In Memoriam: Richard Avedon – October 1, 2004

In The American West 1979-1984

This is not the American West of John Wayne or Warner brothers, No! This is the Amerika of
John Lynch & Count Dracul . . . of Richard Avedon: This moneyed wise-guy who’s come to
snap the simple folks on the plains . . . to make an irritating image – How did he survive their
rage? I guess we’ll never know for sure?!

Eyes. You fix on the eyes: Black faced coal miners who stare down his lens.
Their whites the only reflected light.

Beads of black sweat on a furrowed face in Eagle Pass, Texas / slick &
sticky blotched skin of Oklahoma Oil.

White / Scaled / Gesso miners / Cody, Wyoming.

These images, too reticent to speak, squint or smirk or curse / Are mute / Are
mutant / Are – at war with Avedon: Accuse – Suspect – Accuse.

They’ve been conned before / maybe by the best / maybe by his
‘Clarence Lippard’ drifter Sparks, Nevada,

by the playful nonchalance of ‘Carl Hoefert’ card sharp, Reno, Nevada or
maybe

they’ve been plagued by Syphilis or Gonorrhea in Salmon, Idaho or

lost their teeth in Albuquerque, New Mexico or / been scorched by radiation
in Rocky Ford, CO.

These men & women are not the talk of cocktails or stuffed quail in New
York City – No! But, we agree, this is Avedon’s country too, Damn You!

& when, like a ripe egg, these Great Plains part, the dead will carry the
living into battle & on each front you’ll see their eyes first:

vacant & white & running blood.


Richard Avedon: Photographic Portraits – Caxia Forum: Fundacio “La Caxia”