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From the Archive - I Like To Be Smooth, Minneapolis, MNLake...

Wed, 23 May 2012 18:37:00 -0500

From the Archive - I Like To Be Smooth, Minneapolis, MN
Lake Street USA (1997 - 2000)

I love to get my stomach and chest waxed. It makes me laugh. I like the feeling of smoothness against my clothes and raw skin. I just don’t like hair. I like to be smooth.

The pain almost feels good in a way. It’s like a sexual experience. You want it to happen and you don’t want it to happen. It’s kind of weird. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. One moment it can hurt, and the next moment it can make you laugh.

It’s also kind appetizing to the mind to see all the hair removed. Like when you play Pac Man. You want to get rid of all the little dots. And you can’t stop. Then it kills you.

We are the Other - Heilongjiang Provincial Museum, Harbin, China...

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:17:00 -0500

We are the Other - Heilongjiang Provincial Museum, Harbin, China (2012)

Does Speaking Chinese Make You Chinese?

The trip of a lifetime for any child of immigrants is the one back to the Motherland. Mine did not come until two years ago. It was made possible by the joint efforts of Arts Midwest (a Minneapolis based-organization that facilitates international artist exchange programs) and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, working to promote visual artists as cultural ambassadors. They organized an 80-piece retrospective, culled from eleven of my photographic projects, that is traveling throughout China for two years.

I arrived in Beijing for the exhibition opener in December 2010, my first time in China. I am the first one in the Huie lineage not born in the Middle Kingdom. I went from Minnesota, a place where inside I felt like everyone else but at times stuck out in appearance, to a place where I looked like everyone but really felt like a foreigner. Especially when I opened my mouth. The meager Chinese language skills I once possessed have long since eroded, but people there of course assumed differently. And so it was with a bit of shame and cultural guilt that I had to repeatedly shake my head and say, “Wǒ bùzhīdào” (I don’t understand).

There were a variety of reactions from audiences at the several lectures I gave, perhaps crystallized by one university student who stood up and remarked in confident English, “But you are showing us images of what America really looks like, not the rich paradise that we know it is!” Indeed. Perhaps America’s most influential exports are the idealized images churned out by Hollywood, marketing and the media, driving the gap between perception and reality. But are we any less susceptible here to all that glossy illusion?

My traveling retrospective was in six cities last year (Beijing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Xian, Wuhan, and Dalian). Last week I was back in China, in Harbin, where the exhibit opened this year at the Heilongjiang Provincial Museum and will travel to several more cities. Over a million people will have viewed it by the end.

This northeast capital and the tenth largest city in China, known for its bitter winters and ice festivals, has a sister city relationship with Minneapolis. Because of this fortuitous coincidence I was not only an artist serving as cultural ambassador, but also an official emissary, delivering a letter from the mayor of Minneapolis to the Vice Division Chief of American and Oceanian Affairs Harbin Foreign & Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, and other officials.

My opening lecture (I gave eight lectures in five days, mostly to universities) was preceded by media interviews (millions would be seeing this on state television), speeches, and a ceremony in which museum officials and I placed our hands on an electrostatic globe (a standard ritual for such important events in China I was told) that danced with tiny lightning bolts to the touch, and was partially eclipsed by the barrage of flashes from the camera-wielding audience.

At one point my interpreter leaned and whispered, “Are you overwhelmed?” I was.

It would be difficult for me to capsulize (and understand) the myriad reactions to my photographs. Sometimes the audience didn’t seemed engaged or didn’t ask any questions, and other times there were so many questions that we had to cut people off because of time.

I wondered how many factors played a part: cultural issues that didn’t translate well, size and age of the audience, English-speaking capabilities, interpretation issues, Westernized knowledge, my fluctuating energy level, shyness, reluctance to question an authority figure, and so on. Throughout my lectures though, one aspect remained constant: everyone wanted to have their picture taken with me afterwards.

There were quite a few responses that stood out, and here are two. One middle-aged man was hoping that I could shed some light on an ongoing debate among Chinese photographers between the pristine landscape aesthetic of Ansel Adams and the social documentary of W. Eugene Smith. “Who is more relevant?” he wanted to know. I gave a not well thought-out, diplomatic answer.

