Bailey Blown up
As suggested by the title of his recent Skull Beneath the Skin exhibition, Britain’s greatest photographer David Bailey exposes the interior landscape of his subjects’ lives. Christopher Kanal pays a visit to his London studio to find out what drives him.
I dont expect to be understood, says David
Bailey. If you care what
people think its difficult to get through the day.
We are in the
photographers studio in Clerkenwell tucked away on a cobbled
mews. Bailey, and he is just called Bailey by those
around him, relaxes
on a sofa, mug of coffee in hand, and talks about his latest
exhibition,
David Bailey: The Skull Beneath the Skin, which has just finished
at the
Pangolin Galley in London.
One of Baileys sculptures, Dead Andy, was of old friend
Andy Warhol. At his studio on Dartmoor, Bailey got a tin can,
filled it with beans and
then used some more beans to sculpt Warhols head. After
covering it in
plaster, he let it set overnight. The next morning he awoke
to discover it
had exploded. Beans everywhere. It shot the whole lot
out of the can, he roars.
Bailey laughs a lot. Its a miserable grey day outside,
but Bailey is on
top form, buzzing with energy, effusive and revealing. The 72-year-olds
Jack Russell, Pig, is inquisitively scampering around. Bailey
sits on a sofa,
bearded, wearing slacks, a colourful shirt and battered shoes.
The studio
is full of banter. Pig barks a lot but I do wonder whether she
is laughing
along with her owner. The two seem kindred spirits. We talk
about last
months Frieze Art Fair.
The best year Ive seen in ages, says Bailey.
I mention the work of a
young American fashion photographer that was the talk of the
fair. One
of Baileys assistants, Mark, Googles him on his Mac. Images
of lithe
young nudes photographed in stylised poses in the wilderness
appear.
Bailey, youre going to love this one, says
Mark, of a shot of an
attractive, raven-haired model photographed in a forest.
These are bloody silly, says Bailey.
Do you not find them interesting?
Interesting is the worst word you can use
about anything, says Bailey,
playfully. You can say I fucking hate it,
I fucking love it, but interesting
doesnt go there. It just means you dont know what
you really like.
Bailey may be a pensioner, but the photographer who made his
name in the Swinging Sixties and was connected to some of the
worlds most beautiful women, has still got It.
The wild bright eyes and ranging intellect are as sharp as the
silly jokes and pistol-quick wit. Hes a gas to be around
and there seems to be no stopping him.
Sculptures and skulls aside, its impossible to ignore
Baileys stature as one of photographys greats. You
only have to look around. London crime lords Ronnie and Reggie
Kray are eyeing me on the right from one of Baileys most
iconic portraits. In a hidden corner tucked away on a ledge
gathering dust are a small number of his many awards. An Emmy
sits at the back.
Bailey doesnt do explanations of what he creates. When
asked questions about the meaning behind his skulls, he swats
them down with a swift response and a splash of wit topped off
with an infectious cackle. Bailey is more interested in showing
what Mark has just brought back for him from Rio.
I don't know what the word artist
means. It's a bit like art and love, and I don't get it.
It's so subjective. I mean, what is love and what is art? |
|
|
|
This is my favourite thing at the moment, he says,
holding a lime coloured wooden trinket. This is the best
piece of art I have recently acquired, better than most stuff
in galleries.
Beneath the surface
David Bailey: The Skull Beneath the Skin was a rugged collection
of
cast silver and bronze sculptures alongside a body of new photographs
of skulls he collects from gorillas to giraffes
that emphasise his stillevolving
range as an artist.
Im not saying Im a sculptor, I just make
images. I dont take
photographs, I make them, he says. And now Im
making something else. It
was a successful exhibition and a number were sold.
When Bailey sets his sights on something, expect sparks but
dont call
him an artist. I dont know what the word artist
means, he says. Its a bit like art and
love, and I dont get it. Its so subjective. I mean
what is love and what
is art? I think the definition I like is when somebody said
to Count Basie:
Whats jazz? and he said: Four beats
to the bar and no cheating. Im
with Basie in that respect. Theres lots of bollocks in
the art world.
Among the many sculptures at Pangolin there was a miniature
skull cast in silver. The skull is natures sculpture,
he says. But there is humour in his treatment of our primal
instincts of hunger, fear and sex, and the onslaught of death.
