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INTERVIEW BY BOB NICKAS



Here’s an idea for you: Up in the mountains you have all these big ski resorts, and they have heated outdoor pools. It’s so cold in the winter that you can see the steam rising off of the water. Take pictures there.

Once, I had four wonderful boys and I thought we would make some shower pictures, and I was so stupid because I forgot that the water was too hot and the steam fogged the camera. Another time, I brought film to develop at the lab and they never gave it back.

Click here for a slide show of Pfeiffer’s Work.

You mean that the people who processed your film thought you’d taken dirty pictures?

Yeah, they said there was no film there.

I would think today there’s probably not a picture that you’d take that wouldn’t be printed. Today, you can sit in front of a computer and see the most incredible hardcore images. All these years later, your pictures still have a kind of innocence to them.

It’s not just, “Take off the clothes and let me shoot you naked.” That would be boring.

You always hide a little bit, which seems like a great way to deal with sexy pictures. There’s one I love where this kid is almost completely naked, he’s sitting down, and over his crotch he’s holding a plate with a fish. It’s very sexy, even if you don’t like fish.

No, I like fish. Without the plate it would just be a boy sitting on the sofa.

Well, that’s something else you do. You put a lot of humor into your pictures. The aspect of the picture being fun and lighthearted is a big part of your work.

I love to have fun. All my models like to be photographed and like to have fun when we shoot. It’s my way of working. When I have new models, maybe the first time they’re a little bit shy, but the second time it’s easier. You have to get into them, you have to make them lose themselves. After I’m done, I’m really finished because of all the tension... When I’m finished I’m gone. I’m really out of control. [laughs]

A while ago you sent me some pictures from a shoot that was supposed to be in Butt magazine. It was a hockey team in their dressing room, putting on their uniforms, with all their gear around. They were great pictures but the magazine wouldn’t run them because they said the boys were straight.

Yes, and I never ask if someone is gay or not. That’s never been my problem. Even in the 70s, when the first real beauties came, I just selected them because of their beauty, not their sexuality. Even a boy who was very, very masculine and beautiful, he said to me ten years later—maybe he wasn’t the brightest boy—he said, “Oh, I didn’t know that you were gay.” It was never a problem. Nobody mentioned it. I was really depressed when Butt didn’t use those pictures because they were good and the boys had a good time. And then they tell me, “The boys aren’t gay, so we can’t print the pictures.”

You told me that when you went to buy the underwear for that shoot you wanted the cheapest and the smallest you could find, even though they’re pretty big guys on the hockey team!

Yeah, I bought the cheapest because I had to pay for it myself, and, as always, the smallest size. And they were really well built—beautiful asses. They had great fun, and maybe I’ll use them again for something new.

You should definitely use them. Now, you don’t only photograph boys. Your last book was a little bit of a surprise. You did a book called Cherchez la Femme. There were a few boys in the book, and some couples, but it was almost all women. Where did that idea come from?

I have many pictures of women—women are always around me. I have muses everywhere. Boys and girls who give me ideas. My publisher said, “Why don’t we make a book out of it?” So that was the start. But the next book will go back to the roots.

Back to the roots? [laughs] Very funny.

My idea is like a telephone book or a kind of biography. I have so many things for my retrospective catalog. We went through the fan mail from the 60s and 70s.

You used to get fan mail?

I kept everything. I have everything in boxes because before this stupid email I always wrote letters to everybody and they wrote me back. I want to package it in a good style. We have to stay cool—you know what I mean? Not hot. When I do things I want to be cool.

When you started taking pictures, who were some of the photographers you admired?

Oh, the classic ones. When I went to art school I always sat in the library and looked through Harper’s Bazaar and I was impressed by all those photographers in the 40s—George Platt Lynes, Horst P. Horst, George Hoyningen-Huene, Herbert List—because I knew I could never do it in this way.

When you were younger did you study photography?

No, because I was so afraid of the camera. I never touched a camera because of my shaky hands.

So you’re self-taught as a photographer?

I started with a Polaroid, but not thinking I was a photographer. The first photograph I did was with my sister and my girlfriend at home and I just started to direct them. I realized that I love to direct people.

In the 80s and 90s were you aware of Nan Goldin and Wolfgang Tillmans?

When my first book came out in 1980, I had a big fan—my first fan—and he told me that I should look at Nan Goldin’s pictures because she did stuff like me. But it kind of hurt a little bit because at the time nobody wanted me. I didn’t want to think about it too much because it was at a time when nobody cared for me.

If you think about Nan Goldin and Larry Clark, the pictures that made them famous made them famous because they’re good pictures, but also because they’re sensationalistic. I don’t think you’ve ever once in your life made a sensationalistic picture. Yours is such a different aesthetic—it doesn’t immediately grab people in a visceral way. A lot of the photos that made Nan Goldin famous are kind of pitiless. Pictures of people who are obviously going through very difficult times. Same thing with the early Larry Clark pictures. These people are suffering and they’re messed up. The pictures aren’t very flattering for all the obvious reasons. You’ve never taken pictures like that. You’ve never taken pictures of losers.

Yes, it’s true. That’s why I didn’t want to know too much about other photographers. I was in London when I first saw Tillmans. It was at the Serpentine Gallery in ’95. I was really depressed because he was so good. It was the beginning of a new era.

You told me that at the time you saw the exhibition, you had just bought a new camera. You were walking through the park, thinking about his pictures, and you wanted to throw the camera in the lake.