Another was from a young university student who was born and raised in Canada and then went to high school in the deep, rural American south. She had only been in China several years and talked about her shifting cultural identity and the difficulties of being perceived as different.

Her plan was to stay after graduating with the hopes of a career as a Chinese journalist. Even though she is fairly fluent in Chinese, however, she still feels she sticks out. That sometimes she is still treated as a foreigner. I asked her, “Does speaking Chinese make you Chinese?” She thought for a moment and then shook her head no.

From the Archive - Joe’s Barber Shop, St. Paul, MNFrogtown...

Wed, 16 May 2012 19:54:00 -0500

From the Archive - Joe’s Barber Shop, St. Paul, MN
Frogtown (1993 - 1995)

I first started coming here in the 30s when I was 16. It was called Nick’s Barber Shop then. Haircuts were 35 cents. Now they’re $7.50. Still a good buy. Joe here has been cutting my hair since 1950. I’ve been a good customer. I get it cut every three weeks. If you can stand his bs you’ve got it made. That’s a lot of bs over 40 years. I guess that’s why I come here.

Changing Lenses is the product of an ongoing conversation...

Sun, 13 May 2012 22:22:00 -0500

Changing Lenses is the product of an ongoing conversation between eminent sociologist Doug Hartmann, Ph.D. and myself. In each post, we exchange what’s seen behind a camera lens and what’s seen through a sociological lens to get at the diversity of perspectives and cultivate a unique look at the human experience. Below is my perspective. Read Doug’s reaction here.

From the Archive - Politician, St. Paul, MN
Frogtown (1993 - 1995)

I haven’t photographed that much in the political sphere. I’m not sure why. Partly perhaps because the circus surrounding politics are often orchestrated media events and I’m interested more in what is usually not covered by the press. Also I’ve been apolitical most of my life, just as I’ve been areligious, although I’ve photographed in a lot of churches and faith-based places, so I guess I can’t use that as an excuse.

I’m more interested in the sociology of politics than politics itself. For instance, do aesthetics determine political beliefs or is it the other way around? Why do liberals and conservatives dress the way they do? Can knowing whether or not you like to color outside the lines as a kid be a predictor of your opinion on abortion?

I assume that sociologists are plagued with the same biases that challenge every field of study that supposes objectivity, unlike artists who are expected to flaunt their point of view. I guess in that sense I’m more like a sociologist than an artist, in that I want my point of view to seem transparent.

This photograph doesn’t have much of a back-story. The image is really my only memory of it. I went back to the contact sheet and realized it was on one of the first rolls I shot for Frogtown, which was my first project. It put me on the artistic map, so to speak.

I believe I was just walking around and bumped into this scene. I only took two shots of the politician, both from the back. Amazing how few of the children, who became unwitting political advertisements, are actually looking at the politician.

We are the Other - Heilongjiang Provincial Museum, Harbin, China...

Sun, 13 May 2012 22:13:00 -0500

We are the Other - Heilongjiang Provincial Museum, Harbin, China (2012)

The scene before my lecture: text next week…

We are the Other - Heilongjiang Provincial Museum, Harbin, China...

Sun, 06 May 2012 23:38:00 -0500

We are the Other - Heilongjiang Provincial Museum, Harbin, China (2012)

The frenzied scene after my lecture today: text forthcoming…

Changing Lenses is the product of an ongoing conversation...

Wed, 02 May 2012 22:20:00 -0500

Changing Lenses is the product of an ongoing conversation between eminent sociologist Doug Hartmann, Ph.D. and myself. In each post, we exchange what’s seen behind a camera lens and what’s seen through a sociological lens to get at the diversity of perspectives and cultivate a unique look at the human experience. Below is my perspective. Read Doug’s reaction here.

From the Archive - Roosevelt High School Students, Minneapolis, MN
Lake Street USA (1997 - 2000)

When I took this photograph in 1998, nearly half of the student population at Roosevelt High School, located in the urban core of South Minneapolis, was Somali. Perhaps school district officials thought it best to keep all of the refugees together; that’s what they’d done with Southeast Asians in the mid-‘70s, too.

All of the students pictured here are Muslim and, as required by their faith, pray five times a day. This could be problematic during school hours, and they’d pray as discreetly as they could under stairwells or in bathrooms. Whether it was the separation of church and state that legally prohibits prayer in schools or the distinctly not Christian spectacle of prostrated Islamic worship, the Somali students banded together to find an alternative place to pray. Racial tensions flared between these students and both white and other black students at Roosevelt.

