Cacy Forgenie - Live From New York!
2009
Exhibition Catalogue Interview
Nico Wheadon: As a multi-disciplinary artist with pursuits ranging from journalism and creative writing to photography, how do you navigate between your artistic approaches?
Cacy Forgenie: I like to tell people that when I am not writing for a living, I am making art. But the truth is, in the beginning, it was very difficult. My journalism career began in Junior High School and when photography came to me at age 23, my writing was light-years ahead. I had to slow that part of myself down so photography could catch up. I wrote haiku's in order to accomplish that. While I was happy with what photography offered, I was not ready for it in spite of the fact that it came to me because of writing graffiti in London and documenting it with Polaroids.
NW: And who or what was most instrumental in making this transition to photography a reality?
CF: To make a living as a photographer, I had to learn what photography was and how to do it. When I returned to America in the late 1990s, I met Jayson Keeling and the Swedish/Tunisian photographer Haitem. I became their assistant and they taught me lighting, camera-techniques, style, perspective and so on. It wasn't until I had this training that I could walk between the two genres comfortably and try to make a name and a living for myself. I was also fortunate because I had friends like Rachel Ayala, Bobbito Garcia and Victor Chu who were tastemakers and actively doing creative work. I wrote about them and photographed them for lifestyle publications on the web and in print. They helped me tremendously.
NW: Was it difficult living and making a practice between India, Morocco, the UK and the States? For this exhibition, you present printed and projected images of the accidents, fist fights, disasters and crime scenes you came across in your daily New York City routine over a ten-year period. What role does New York play for you? Could these accidents have been documented in the same way in the other cities in which you’ve lived or does New York specifically inform or allow for something unique in your practice?
CF: New York is like the Tower of Babel. All types of languages exist here: visual language, attitudinal language, implied language, mechanical language and imagined language. These languages occur between objects and people, inside of people as monologues and dialogues and as communication between cells and organs, all the time. Signals are crossed or misread and, sometimes “accidents” happen. They're not accidents really. These “events” were created purposely, through intent, through action. I believe that some of the images I've produced could only have occurred here in New York. The thing about New York vs. other cities is that the variables are higher and the outcome for disasters or purposeful events are greater here than anywhere else in the world because everyone and everything is here by choice. No one is forced to be here, except maybe children. New York, as a whole, communicates this language unto the world and that language is reverberated and transmitted in countless ways. That reverb is a magnet, pulling people and things here.
NW: You have asserted that you are guided to these scenes by an internal compass. What does that mean? How do you discriminate between finding art in these moments of desperation and merely documenting trauma?
CF: The fact that I was at a scene with a camera when certain languages disintegrated is Fate. I believe that Fate is both an internal and external phenomenon. Fate is often regarded as something without our control. This is partially true in regards to photography. My internal compass and the notion of Fate as a launching pad for my encounters can be interpreted symbolically. Think of the figure 8, the vertical symbolization of the infinite. This symbol represents more than a loop of time. For me it is the representation of space and time as it relates to man and the Universe. The nexus where the lower loop meets the upper loop is a site of exchange, of communication, where man and the Universe is connected, a meeting of the internal and the external. If I am willing to open myself up to receive information that comes out side of myself, in order to move to a specific kind of space, I can photograph an event. Sometimes an event from the future can leak to the present via media but only if I have the energy or the desire to interpret what I see. William Burroughs, one of my heroes, actively tried to interpret what he saw in his cut-and-paste techniques with text to divine the future. I agree with him that in media, we can see aspects of the future. For example two days before the 2000 Puerto Rican Day Parade, I watched The Accused on TV. The Accused is a film about rape and the people who cheered it on in a bar. The day after I saw this film I went to Harlem and photographed a man covered in blood on 125th Street. He was beaten by a woman who did not like his advances. The following day near Central Park, at the end of The Puerto Rican Day Parade, I photographed men and boys sexually assaulting women. It wasn't until I processed the film that I realized what had leaked from the future via the TV, something so arbitrary we take it for granted. I know it sounds crazy or absurd but that’s the truth. I do not think about art nor I do reflect on the trauma or suffering of others while I am photographing. I think about making a good image. I think about where I can sell what I see. I stopped discriminating between art and documenting trauma years ago because, thanks to my understanding of The Bhagavad Gita, I am an actor not a discriminator. Besides, all art is image.
Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Guyana, South America, Forgenie returned to New York in 1983 and attended NYC public schools including the John Bowne Center For Writing, and SUNY Buffalo as a student of creative writing, poetry and journalism. In the mid-nineties Forgenie took up painting and sculpture and lived between the UK, India and Morocco. During this time, he also contributed writing and illustration to the UK fashion and lifestyle publications Trace, 2nd Generation, Don't Tell It, Straight No Chaser and Blag. In 1997, Forgenie returned to the States and contributed to One World, Honey, and The Source. After serving as editor of the graffiti magazine Mass Appeal from 1999-2002 under the pseudonym BOUDICON, Forgenie contributed to The New York Post, AP Photos, UnChin and Poems Niederngasse. He has exhibited in galleries in New York, Miami, Berlin, Rio and Tokyo and currently contributes photography to the NY Post as a freelancer.