Baileys fascination with this form of sculpture mirrors
his love of the tribal art, particularly African and Oceanic
pieces, that he has been collecting for years.
I like it because it wasnt done for artistic reasons,
he explains. It comes from within, from the spirit.
Bailey likes to get inside skulls, into people and find out
what makes them tick. Its a highly personal talent that
has resulted in some of the most defining images of the past
50-odd years what he calls his documents
from making Jean Shrimpton into a 1960s icon to capturing
the impending tragedy of Brian Joness exile and death
from the Rolling Stones, to covering the famine in Sudan for
Band-Aid. For Bailey, photography is about the moment, the now.
Its what happens, he explains. You
never know what is going to happen.
|
|
|
Rolling Stones Contact Sheet,
1968 |
The photographer has had a unique place in popular
culture ever since Michelangelo Antonioni was inspired by Baileys
lifestyle and work to make the 1966 film Blow-Up with David
Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave.
I know what I want, says Bailey, then serious.
Everything in my life is about common sense and simplicity.
Less is more in everything, except sex.
Start-up
The son of an East End tailor and a gypsy-looking mother, David
Royston Bailey was born in 1938 in Leytonstone, London, and
later moved to East Ham. He grew up with a bull terrier, a parrot
and Aunt Dolly. In the winter, the family would take bread and
jam sandwiches and go to the cinema to keep warm.
As an adolescent Bailey bunked school in one year he
only attended 33 times bred parrots and went out exploring
to fill his cabinets of curiosities.
At 17, he saw a Picasso in Look magazine and was hooked. The
painters simple, visual style seeped into him. Draughted
to the Royal Air Force in 1957, Bailey did national service
in Malaya.
After his trumpet was stolen by an officer and a gentleman,
as he describes him, he bought a Rolleiflex. Above his bunk
Picassos portrait of Jacqueline Roque hung instead of
a pin-up of Diana Dors. He never made it to art school.
Learning is for people who are not very intelligent
thats why they
have to go to university, he says.
On return to London, he worked with David Ollins and John French.
By 1961, at 23, he won a Vogue contract and his pictures rapidly
gained cult status. It was a new world.
The 1960s were the first time the so-called working classes
had a voice, he explains.
Everything excites me
from family snaps to paparazzi pictures. everything is a
source of curiosity to me. |
|
|
|
His first book, a collection of poster prints Box of Pin- Ups
(1964) were striking photographs of 1960s celebrities and socialites,
including Terence Stamp, The Beatles and the Kray twins, which
caused considerable controversy at the time. As Baileys
reputation grew his projects broadened he did album sleeves
for The Rolling Stones and Marianne Faithfull and moved into
film-making, commercials and even started a magazine. After
the 92-year-old late Irving Penn, he is the second-longest-serving
photographer for Condé Nast.
But it is photography for which he is best known, a passion
that has
led him to pursue ever more personal projects as he gets older,
from the
nudes of Baileys Democracy to The Lady is a Tramp: Portraits
of Catherine
Bailey, and Birth of the Cool 1957-1969. There is no Bailey
style.
I dont really like the idea of style, he
says. My eye hasnt changed.
Its always been the same. It has always been simple and
direct.
With fame came sex, and Baileys way with women is legendary.
Those he dated or married read like a roll of celluloids
beautiful ones.
|
|
|
Dead Andy, 2010 |
Recently, Annie Leibovitz assembled US Vogues photographers
for an honorary portrait. Arranging her sitters, Leibovitz instructed
Bailey to settle himself between the legs of the fashion editor
and former model Grace Coddington.
Fuck me, extorted Bailey. Im back where
I was 46 years ago. The room was silenced.
Previously married to Rosemary Bramble, Catherine Deneuve and
Marie
Helvin, Baileys fourth wife is the gorgeous, vampish former
model Catherine
Dyer, who he married in 1986 when she was 22, and he was in
his early 40s.
They have three children: Paloma, 25, Fenton, 22 and Sascha,
16.
Stand up, Bailey says to me. I do, wondering where
this is going.
See the big Damien butterfly? I look ahead to the
large Hirst painting hanging on the bare brick wall at the other
end of the studio.
Camera left and underneath, he instructs, leading
my eyes to a new portrait of Kate Moss, one of Baileys
many muses. The mixed media piece is going to feature in a new
exhibition at Scream, Jamie and Tyrone Woods gallery.