Ironically, Our Redeemer Lutheran Church (across the street from the school) became the safe haven for these kids. Every Friday during their lunch hour, Somali students transformed the basement of Our Redeemer into a mosque. First the boys prayed, then the girls.

Fourteen years later, I wondered if a Muslim prayer group still meets. I was surprised to see that the church marquee now reads: Our Redeemer Oromo Evangelical Church. The cultural cross-pollination continues: the Oromo, ethnic refugees from Ethiopia, now occupy the sanctuary and hold services in both Oromo and English (for the young Oromos who don’t speak the mother tongue). The Roosevelt Muslim student group is still going strong and has moved its services several doors down to the YMCA. One school administrator told me that they are now joined by a significant African American contingent that has converted to Islam.

We are the Other -Roland (Hoodie Diptych), Minneapolis, MN...

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:01:00 -0500

We are the Other -Roland (Hoodie Diptych), Minneapolis, MN (2012)

From the Archive - Suneson Music Center, Minneapolis, MNLake...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:18:00 -0500

From the Archive - Suneson Music Center, Minneapolis, MN
Lake Street USA (1997 - 2000)

We have a session here every Saturday morning. Anybody who wants to play is welcome. We sing our songs, which I love to do. I’ve been singing all my life, since I was five years old. Worked down here on Lake Street about 35 years ago. We had little remote radio broadcast. Had a group called the Circle Dot Ranch Boys. I tried to make a living at it for awhile, but it just didn’t work out.

When I feel good I’m kind of a nut. I’m kind of crazy and it has got me in a little bit of trouble. That kind of led to a few things that weren’t too happy for me. But I got off that now. I sing from my soul and heart. There are two songs that when I sing I always break down and cry. One is called “Old Shep.” It’s about a dog that a person had to shoot. The other is “Be Careful of the Stones You Throw.” Just even talking about it gets to me.

I just love to sing that’s all. I’m just the happiest man in the world if I can just sing somebody’s favorite song for them. I don’t perform anymore. I’d like to get out there again. I’d really like to. I’d sing at any place that would have me, but it just hasn’t come up. So every chance I get I come down here. If I’m singing I’m happy. I’m not singing I’m not happy. That’s my life. Actually it’s about all I live for.

We are the Other -32nd & Chicago Bus Stop, South...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:32:00 -0500

We are the Other -32nd & Chicago Bus Stop, South Minneapolis, MN (2012)

From the Archive - Bubbas, Frogtown (1993 - 1995) We call each...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:54:00 -0500

From the Archive - Bubbas, Frogtown (1993 - 1995)

We call each other Bubba, you know, like brothers. But we don’t want to be confused with the blacks in the neighborhood because they call each other brother and sister. We’re not a gang. It’s not a race thing. We don’t even have a name for our group. We’re just really good friends. We don’t go out looking for trouble. We just sit here and have fun.

From left to right: Caveman, Hobbit, Face, Chunks, Chief and Girlie Boy.

We are the Other - Walter, 38th & Chicago Bus Stop, South...

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 21:29:00 -0500

We are the Other - Walter, 38th & Chicago Bus Stop, South Minneapolis, MN

Changing Lenses is the product of an ongoing conversation...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:10:00 -0500

From the Archive - Demolition Derby, Baker Montana, 2001
Looking For Asian America: An Ethnocentric Tour

I had never been to a demolition derby or to rural Montana before. When we first pulled in it resembled a scene from an apocalyptic movie: tidy, rustic shops lined main street, but where was everybody? A lone soul finally appeared to inform us that the derby was in town. Apparently the entire populace of Baker was at this car-as-gladiator spectacle.

An accommodating elderly gentleman in a cowboy hat excitedly explained the intricacies of the sport to us. The sight and sounds of smashing metal contrasted with the somewhat languorous audience that occasionally emitted a cheer. In many ways it didn’t seem all that different from a crowd at an outdoor Saints baseball game in St. Paul, Minnesota.

