Beyond the Ads . . . Obsession : Bruce Weber has always been serious about his art; the problem is he’s been so commercially successful with <i> those</i> fashion ads

Photographer Bruce Weber has had such a pervasive influence on America’s visual vocabulary that it’s easy to forget that one rarely saw overtly eroticized images of men in the media before the late ‘70s. That’s when Weber’s groundbreaking ad campaign for Calvin Klein began turning up in magazines and on billboards across the land, permanently changing what’s considered permissible in fashion photography and advertising.

Depicting muscular young men wearing nothing but snug fitting jockey shorts, Weber’s Klein ads were rather startling when they first appeared, but the photographer intuitively sensed that the culture was ready for them. The cult of the body was changing attitudes towards physicality--the gym-going trend was picking up steam at that point--and the gay rights movement was at the peak of its powers (these ads began appearing just before the onset of the AIDS epidemic).

Weber’s openly homoerotic pictures played off both those social trends and, though highly controversial, proved to be a nifty piece of marketing strategy. Lambasted as offensive by some, hailed as works of art by others, they broadened the popular vernacular considerably, while helping Klein to sell loads of underwear.

“One of the wonderful things about photographs is that they can make people wonder about their own sexuality because people tend to read photographs in a way that pertains to their fantasy life,” says Weber. “People find what they need in photographs. We’re going through an extremely repressive period right now, and, partly because of AIDS, young people aren’t free to experiment and find out what their own true sexual identity might be. Consequently, sexual images are particularly important right now. People mustn’t be prohibited from looking at them because that kind of control breeds sickness into society.”

The 45-year-old photographer is paid well for his gentle provocations. Though his office in New York (where he maintains one of his four residences) refuses to disclose his day rate, it was quoted as being $20,000 two years ago in Seven Days magazine (Weber has also been known to work for free if the subject interests him sufficiently). One imagines his fee has gone up since then, as the popularity of his work shows no sign of waning.

Weber also does those ubiquitous, multipage Ralph Lauren magazine spreads that have been appearing for several years--he has, in short, clearly conquered the mountain of commercial photography. So it comes as no surprise to discover that he presently devotes much of his energy to building a career as a filmmaker and fine artist. Weber’s debut L.A. exhibition is on view at the Fahey/Klein Gallery through June 22.

The worlds of fine art and advertising have traditionally been at loggerheads, however, the split between them lessens every year. This new cross-fertilization was largely fostered by the ‘80s generation of media-based artists (Richard Prince and Bruce and Norman Yonemoto are among many artists who’ve appropriated mass media idioms), and has resulted in all kinds of lateral movement. Painters and dealers are now directing movies and rock videos, and commercial artists and cartoonists are having gallery shows. Weber--who’s directed two feature films, published eight books and was included in the 1987 Whitney Biennial--has never made a distinction between his commercial and private work.

“I feel equally committed to both,” says Weber, speaking by phone from New York, “and have always felt the art world should accord a bit more respect to commercial photography. Steichen did lots of commercial work and so did Edward Weston--I once saw some beautiful pictures he shot for a piano store.”

It’s hard to catch Weber for an interview because he leads the life of a Gypsy and is perpetually on the road. Preferring to work in temporarily rented spaces, he doesn’t even have a studio. He’s very much a collaborative artist, and for his private as well as his commercial pictures, works with a large, traveling retinue of assistants, stylists and hangers-on. In a sense, his work is a visual travelogue of his life, and the people he photographs often wind up being friends, while elements of his private life--his dogs, his back yard, his parents--turn up in his work.

An amiable, unpretentious man, Weber explains his nomadic lifestyle as “infinitely preferable to being stuck in a restaurant in Manhattan listening to people tell you you’re great. I like change, and (being) on the road every day brings something new. But, even at its worst, being a photographer is a great life--it’s like having Christmas everyday. You get your contact sheets back from the lab and it’s as if you’ve been given a gift. Sometimes it’s just a pen and pencil set, other times it’s like a sports car, but it’s always exciting.”

Born in Greensburg, Pa., one of two children born to a prosperous furniture-store owner, Weber describes his upbringing as “liberal.”

“My parents were always running off to Europe and leaving me and my older sister with the housekeeper, and they took me to foreign films all the time,” he says. “In fact, Ingmar Bergman’s ‘The Virgin Spring’ was the first piece of art that made an impression on me. My father was always taking pictures when I was growing up--Saturdays and Sundays were like formal sittings in our house--and my grandmother was an important creative influence on me as well. Wednesday evenings my family took a painting class together and my grandmother always got on my case if I painted what I thought would be liked.”

