His photographs blend glamour to the ordinary and the real to the ideal. Roe Ethridge is, for a week, the guest-Artist Spotlight, digital project put in place by the Gagosian gallery, where his work was exposed prior to the confinement. During this time, he delves into his photo archives and music…
How do you organize your days?
Roe Ethridge: Difficult to say that they are organized… I spend a lot of time choosing images for the applications that I have on social networks. I lost a few hours to explore my cellar to archival research, which brings me back to my twenties, to my years as a college and high school. When my children are there, the home school structure my days, but there is a form of asymmetry which makes me feel unbalanced most of the time. I’m going to move, for example, a Google search of “what is a predicate composed with the preparation of the lunch, followed by a call to Zoom, then a new search “How to solve an equation?”… It is merciless! Sometimes, when I don’t have children, I phone friends, I will be racing… And all of a sudden, the day is over !
Roe Ethridge at his home in Brooklyn (courtesy of the artist)
What is your work uniform?
Your support is essential. Subscribe for $ 1 support Us
I wore a suit of corduroy khaki Helmut Lang for about a week, just to try to be a little class… and Then I went back to my normal clothes: jeans, a shirt and an “old” jacket refurbishment. I don’t jog, so the question does not arise.
what is it that you miss the most?
I am not able to remember…
what is it that surprises you the most in the period we live in?
She started to seem strange, and most of all. What makes it even stranger.
Roe Ethridge, “Kitchen Table”, 2002. Printing by dye-sublimation on aluminum. © Roe Ethridge / Courtesy Gagosian.
what is it that you happy the most ? Or what annoys you the most?
I then listened to it again the music that I love and that I had not heard for a long time, without knowing exactly since when, which seems to amplify the emotional dimension of the songs. What pisses me off… I don’t know exactly, if this is not the people who pass in front of me doing their jogging without masks, the air of saying : “Excuse me, I train, pfiou pfiou pfiou”. I want to tell them: “Hey, everything is going well, covers just your bloody mouth!”
READ ALSO >> Jean-Marie Perier, photographer : “Fortunately Dutronc sends me jokes by mail”
What application do you use most these days?
Instagram without any doubt, followed closely by InDesign.
what do you dream at night, and what do you think about most during the day?
I know that my dreams are ridiculous, because I wake up most mornings thinking: “what was that?” On the day, my thoughts are scattered. I would say that the concerns are followed by a form of optimism, which tells me that something good could come out of it all.
Roe Ethridge, Old Fruit, 2010. Printing by dye-sublimation on aluminum. © Roe Ethridge / Courtesy Gagosian.
To what the key works you turn ?
A mixture of things. I learn a lot about what the artists have done in times of peril world. That was Matisse in 1918, for example? And then I see the markers of the Spanish flu? For Munch, it is clear enough. I remember being told that the skies of Turner and the sublime by Friedrich were, in part, due to a huge volcano whose ashes have been rotated around the Earth for years.
What are you reading?
The information. I started The world Tree of Richard Powers, and Bicycle Day of Brian Blomerth… but I always think about The Possibility of an island by Michel Houellebecq.
What movies or series are you watching?
Ah ! All ! Too much in any case. I just reviewed the documentary [The music group] Big Star : Nothing can hurt me.I have also reviewed Orlando. Tilda Swinton is incredible, and the story acts as a reminder that this new era is not, in fact, not totally new.
What kind of music, podcasts or mixes are you listening to ?
Big Star, New Order-old Mulatu Astatke, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Stevie Wonder, Chet Baker, The Harder They Come, Outkast, Guided By Voices, My Bloody Valentine, Marvin Gaye…
What is the first thing you will do when we come out of this time of confinement ?
I’ll go surf.
Roe Ethridge, “Refrigerator”, 1999, print by dye-sublimation on aluminum. © Roe Ethridge / Courtesy Gagosian.
Read our complete file
photographers who do fashion
Demarchelier, father and son, are “Inheritance”, their expo duo Peter Lindbergh in 10 photos… and 10 quotes Peter Lindbergh: “The digital gives me wings”
The exhibition “Roe Ethridge: Old Fruit”, inaugurated at New York, Gagosian gallery, before the start of the containment, has been extended until may 30, 2020. What are these works which are put forward in the social networks of the gallery, this week, in the framework of the project Artist Spotlight.