When my attention turned to photographic possibilities, I was excited to spy the only Asian face in this communal outpouring. He and his wife, both Cambodian, had settled there a while back. In dress and deportment he blended right in, with his worn blue jeans, short sleeve shirt and pocket wallet. But to me, when I look at this photo, he appears to be Photoshopped in. And then I wonder, why do I think that? Is that what I look like when I’m walking around the land of Lake Wobegon—as though I’ve been Photoshopped onto the landscape?

We are the Other - Easter Sunday, 38th & Chicago Bus Stop,...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 22:14:00 -0500

We are the Other - Easter Sunday, 38^th & Chicago Bus Stop, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2012)

Jaymie, who this morning was on his way to Word of Grace Baptist Church, grew up a block from the bus stop. After I asked him what his favorite word was he told me a story about his mom. He was with her when she was on her deathbed, a picture of Jesus hanging over her. “I thought she was gone,” he said, “but then her eyes opened and her face started to glow.” He told me that people don’t believe him when he says that her face glowed.

When he was nine his mom had a nervous breakdown and she was sent to a state hospital. His father wasn’t around so he and his two brothers and sister were separated, ending up at various orphanages and foster homes. One brother he never got to know, who was a baby when this all happened, called him out of the blue ten years ago. Some sixty years had passed. He said his name was Steve and that he now lived in Cleveland.

He has no idea what happened to his other brother who had polio and an iron lung. “Maybe he was adopted,” he said. I was going to ask him about his sister but then his bus came.

Jaymie worked at grain mills most of his life and made decent money. Keeping up with his expenses was always a problem though. When I asked him for his contact information so I could give him a photo he said that he’s homeless and is at a Catholic shelter. “I gambled too much last year”.

From the Archive - Corcoran Park, South Minneapolis, MN, Lake...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 23:53:00 -0500

From the Archive - Corcoran Park, South Minneapolis, MN, Lake Street USA 1997 - 2000

We are the Other - Jerry, South Minneapolis, Minnesota...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:09:00 -0500

We are the Other - Jerry, South Minneapolis, Minnesota (2012)

When Jerry was a kid his parents would let him have any toy he wanted on his birthday and Christmas. But only one toy. “C’mon now!” he exclaims, some 40 years later, the anguish still in his voice. He would pore over the “Wish Books” put out by Sears, JC Penney and Montgomery Wards for his one present, which was often a piece of baseball memorabilia.

He got hooked on baseball cards when he was 12, winning them when shooting marbles with the neighborhood kids. During televised baseball games he would prop them up next to the TV, matching the card to the player on the screen so he could connect with them in a personal way. “Maybe I was the only kid who did that,” he says.

Then he went to college, got a job and could finally afford all the things he couldn’t as a kid. He worked twenty years as a sales rep for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and every time he got that commission check he’d head to a flea market, rummage sale, thrift store or antique mart, constantly adding to his conglomeration: toys from the 50s and 60s, Japanese Tin Friction Cars, coins, GI Joe, model car kits, Star Wars paraphernalia, and most of all, sports cards.

Because he would buy sports cards by the boxful faster than he could look at them, his attic is now filled with piles of unopened cartons. His collection consists of 300,000 baseball cards, and if you add all the basketball, football, hockey cards, it totals a half a million, not to mention all the other toys.

He delights in talking about the history and culture that his cards represent, and gives away a lot of it in an effort to share his wealth. He is now retired and spends six days a week, often several times a day, at the Blue Ox, getting online to trade and buy more stuff on eBay and other sites.

He never married. “I can’t imagine a woman who would put up with all this,” he says laughing. “I had a girlfriend. She kicked me out because my stuff was filling up her house. I don’t blame her.”

For this first time in his life he is displaying some of the results of his life-long obsession at the Blue Ox (pictured here) with a 50-piece exhibition that has a Minnesota sports related theme. He has another exhibition lined up at the Knights of Columbus in Bloomington, Minnesota. Next Saturday, April 7, from noon to 2 pm, Jerry will host a Minnesota sports trivia event at the Blue Ox. Anyone who orders a cup of coffee will get a free baseball card of a Hall of Famer.

From the Archive - Loring Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota (circa...

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 20:54:00 -0500

From the Archive - Loring Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota (circa 1995)

It was during a one-week workshop in 1981 at the long defunct Film in the Cities in St. Paul, conducted by the legendary Garry Winogrand, that I decided to become a photographer. He said a lot of memorable things that week, including his famous dictum: “There is nothing as mysterious as a fact well-described.”

