aesthetic itch.
Post-Gazette to purchase Whitman’s well- “Today we think it’s no big deal, but it was “Going to the museum was very nurturing.
known collection of poetry, The Leaves of sacrilege at the time; truly provocative,” says The watercolor classes provided a lot of
Grass. Drawn to Whitman’s candor, particu- Linda Benedict-Jones, curator of photography latitude, a lot of freedom. And where in
larly about his close relationships with men, at Carnegie Museum of Art and caretaker of McKeesport would I have had the chance to
Michals even carried the book into battle Michals’ photographic archive, which the see such great art? So it was thrilling just
during the Korean War, and still owns the museum has acquired over the last decade. being inside the museum, especially the
same edition today. She’s planning a retrospective of his work Hall of Sculpture.”
Like Whitman, Michals is entirely for 2014. A full scholarship led him to the University
self-taught. Having never formally studied “I am an expressionist,” Michals says, “and of Denver, where he earned a bachelor of arts
photography, he instead finds inspiration by that I mean I’m not a photographer or a degree. After serving in the Army for two years
from poets and Surrealist painters such as writer or a painter or a tap dancer, but rather in Germany during the Korean War, Michals
René Magritte, Balthus, and Giorgio de someone who expresses himself according to enrolled in Parsons School of Design in New
Chirico. He has always gone against the his needs.” York to study graphic design. But after a year, he
grain, focusing his camera inward rather left for a job in publishing. In 1958, at age 26,
than outward. In the process, he has Finding bliss he was working as a designer in the publicity
revolutionized the still photograph. Michals’ interest in art, like that of generations department of Time Inc. when he decided to
Casting aside the photographer’s long- of Pittsburghers, was cultivated at Carnegie bum money from his parents and go on a
held ritual of capturing the decisive Museum of Art’s Saturday art classes. three-week adventure to Russia.
moment, Michals introduced image
Unlike the photographic greats who came “Photographing tears as a way to show say what they could not. Now they spent their
before him—Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier- sadness just never did it for me,” he adds. “It days waiting. What else could they do?
Bresson, and Robert Frank—Michals has doesn’t tell you, doesn’t make you feel, any- “It’s about a kind of intimacy and privacy
never been interested in how things look, but thing real.” and whispers,” Michals offers. “What I want
rather how they make you feel. “It’s the differ- is the part of you that you’re embarrassed
ence between reading a hundred love stories,” Creating the visual riddle about. That part of you that you don’t want
he explains, “and actually falling in love.” One of Michals’ photographs with text from to tell anybody out loud.”
He never walks around with a camera 1976, Certain Words Must Be Said, could eas- It works, at least in part, because Michals
looking for something to photograph. ily be interpreted as a crisis of feelings himself is vulnerable in his work. He often
Blurring the lines between photography and between two women, possibly lovers. But it’s casts himself as a character, exposing not
philosophy, Michals is curious and a deep only through the handwritten text that we only his body but his personal stake in dis-
thinker. Most of the themes he tackles—the sense the root of their tension: Things had cussions of attraction, aging, desire, love,
universe, life after death, desire, dreams, loss— become impossible between them and nothing and mortality.
require some serious soul-searching, on his could be salvaged. Certain words must be said. “I don’t trust reality,” says Michals. “So all
part and the viewer’s. And although each one had said those words of the writing on and painting on the pho-
“It’s not the shooting—shooting is the easi- silently to herself a hundred times, neither had tographs is born out of the frustration to
est part,” he explains. “For me, it’s what do I the courage to say them out loud to one another. express what you do not see.”
care about, what makes me angry, what scares So they began to hope someone else might say (continued)
me? Figuring that out and being moved to the necessary words for them. Perhaps a letter
somehow find a way of illustrating it. might arrive or a telegram delivered that would
Duane Michals, Things are Queer, 1993, Director's Discretionary Fund