Nelson Sullivan, 30" x 40", oil on canvas, 1984
This is the oil sketch was in preparation for Nelson's Portrait. He wanted to
be portrayed as an Egyptian Architect. He felt that in a past life he was the
builder of the pyramids. The painting was finished from life in New York City.
This is a transcription I made of Nelson's last interview conducted by Laurie
Weltz and the Pop Tarts.They were taping him for a BBC special the Pop Tarts
were producing. On tape Nelson normally did not like to have a discourse about
his technique- so it's a godsend to have this interview. He really lays down the
law and shows that he was always focused, even when he didn't think he was.
Best,
Robert Coddington
robert@culturevulturemedia.com
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January 1989
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When I started to video it was for several different reasons. Super 8 film had
gotten too expensive. I wanted to document as much as possible. I saw that there
were going to be a lot of theatrical and avant-garde type of performances going
to be created. It was going to take a whole lot of film, so that's why I decided
to start in the video format.
I covered a lot of off-Broadway things that would have been overlooked. I
covered the development of certain musical styles which came up from the South,
from Atlanta mostly-The Now Explosion,RuPaul,Lady Bunny and Alan Mace from the
Pyramid club- they're all from the South. There is a sensibility that is now
part of New York- an awareness and consciousness that I feel I have documented.
I have also documented a literary crowd of people like Stephen Saban,Michael
Musto,Beauregard,Houston Montgomery,and Fenton Bailey. I've documented a lot of
literary people in New York who were reporting in a literal way on the scene. I
wanted to take pictures of what I knew would they would be writing about so that
later on the writing would make more sense. My pictures are certainly
illuminated by the things that they written about in the scene that I have
documented myself with the video camera.
Musical trends. Theatrical trends. Performance trends. People creating their art
right before of my lens if I just would take the picture. I couldn't understand
why there were not more people doing this. Everybody assumed Andy Warhol was
doing it, but Andy couldn't go out and do it. He was too busy. He was an
inspiration for anybody who wants to take pictures at this point of the 20th
century.
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Well, the first time I went out with a camera, I went out to the pier with my
dog Blackout- just to try things out. The first time I really went out and took
the camera on the subway uptown to a party for Bobby Seams- it was a birthday
party. Everybody was there- Michael Musto, and Oola and all these people were
there. And ever since that party I've been making home movies for that crowd for
the past six years. that was in May of 1983 and that was a VHS camera I used to
have a pack around my neck. I got a hernia was carrying it around, trying to
document every show and every party around town for several years. So when I
gotta 8mm camera it made me happy.
On April 25th, 1986 I went out with my new 8mm camera for the first time. I went
down to Wall Street with Eddie, who was sort of a street stock analyst -
Downtown they nicknamed him the Mayor of Wall Street. The big guys used to come
out and talk to Eddie about what was happening on the market. Eddie was sort of
a seer, he's in Bellevue now in the psych ward from a court order from his wife,
but the big guys would ask for Eddie's advice and this is right before the fall
and I have it all on tape. He described quite accurately what was happening to
the market and he was trying to warn them that if they didn't invest heavily
with Coke Cola, and really soon, that the whole world was going to go haywire.
And, you know, he was right.
I have some figures here about the tapes. I have 235 VHS tapes; that's the
larger tape gauge. But it was easier to tape with my smaller camera and I have
358 tapes so far. And I suppose this month, this being January of 1989, I'll be
over a 1000 hours of accurately edited in-camera video. I have a long
work-in-progress already, and providing I live a long more I guess I'll have
about 10,000 hours of video that someone will have to edit eventually. I don't
think I'll have time in this life to edit down my work to something you could go
and see in one sitting- I guess it'll never be like that.
i used to want to document each evening into an event unto itself. I would want
to get the preliminaries, the preparations of a larger event- say a show or a
performance- so I get people putting on their costumes, and then I get the show
itself and then after the show, the Comedown. So you would have a progression
every night in a nightclub of the tenseness before a show, the release of energy
of doing the show, and all the good feeling after the show because everything
came out well and everybody had a good time.