Cacy Forgenie: I like to tell people that when I am not writing for a living, I am making art. But the truth is, in the beginning, it was very difficult. My journalism career began in Junior High School and when photography came to me at age 23, my writing was light-years ahead. I had to slow that part of myself down so photography could catch up. I wrote haiku's in order to accomplish that. While I was happy with what photography offered, I was not ready for it in spite of the fact that it came to me because of writing graffiti in London and documenting it with Polaroids.
NW: And who or what was most instrumental in making this transition to photography a reality?
CF: To make a living as a photographer, I had to learn what photography was and how to do it. When I returned to America in the late 1990s, I met Jayson Keeling and the Swedish/Tunisian photographer Haitem. I became their assistant and they taught me lighting, camera-techniques, style, perspective and so on. It wasn't until I had this training that I could walk between the two genres comfortably and try to make a name and a living for myself. I was also fortunate because I had friends like Rachel Ayala, Bobbito Garcia and Victor Chu who were tastemakers and actively doing creative work. I wrote about them and photographed them for lifestyle publications on the web and in print. They helped me tremendously.
NW: Was it difficult living and making a practice between India, Morocco, the UK and the States? For this exhibition, you present printed and projected images of the accidents, fist fights, disasters and crime scenes you came across in your daily New York City routine over a ten-year period. What role does New York play for you? Could these accidents have been documented in the same way in the other cities in which you’ve lived or does New York specifically inform or allow for something unique in your practice?
CF: New York is like the Tower of Babel. All types of languages exist here: visual language, attitudinal language, implied language, mechanical language and imagined language. These languages occur between objects and people, inside of people as monologues and dialogues and as communication between cells and organs, all the time. Signals are crossed or misread and, sometimes “accidents” happen. They're not accidents really. These “events” were created purposely, through intent, through action. I believe that some of the images I've produced could only have occurred here in New York. The thing about New York vs. other cities is that the variables are higher and the outcome for disasters or purposeful events are greater here than anywhere else in the world because everyone and everything is here by choice. No one is forced to be here, except maybe children. New York, as a whole, communicates this language unto the world and that language is reverberated and transmitted in countless ways. That reverb is a magnet, pulling people and things here.
NW: You have asserted that you are guided to these scenes by an internal compass. What does that mean? How do you discriminate between finding art in these moments of desperation and merely documenting trauma?
CF: The fact that I was at a scene with a camera when certain languages disintegrated is Fate. I believe that Fate is both an internal and external phenomenon. Fate is often regarded as something without our control. This is partially true in regards to photography. My internal compass and the notion of Fate as a launching pad for my encounters can be interpreted symbolically. Think of the figure 8, the vertical symbolization of the infinite. This symbol represents more than a loop of time. For me it is the representation of space and time as it relates to man and the Universe. The nexus where the lower loop meets the upper loop is a site of exchange, of communication, where man and the Universe is connected, a meeting of the internal and the external. If I am willing to open myself up to receive information that comes out side of myself, in order to move to a specific kind of space, I can photograph an event. Sometimes an event from the future can leak to the present via media but only if I have the energy or the desire to interpret what I see. William Burroughs, one of my heroes, actively tried to interpret what he saw in his cut-and-paste techniques with text to divine the future. I agree with him that in media, we can see aspects of the future. For example two days before the 2000 Puerto Rican Day Parade, I watched The Accused on TV. The Accused is a film about rape and the people who cheered it on in a bar. The day after I saw this film I went to Harlem and photographed a man covered in blood on 125th Street. He was beaten by a woman who did not like his advances. The following day near Central Park, at the end of The Puerto Rican Day Parade, I photographed men and boys sexually assaulting women. It wasn't until I processed the film that I realized what had leaked from the future via the TV, something so arbitrary we take it for granted. I know it sounds crazy or absurd but that’s the truth. I do not think about art nor I do reflect on the trauma or suffering of others while I am photographing. I think about making a good image. I think about where I can sell what I see. I stopped discriminating between art and documenting trauma years ago because, thanks to my understanding of The Bhagavad Gita, I am an actor not a discriminator. Besides, all art is image.
Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Guyana, South America, Forgenie returned to New York in 1983 and attended NYC public schools including the John Bowne Center For Writing, and SUNY Buffalo as a student of creative writing, poetry and journalism. In the mid-nineties Forgenie took up painting and sculpture and lived between the UK, India and Morocco. During this time, he also contributed writing and illustration to the UK fashion and lifestyle publications Trace, 2nd Generation, Don't Tell It, Straight No Chaser and Blag. In 1997, Forgenie returned to the States and contributed to One World, Honey, and The Source. After serving as editor of the graffiti magazine Mass Appeal from 1999-2002 under the pseudonym BOUDICON, Forgenie contributed to The New York Post, AP Photos, UnChin and Poems Niederngasse. He has exhibited in galleries in New York, Miami, Berlin, Rio and Tokyo and currently contributes photography to the NY Post as a freelancer.
