Interview by Shawn Waldron: Erik Madigan Heck - The Garden
Eniko in Flowers, The Garden, Archive, 2020 © Erik Madigan Heck / Courtesy of Christophe Guye Galerie
By Shawn Waldron
It is fair to say that 2020 is a year Erik Madigan Heck will never forget. While working overseas in January, before ‘Covid-19’ had widely entered the American lexicon, he became infected with the coronavirus, which quickly infected his wife and muse, Brianna Killion Heck, their two young sons, and his mother- who was already battling metastatic cancer. Brianna and the boys recovered, but Erik’s mother, a central figure in his life, did not. It was a devastating loss to say the least.
As the worldwide lockdowns began in March, the artist, who has spent years hopping from one long-distance assignment to the next, dug into his studio at home. With Brianna stepping in as his main model, Heck continued producing work for commercial clients while wrapping a four-year-long personal project with his family titled The Garden. Shot outdoors on the property of their Litchfield County estate, The Garden is a modern fairy tale woven together by Heck’s photographs and poetry he wrote following his mother’s passing. Prints from the project are on display at four galleries this winter: Christophe Guye Galerie, Zurich (September 4, 2020 - January 30, 2021); Weinstein Hammons Gallery, Minneapolis (starting October 15, 2020); Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto (October 1 - 24, 2020); and Jackson Fine Arts, Atlanta (November 13, 2020 - January 30, 2021).
Shawn Waldron spoke to the artist in November over Zoom about The Garden, working during Covid, and the effects of identity politics on the media landscape and photography world today.
SW: Hello! The studio looks different than the last time I saw it.
EMH: Yes! We reordered the studio so we can do larger shoots in here. We’ve had to become self-sufficient during these times. It's been nice, because for commercial work, brands can send us their product and we create everything here, without having to leave the property. With Bri as the main model now, we’ve become a family enterprise! Ironically, we’ve been busier than ever since stripping the operation down. At one point, we went almost three months without a break. Except for the occasional run to the store I haven’t left home since March, so it’s been a complete 180° for me.
SW: Do you change your approach when shooting for commercial or editorial clients, versus shooting for your personal work?
EMH: No. I try to shoot each project as if its personal work- even if it’s a product for a commercial client. Typically, people hire me to do the full creative—I don't often work with outside art directors. Brands now will often just send me the clothes and I’ll come up with a concept, shoot it, and then turn over files.
SW: Are you still doing regular work for Harper’s Bazaar UK?
EMH: Yes, we’ve been shooting consistently for Bazaar UK this year from home. I’ve worked with them for almost seven years, shooting almost exclusively in Great Britain. This year Bri has been my model for everything because of Covid, which is funny, because she’s not a professional model, nor ever set out to be one. She’s a full-time mother and part-time illustrator, and before that was an elementary school teacher, but because of the current situation she’s also the only model I photograph now - and in turn has had an incredible number of pages published this year.
Blue Pool, The Garden, Archive, 2020 © Erik Madigan Heck / Courtesy of Christophe Guye Galerie
We shot three big fashion stories for Bazaar this year. The latest is an entirely blue story, shot underwater and in our studio. Originally, they asked us to do a pink spread, but I despise the color so pitched a blue story instead. I was reading Yves Klein writings about the color blue and its relation to nature at the time so we decided on a combination of cosmic and underwater blues. We rented an underwater rig and my assistant stood on my shoulders for as long as I could hold my breath while Bri stayed underwater for as long as she could hold hers while wearing waterlogged dresses. By the end of the week she was practically blind from keeping her eyes open and I had vertigo from water in my ears. It was grueling. Other shots for the story were long double exposures in the studio or weird Adam Fuss-like photograms shot in the river on our property, a favorite location I return to again and again.
Over the summer we created an isolation-themed portfolio around the house and also shot projects for Van Cleef & Arpels, Rodarte, and Carolina Herrera.
What I thought you're going to ask is if there is a separation between us as husband and wife, versus photographer and muse. The answer is no, which complicates things at times. The most difficult part is not while we are shooting, it's during the edit, because inevitably we are drawn to different pictures. Every time that happens, we swear it’s the last shoot and we’ll never work together again- and then a week later, we do another shoot.
SW: Why the four overlapping gallery shows in three countries?
EMH: Gallery sales have become my primary income for the past few years, so they are obviously an important part of my practice. Alec (Soth) did something similar with his most recent work, showing it in four galleries within the span of a month and a half. I found that really interesting, because intuitively it seems the opposite of what you should do. But when you're showing a new and specific body of work you want it to be widely seen and also to have an end date; I didn't want exhibitions spaced out over a year. It brings a cohesiveness and attention to the project. Besides, most people are experiencing exhibitions virtually now, so timing becomes critical to execution but location less so.
The Red Ball, The Garden, 2018 © Erik Madigan Heck / Courtesy of Jackson Fine Art
SW: Looking at your work as a whole, you have varying modes of expression represented through very distinct aesthetics. At the two extremes are flat/crisp/graphic and soft/romantic/sensory, with straighter representations falling somewhere in the middle. Each has a very distinct and consistent color palette, one of your trademarks.