So I have real people going through changes in their lives that were unusually
unique, especially the East Village in the mid 80's. There were so many creative
people in the clubs at that time trying to decide what it was exactly what they
were doing and getting better at it al the time. There really was a white heat
of creative energy in those years that I felt. That collective energy deserved
to be preserved. At the same time it was maybe a last grasp at "let's explore
every possibility" so that maybe they could survive. At the very same time it
was a celebration of the tolerance that a city like New York provides for a
creative person. Every person in New York is aware all the time that that is why
they are here- to celebrate the tolerance.
It is like Venice in the 1200's, or maybe it was the 1300's, I don't know - but
Venice at that time was a cosmopolitan, trading canter and people there were
very aware that the situation was unique and the degree of tolerance afforded
was perhaps the most extreme degree in the world. I really believe that about
New York. I don't travel much, I don't like to be away from the city for long,
because I do feel the creative energy is..
You can be a white heat of creative energy in New York and people just nod and
say- well, they just get out of your way and let you do it because they realize
that is why everybody is here. We're proud about it here in New York. Everyone
is proud for being here.
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I don't know what is my favorite thing that i shoot because when I am shooting I
forget about being judgmental and I do see an idealized form of whatever I am
looking at. I am trying realize it constantly so I am not really aware a lot of
times, paradoxically. Ironically, if I am not aware of what I am shooting until
I see the tape later because what I am doing is idolizing it- I try to leave out
any bad associations and capture as many good ones as I can so that I can
accomplish what really seems to be impossible if I stop to think about it. It
seems impossible so what I have to do is to go with a sort of intuitive flow
that is an idealization of what is really happening. Later on I see that I
couldn't have possibly taken a picture of anyone but reality because after all
that is all that is there- but my picture of that reality is an attempt at an
idealization. Of course it doesn't come off, but it is the attempt that makes
the record of the reality watch-able, viewable, interesting and even allows the
viewer to forget the camera is there and to become a part of the picture
himself. So in essence I want to share my vision with other people; I want to
share what I am privy to with others because it's so much. In fact, it's
everything; I think perhaps it is the whole world sometimes.
When I first started video taping was an experiment to know how I was going to
make a film or video or pictorial representation that wasn't tied down a film
studio. I could see this was about to happen everywhere. The camcorders would be
a wave for the future, Even a whole wave of them would invade the Soviet Union
eventually. We'll all be linked together by this new tool.
When I first got the video camera, I was desperate to have an anchor to focus on
in my videos. Somebody or something that would move through everything and I
could focus on it and in the process of following it through it's experience, I
could record that experience vicariously for a viewer at a later time. I tried
that with Sylvia Miles, I tried that with Michael Musto. These are people that
get around, they see everything , perhaps more than anybody else sees. They are
super-aware. I followed them around as much as I could, but I wound up getting a
hernia doing it. I've decided that the simplest way to make the videos I want to
make is to anchor them on myself because after all I am the most convenient
thing there is. Now when I pick up the camera it is just like putting on a glove
or putting on my glasses. I just go out. It's very simple. I cannot imagine
anything more simple than that. I don't need someone else to anchor my
experience on. It's ultimately my experience than theirs anyway. To let
everything happen around me is the most convenient, the most rational approach
to what I am trying to do. I have to do it. I don't have any choice.
----
New York is the great experiment. I can do anything I want here and people will
stand aside and let me do it. They will even support it because they are not
only tolerant, they are proud of being in New York and a part of this big
picture. There is a lot of support going on in the streets of New York, but it
is not readily apparent unless you really think about it. I'm trying to get all
of that down so that later on we can think about it and see what it was really
like and not just what we thought it was like. Of course I know I can't be
objective, I'm being totally subjective, but what I try to do is not interfere
of what is going on around me. I just try to make an easy and linear record of
it as best I can.
New York is the great experiment and people will allow you to do anything if
they think you are making an effort. If you are not really hurting them, people
will tolerate you. People will not only tolerate you, they will even support you
because they are all proud to be in a situation where something like this could
happen if somebody just wants it to. New York supports artists to a remarkable
degree by allowing them tolerance. Of course you still have to watch out for the
street gangs and big trucks.
