During his time at the University of Georgia, R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe embraced the visual arts—and when the band disbanded in 2011, he returned to making illustrations, photography and sculptures. His fourth book of photographs, Even the birds gave pause (Damiani Books), is in part a record of his current ICA Milano exhibition, where Stipe focuses his wandering lens on portraiture through various mediums: plaster, concrete, rotocast plastics, bookmaking, ceramics, video, and darkroom photographic printing. He takes pleasure in capturing the quotidian and revels in sharing his process through a series of works-in-progress. Stipe’s employ of light and dark and seemingly disparate elements, together with photographic harmonies, results in alluring visions. In advance of the book’s April publication, here Stipe talks about how his photography differs and complements his performative stagecraft.
There is a revelatory quality to the images in Even the birds gave pause. Where did your interest in capturing this light and dark side of people and things come from? How did it evolve?
I’ve set out to explore what the portrait means in this century. We are constantly bombarded with documentation and imagery through digital technology and social media culture. Media has collapsed into exploitation and sensation, entertainment, and with that a confusion about image. So, what is the job of portraitist or photographer in this moment? I went into the Even the birds edit quite naively, looking for recent photos of mine that evoked a feeling, a memory or a meeting, a moment, a shared sensibility, a curiosity. I’m searching for portraits that are more than a picture of someone’s face or an inspired snapshot. I’m interested—with all available mediums—in ecstatic or revelatory moments, apex or culminating points of emotion and release.
My experience of the world is largely through feeling, and so that is reflected in all the work I do and how I present it. Photographically, I’m all about capturing in-between moments, mistakes, hidden chaos. Not like Tina Barney, who is brilliant, or Lee Friedlander, although I would count both of them as visual mentors. Perhaps more like a Winogrand or Koudelka—or, well, Avedon is a huge influence. I also love the innocence and transgression of early gay and queer porn, and historic gay and queer photographic representation. It simply carries a different weight than the straight world offered. The 1970s were for me a huge jumping-off point, visually and otherwise.
Did you consider portraiture to be your main artistic format prior to forming R.E.M.?
Well, I started R.E.M. when I was a quite unformed teenager. I did however study photography in grammar school first, age 14, and then again starting age 18 in college. As a queer man, photography and photographic representation in the 1970s was one of the only places where you could readily find other queer sensibilities or suggestions of a non-straight world; punk rock offered the same safe haven. Sometimes yes, in film and cinema … but even that was very limited then, certainly in terms of distribution. The ’60s had blown the doors right off; anything, it seemed, was possible. And then following civil rights advances in the ’60s and women’s lib in the early ’70s, just as the U.S. gay liberation movement was about to move mainstream in the mid ’70s, it was stymied and eventually shut down by political conservatives with the discovery and exploitation of a fundamentalist Christian voting block. This resulted a few years later in the awful Reagan years, and then came HIV/AIDS. Gay liberation was to lay dormant for another couple of decades, until finally we are where we find ourselves now. It was a long time coming—and, like the feminist movement and civil rights, has a long way to go.
Do you see music akin to visual art as a way to express all your public and private energies?
It is emotional, and evocative. It speaks directly to the heart. Other mediums take up a different space than music. Sculpture, oddly for me, is quite powerful and meditative. I love objects. Most of my creative life and output was object free … you could listen to it or watch it, you could sing along to it, but you couldn’t hold it or touch it. Objects carry resonance that moves me emotionally. For example, the plaster heads in my ICA Milan show that are illustrated in process at the back of the book—they make me very, very happy. I want to keep looking.
What does the Brancusi reference in the work mean and/or say to you?
A lot of what I admire about him is projection, I’m sure. Brancusi loved objects. He bridged the old world with the new in his work. His demeanor and his attitude towards art. I love how obsessive and unafraid he was in his work, and how immersive his approach. If you were invited to his atelier it was an all-day multi-act experience, complete with intermissions. He calculated light and how it would fall on his work and would guide visitors through his workspace accordingly. I suggest these tendencies that I find in myself onto Brancusi: I crave mistake, chaos and imperfection. I allow for them; I try very hard to explore and then spotlight them. That is where things get unexpected and holy.
The book flows in a kind of melodic way. Is there a story that you are telling (or giving) to the audience?
I would sure hope so. Putting together a book of images is like writing out a musical setlist. You want to provide moments of intensity and discovery with breaks and pauses. I am a maximalist minimalist—my inclination is to jam imagery into every possible space. Paring that back to create a journey that is
satisfying and allows for discovery is a massive challenge for me.
Obviously music did not transplant your other arts, but what did your performative work do that the more static forms did not?
Well, hmm. Great question. Writing is a very solitary and not easy task. The cliche is real. Photography is thrilling and as easy as breathing. Performance is its own category altogether. With R.E.M. I became, as lead singer and the visual focal point, much more confident in my abilities, but it took a while. As the band grew in popularity I grew as a showman, as a performer. It was for us a years-long climb. It forced me to be less shy and more willing to take risks. It also introduced me to the greatest drug of all time: adrenaline. It’s hard to top or beat that feeling that comes when the adrenaline kicks in, and there is nothing that matches the energy exchange that transpires between performer and audience. I’m a bit slutty for it. I never wanted to see the back of the room. The bigger the crowd, the better.
With four books of photographs and chart-topping records as your legacy up to now, what is the next act on your stage?
The fifth photo book is already in early draft; it will be an expansion and natural follow up to Even the birds gave pause. I’m reaching back into my archive and pulling repeated motifs in order to re-examine them in new light. I am nearing completion of my first solo album of pop music, which is no easy feat following R.E.M.—the soundscape is electronic, orchestral and organic all at once. Lots of drama and lots of voice. There will be visual representation for each song, so that’s a lot of work and time, but also lots of fun collaboration. I’m looking very forward to this new chapter and throwing it out into the world for resonance.