What is Kate Moss like I ask? frankness of the discussion, the
most striking thing is how the pair are two of a kind.
|
|
Jean Shrimpton, Tower Bridge,
1961 |
|
Moss, however, is not the first woman to inspire Bailey. Is
That So, Kid, recorded a year photographing the raven-haired
goddess Anjelica Huston for Vogue. In 1973, Bailey and his young
muse flew to Riviera beaches and art deco hotel rooms in a couture
remake of Summer Holiday.
Baileys life has been intertwined with the cultural zeitgeist
of each decade. Bailey first met Huston at a party thrown by
her father, the director John Huston, where he was accompanied
by his then wife Catherine Deneuve, whom Roman Polanski had
introduced him to, while Bailey had previously introduced Sharon
Tate to Polanski. Of fame today, Bailey has little time.
Stupidity just has a bigger voice now that you have a
celebrity culture,
he says. You have the money to air opinions and tastes.
That is why it is
so disastrous.
The art of war
Bailey is still as busy as ever and has no intention of slowing
down.
What would you stop to do? he asks, quizzically.
Its your fate. Youre
doomed in the sands of time as the Arabs would say. Its
your destiny.
Constant change is better than just constant, isnt it?
Earlier this year, Bailey was in Afghanistan shooting a book
for the Help for Heroes charity, one of the many he is involved
with.
I have two boys who are Army age and I thought, I
really dont want these kids to die for a war I dont
agree with, he explains. Bailey was in murderous
Helmand province, but wont call it war photography.
I wasnt being shot at by snipers, he reflects.
I have been to worse places
than that. Sudan was more emotional, with people dying in front
of you.
He candidly admits feeling very vulnerable flying in Chinooks
travelling over Helmand, but enjoyed meeting the troops, drawing
on his years in the RAF.
There have been five exhibitions of his work this year and
three are already planned for 2011. One of his major projects
at the moment is David Baileys Delhi Dilemma, and this
new series of photographs depicts the colours and characters
of the Indian capital without cliché a child walks
down a rust coloured track. It is intimate and simple. Very
Bailey. Bailey adores India. Hes been there at least 20
times.
The idea of having so many gods its impossible
to count, I love it, he says. There is such diversity
and an accumulation of intelligence. One of his biggest collectors
asked him to do a book on India. I said: I cant,
it will take me 5,000 years, he laughs. I
can do a book on Delhi, Sikkim, Kerala. Try to do a book on
India and its impossible. That is why I call it Baileys
Delhi Dilemma. How do you photograph something that has been
photographed to death?
Bailey doesnt travel as much as he used to and misses
catching up
with his good friends: Jack [Nicholson], Julian [Schnabel]
and Bruce
[Weber]. Bailey doesnt do surnames. He mentions
a disastrous lunch
at the Connaught with Jack. I really want to know what
happened and
imagine Nicholson and Bailey out on the town, but Bailey is
already off,
way ahead on something else, and Im swept along.
I ask Bailey if there is anyone he wants to photograph. Sitting
on a ledge just above Baileys head is a birthday card
with the US Presidents face on it. Obama perhaps?
|
Everything has got to keep moving,
Otherwise there would be no curiosity. Curiosity makes the
world go round |
|
|
Not particularly, he says. My pictures are
about talking to people. If
anything is on his side he fucking looks like a film star. He
came at the
right time. Hes not too black, hes not too white.
We are running out of time and Im given a reminder of
Baileys
iconic status. Copies of The British Heroes in Afghanistan arrive
and are
waiting to be signed by him.
The key to being Bailey begins wit curiosity.
Everything excites me, from family snaps to paparazzi
pictures, he reveals.
Everything is a source of interest and curiosity to me.
Bailey has never lost his interest in people. He is notorious
for talking
to his subjects at length before a shoot about their
lives and who they
are. Thats the way Bailey is and he keeps going.
Everything has got to keep moving, he says. Otherwise
there would
be no curiosity. Curiosity makes the world go round.
Perhaps Baileys instinct for engaging with the now can
be found in the
very first moment I met him. On arriving outside his studio,
Bailey shouted
down to me from the balcony: How old are you? he
asked, Pig yapping at
his side. He told me that he had placed a bet with the rest
of the studio on
my age. Guess who was closest, out by just one year? |