But I didn’t.

It’s clear that people discovered you, and rediscovered you, in recent years, and now they want you. I think it’s important to point out how your pictures correspond to what’s come up in fashion photography and in photography in general. You were way ahead of your time. And I think if you’re ahead of your time you can only be discovered later. People have to catch up.

Yeah, slowly they’re catching up. And it’s so fun because it’s a new generation—30 or even younger. They look at things differently. My generation would always say, “Oh, no, it’s so awful. It’s nothing.” And now, with the young ones, like the young students, it’s so nice to see acceptance finally.

In the 70s, people didn’t respond well to your pictures?

Unfortunately, you didn’t see my first photographic show in 1974. In the middle of the gallery there was a table, and you could look at photos I had made of boys doing the same things over and over—like Muybridge’s motion photos. I put the photos on a background with tissues that had the same color as the photos. It looked good. That was my first solo show. The gallery was owned by a girl who, after my show, or maybe two shows later, she killed herself.

Did you sell any photographs?

No. [laughs] I put them in my basement, some I destroyed—I am so stupid—but I did keep some. There are some beautiful pictures, I’ll tell you.

Well, put them in your retrospective.

Yes, I will do.

Karlheinz Weinberger is the other notorious Zurich photographer, working many years before you, and only recently becoming well known for his pictures of wild motorbike teens. When did you first see his pictures, and what did you think of them?

When I was in my teens I saw a magazine called Der Kreis, and his photos were published there under his pseudonym, “Rico.”

What was Der Kreis?

It means “The Circle.” It was a little magazine from the 30s that ran until the mid-60s. They had kitschy stories and photos, Cocteau-like drawings—no porno, very arty, very 50s... before my time. When I actually saw Karlheinz’s photos, it was later at his museum show, and I remembered those photos from Der Kreis and I was so proud that somebody in the same country was working in the same field before me. When I had a show after the Welcome Aboard! book came out, he came to my opening and later sent me a present—a photo with a cock in a boxing glove. He said he was inspired by the photo of the boxer in my book.

Of the photographers working now, who do you like?

I think Ryan McGinley works so much now. I saw a show of his in a gallery recently, and there were so many pictures where I thought, “I want to do this picture too.”

You want to copy some of his pictures?

Yes. [laughs]

I don’t think he would mind.

I love this one photo where there are a bunch of boys under a waterfall. He’s perfect at casting.

And, like you, at directing. But you have many waterfalls in Switzerland too. They’re cold but you’ve got them.

Yes, I said today to a boy, “This summer we have to go to the mountains. I want rocks and nudes. I want to go up in the mountains, tell your brother.” They are two brothers who are very beautiful, so classical. But the waterfalls are so cold that I can’t put them under. It comes directly from the glacier, so nobody will do it. We have to look for other ideas. The ideas are coming because I always look for different surroundings.

I know you like to hike.

Yes, I love to hike, always to new places. I don’t like to have the same hike twice. It’s more interesting to try new paths. There are so many left to travel.

I was talking before about your sense of humor and how you photograph a lot of nudes. You also like to photograph statues, which is a classical way of dealing with the figure in photography.

Oh, I love it. I was in Paris once, and I went to the Louvre one evening. Unfortunately, you can’t take photos in the museum, but I made one from behind. People always look at statues and photograph them from the front—nobody ever goes behind.

Often when photographers take pictures of statues, they’re very serious, very sober. But with yours, it’s almost like somehow you get the statue to perform for you.

Even in the building in this famous museum it’s forbidden to take a photo, and I snuck one. But a guard saw me. He said, “Please give me the film.” But I wouldn’t. I said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” I know it’s not allowed but sometimes you have to play to get what you want.

My favorite signs in the museum, and you see them all the time—and think about this in relation to being a photographer—are the ones that say “Photography is not allowed.”

When I was a teen I went to many, many movies. It was like my religion back then. You often had a Swedish film, let’s say The Silence by Ingmar Bergman. There was a poster in the window and they would have a sign that said “For this film we cannot display any photos.” I asked a friend who worked at the movie theater, “Oh, please give me this sign. This is so good.” Even with women they had black bars over the breasts. When you see the bars, of course it’s something taboo, so it makes you wonder about it more.

You’ve worked for a long time, and now you’re going to have a retrospective and a big catalog. Your first, long-out-of-print 1970-1980 book was republished a few years ago. After all of this, do you still consider yourself an amateur?

There is a magazine called Fantastic Man. I always had this dream, “Oh, I want to be in Fantastic Man. Am I too bad for Fantastic Man?” Last year they asked me to do some pictures for them. So I went out with my models and said, “OK, boys. Let’s do it.” We went up on a hill and there were big clouds, and the boys took their hats and threw them in the air. Every time an airplane flew through the picture their hats were in the sky, in the clouds. I sent the pictures to the magazine and they said, “We can’t use them because they’re very blurred. The pictures turned out great but we can’t use them.” We had good fun, but I forgot to put on the flash. I don’t think that they’re too blurry. You can see everything. Maybe it’s not high-style enough for them. So my career at Fantastic Man was finished before it began.

I’m of the opinion that the best artists stay, in some way, amateurs.

Yeah, I’ll stay that way. I try hard, but we’ll see... I don’t want to lose it. I’m still looking for love... but now I know more.


TO BE CONTINUED
WALTER PFEIFFER | 1 | 2 |

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