EMH: I like to create in a lot of different manners, so I approach projects differently. For instance, I would never take a picture of Bri and the kids and make a flat graphic image, because it comes from a different place- and has a different meaning. I’ve always been a student of art history, and I love so many differing styles and mediums—I love ‘60s Italian and Swiss poster design, but I also love I early 20th century European painting. The romance you see in The Garden series was inspired by childhood memories of studying paintings with my mom.
Turquoise and Pink Garden, The Garden, 2020 © Erik Madigan Heck / Courtesy of Jackson Fine Art
Historically, painters have been allowed to be more experimental than photographers. Having purposefully looked at and studied painting, it feels natural to use different aesthetics, returning to some and discarding others. Unfortunately, in contemporary photography many photographers end up taking the same picture over and over. When Peter Lindbergh died, I was kind of sad for his legacy- because even though he’s one of the greats, he had spent four decades making the same photograph. I suppose I appreciate artists who are trying new things, and possibly failing at times, but not staying static- which is what I strive to do. It’s more fun as an artist to experiment, and occasionally fail, instead of making the same picture over and over.
And I know it sounds strange, but I don’t really consider myself a photographer in the pure sense, meaning I don’t walk around with the camera. I’m not making observations. Ideas first come, which I then set out to execute with a camera- as opposed to being a photographer who is constantly shooting just to shoot. I use the camera to figure it out my thoughts, create images, then build on them with technology, applied pigments, even the written word.
SW: That relationship between the visual image and written word reminds me of what Gregory Crewdson has been doing on Instagram Stories lately, reading a description of his works while showing details from the pictures. Speaking of Instagram, you are obviously an active user of the platform. Some days your Stories are a synchronous stream of professional and personal work and updates, videos of your family, selfies, paintings, music suggestions, archive digs, you name it. You were very open and honest on the platform when your mother died, even showing a picture from her last moments. Your posts can also be highly critical of the current administration, whereas your work is not overtly political at all…
EMH: I want to stop you there because I take issue with that last statement. All art is political at its core in one way or another. And, I actually feel like this work is very political- especially being a white, heterosexual male at this particular moment in history. Photographing a white woman in a beautiful, idyllic setting- even if you are married to one another, is kind of the opposite of what the photography world is looking for at this moment. Most editorial outlets are now actively hiring more female, non-white, and non-heterosexual photographers than ever before- and I think that’s great and long overdue! I do hope, however, that publications and brands hire photographers for the quality of the work and not solely their identity. Most importantly, in order for real change to occur the structural systems need to be diversified up and down the line. If those in control of the power structures stay the same, it isn’t real change.
Betty Revisited, The Garden, 2018 © Erik Madigan Heck / Courtesy of Jackson Fine Art
With that in mind, I think this body of work, at this particular moment, is indeed political. It presents a classical ideal focused on the application of color and incorporating references drawn from the history of landscape and figurative art, using those closest to me as the central figures. It’s not topical work, if anything it’s a negation of institutional pressure to change my work to align with the current cultural narratives.
SW: What are your thoughts about cancel culture, then?
I find cancel culture really frustrating at times. Take the recent Philip Guston retrospective- society is now self-censoring against future offenses? The Guston exhibit was cancelled because of what people might say. That’s insane. The work itself wasn’t even considered necessarily in the decision of cancelling the exhibition- Guston’s work satirizes the Klan, it doesn’t endorse it.
It seems like to be a successful artist now you have to have led a previously monastic life- which is absurdist, because art history is filled with degenerates– Caravaggio murdered someone! That’s an extreme example, but he’s still a master.
In terms of The Garden- a notable curator told me she heard from people that this body of work objectifies my wife. My response was- well, yeah, of course it does; photography objectifies everything and anything by its very nature. The minute you photograph something, you’ve objectified it. But more importantly, Bri is a willing partner and wants to be photographed. At times she becomes a statue in the landscape, but that’s the point of those pictures. It’s about color and continuing a history of figurative expressions in nature. But also, we are married, and have created a family together- why can’t I photograph her? Take someone like Helmut Newton; he photographed women in a very explicit and sexualized way, whereas my images of Bri are completely non-sexual. And maybe that was the curator’s point- the images are too impersonal in a way. Which, again, was the intention.
Jack’s Brook in Green, The Garden, Chromogenic print, 2018 © Erik Madigan Heck / Courtesy of Weinstein Hammons Gallery
This series is not about family or our relationship- even though it is my family in the pictures. It’s a fairy tale. Bri and I created this world together—we do live here and to an extent this is our reality—but the clothes are loaned, and the shots are sometimes pre-planned. We aren’t walking around the house with a camera going, “This is breakfast.” But, in the end it doesn’t matter. I love the work, and I hope it shows people some beauty, because that’s the point. It’s about making something that connects us all together, in nature, in color, and in family.
