Jeannette Montgomery Barron

Almost more a diary than a monograph, Jeannette Montgomery Barron's My Years in the 1980s is a collection of photographs taken in studios, apartments and clubs, accompanied by Barron's notes, letters and mementos from New York in the 1980s, presented in the familiar format of a Moleskine notebook. Barron arrived in New York in the late 1970s, and her photographs offer a glimpse of the burgeoning East Village art scene through portraits of its protagonists, Barron's friends and peers: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eric Fischl, Peter Halley, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman and Andy Warhol, among many others.

The photographer Jeannette Montgomery Barron, whose subjects have included Andy Warhol and Cindy Sherman, was introduced to Keith Haring in his New York studio in 1985. That meeting led to the series of photographs now being published here for the first time, a pictorial dialogue between the meticulously observing Montgomery Barron and the stylized icon Haring that unfolds with its own dramatic narrative. For Montgomery Barron, observation is a means of immersing herself in her subject. Being observed enabled Haring to play with perception in a way viewers will recognize from his works. Session with Keith Haring invites us to take part in this encounter and to let Haring come to life again before our eyes.

Once again, photographer Jeannette Montgomery Barron has created a book that is captivating in imagery as well as in poetic reverie. That thing that constantly throws back the glance it has just captured is, here, the subject as well: the mirror--both literally and metaphorically. The 44 peaceful pictures in this book tell the tale of the mirror that takes its stand in front of the camera solemnly and with composure. Its silvery shimmer, already clouded over, symbolizes beauty. Its blind spots snub our idea of perfection. When it turns its back on us, it is hidden from view. And when, half-blind, it gazes into the sky, the yearning we feel is unappeasable. Unavoidably, we make our associations with people, characters who are latently present but never truly visible. Each mirror discloses yet another facet, becoming ever a new and in-depth portrait. With this book, Jeannette Montgomery Barron, whose pictures of artists including Andy Warhol, Dennis Hopper, Richard Ford, and William Burroughs have garnered great attention, evinces a psychological sensitivity that reveals her as a genuinely great portraitist. Edmund White, biographer of Jean Genet, falls under the spell of shadow and innuendo, and, in his accompanying text, draws circles around projections, perceptions, and art itself.