Following high school graduation, Weber enrolled at Denison University in Ohio where he majored in art and theater. In 1966 he transferred to New York University to study film and theater and, on arriving in New York, was informed by his father that it was time for him to get a job. He tried his hand at modeling--”I was a terrible model,” he recalls with a laugh,--and quickly realized he’d rather be behind the camera than in front of it. About this time he made two fortuitous friendships.

“Early in my career I got to know Diane Arbus and she was a great inspiration to me,” he says. “When you photograph someone you’re kind of tied to them for life, and Diane felt that connection intensely--her involvement with the people she photographed was very heroic. I remember seeing her right before she died and she seemed completely drained from being connected with her work in that way. Diane got me to study with Lisette Model, and it was actually Lisette who gave me the courage to pursue my work. At that point nobody liked my pictures, but Lisette really encouraged me to develop my own style.”

The roots of Weber’s mature style were clearly evident in his work of that period--even then, his pictures were mostly of men. He was shooting young actors and musicians at that point (his first published work appeared in the now-defunct magazine, Rock ‘n’ Folk, but it wasn’t long before he moved up to doing risque editorial spreads for the Soho Weekly News and GQ. By the late ‘70s, the look he’s become known for was in full bloom, and those Klein ads made him a hot property.

Slickly composed and technically flawless, Weber’s pictures are nonetheless rather childlike. The innocence of his style is reflected in the awe with which he regards he-man strength, his “family scrapbook” way of presenting his work, the way he incorporates aspects of yearbook photography in his work. One gets the sense that the man behind the camera is a misfit kid, gazing longingly at some high school in-crowd. This longing reached an apotheosis in 1989 with Weber’s second film, the critically acclaimed “Let’s Get Lost,” an exquisitely lovely fan letter to jazz musician and former ‘50s dreamboat Chet Baker (Baker died shortly after the film was completed).

Asked if he feels trapped by the hugely popular style he’s pioneered, Weber admits that “clients in Europe and Japan often show me a picture I did three years ago and say, ‘Bruce, we want you to do this.’ I usually tell them I don’t even remember how I did that! I don’t take jobs where I’m not allowed to try new things.”

Images such as Weber’s that appear repeatedly in national magazines play an enormously powerful role in shaping cultural values, as well as our collective idea of what constitutes beauty. Asked how he sees attitudes towards beauty evolving, Weber says: “For starters, I think we’re experiencing a big wave of conservatism right now and a lot of people are afraid and don’t feel free to decide for themselves what’s beautiful and what isn’t. However, traditionally, I think the street is a good indicator of cultural attitudes about beauty. This isn’t to say that what happens on the runways of Paris doesn’t have an effect, but, speaking for myself, that doesn’t play much of a role in shaping my attitudes about beauty--which, by the way, have changed significantly over the course of my life.

“I’ve photographed a lot of great looking people,” he continues, “but as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to find a greater beauty in people whose lives have undergone a profound change. Take Chet Baker for instance. He was a man who had everything, then he lost it, then he tried to get it back again. People who are committed to what they love--as Chet was to his music--seem beautiful to me. Somebody who’s been able to give up something that meant something to them and overcome that loss--that’s beauty.”

For his show at Fahey/Klein, Weber will show images from his new book, “Bruce Weber,” perhaps the most personal of the eight books he’s done. The book opens with an introductory appreciation by William Burroughs. However, it’s a short text written by Weber that really pulls you into the pictures. In his writing, Weber talks about childhood experiences that shaped his sexuality, about his love for his parents (now deceased) and his admiration for their sexuality and how they expressed it. It’s a moving piece of writing that sets up the pictures that follow it beautifully. The selection of photos includes pictures of Weber’s parents and of himself as a child, celebrity portraits, images of dogs, babies and swimming pools and, of course, beautiful men.

“My life was completely shaped by a handful of childhood events and those experiences are central to the pictures I’m presently taking,” Weber explains. “Dealing with your parents and realizing for the first time that they’re human beings with sexual feelings is very difficult, and I felt it was important to try and retrace some of those steps. Exploring these themes through pictures didn’t really resolve those issues for me, however. I suppose my best hope for this work is that it will encourage other people to look at their parents in a less judgmental way and, if they’re still around, to give them some shelter.”