About the picture taking process itself, he said, “The most important thing is knowing where to stand.” Certainly true about this photo. I was doing a series on pick-up playground basketball (I’ve played in a weekly game of hoops for 30 years) when after a series of ordinary shots, I was fortunate to be standing in the right place as the ball hit me in the head, narrowly missing the camera held to my eye.

We are the Other - Mo (Mohammed), South Minneapolis, Minnesota...

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 22:32:00 -0500

We are the Other - Mo (Mohammed), South Minneapolis, Minnesota (2012)

Mo was a lightweight, having boxed in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Boston. “I was 130 lbs, skinnier than you back then,” he says. He had won three titles, but gave it up to support his four brothers and five sisters back in Iraq. After “running and fighting against Saddam” in 1990, he arrived in the U.S. as a refugee and ended up working 13 hours a day pumping gas in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

The owner had nine other gas stations, and one in particular was causing him trouble. “It was bad. There were fights all the time.” Mo talked the owner into letting him manage it. With hard work and a gentle but charismatic personality, he turned it around. “People trusted me,” he said.

Mo offered to buy the station and the owner asked for $70,000, but would take a $20,000 down payment. He paid $5000 a month and finally took it over in 1997, installing a grocery store that made it successful. But he was lonely. There were few Iraqis in the area and when a friend urged him to come to Minneapolis where there was a more substantial Iraqi community, he sold the gas station and left.

Soon after arriving he opened Lake and Park Grocery, a corner store less than a mile from Mill City Auto, where he visits the owner, his best friend Dan, just about every day (where this photo was taken). For two years he put in long days, “not drinking or partying.” He now owns two other grocery stores in Brooklyn Park and St. Paul and enjoys the fruits of his hard work, with an eye on sartorial appearance. “You’ve got to look good,” he says. “Because when you die you take nothing with you.”

Changing Lenses is the product of an ongoing conversation...

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 22:17:00 -0500

—

Big Geno and Little Geno, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Lake Street USA (1997 - 2000)

When photographing I try to present people as they present themselves and let viewers form their own narratives. A photograph, however, is just a snippet of that person. If you took a thousand photographs of someone, which photograph would be truest? And who decides the truth about any photograph—the person in it, the person who took it, or the person looking at it?

You never know how a photograph will be interpreted. I have photographs that seem innocuous to me that instill fear in someone else. This photograph of a man and his dog, though, often gets a visceral reaction. Recently an installation of about 50 photographs from my Lake Street USA series that included this one was being permanently installed in a public building. We laid them out along the wall deciding which ones should go where.

Perhaps because the scandal concerning Michal Vick, the professional football player whose abuse of fighting dogs was still fresh in the public’s consciousness, or perhaps because I’ve become more cautious in what photographs I deem proper to show in public settings, I voiced that this one might cause trouble. A few moments later an African American man walked by and became upset at what he saw. “This is really offensive to me,” he blurted. “This only perpetuates what people already think of us.” We ended up putting the photograph in a basement room that is less trafficked.

Here’s an excerpt from an interview I conducted with the person in the photograph:
“This is little Geno. I’m big Geno. He’s going to be a security dog. I’m going to take my time with him. I’m just trying to get his neck to be strong. The chain is to put muscles in his chest. Right now he’s young. As he gets old he’ll get used to it.

“Once he sees me with it he know he’s got to put it on. At first he didn’t want to have it on, but now he’s used to it. It’s not being abusive. You can train a dog how you want to train a dog, just like a child. You can raise a child up to cuss out grown people. You know, you just raise your dog just the way you want to be raised up. That’s all that is.”

We are the Other - Dan & Melanie, South Minneapolis,...

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:50:00 -0500

We are the Other - Dan & Melanie, South Minneapolis, Minnesota (2012)

Melanie and Dan are both small business owners on the same block. She “slings coffee” and he’s a body man. When I asked her to suggest someone she didn’t know well to be photographed with, she thought of Dan, who comes in once in a while for coffee. When the three of us sat in his small office and discussed the chalkboard questions, much of their conversation turned to the financial and aesthetic challenges of their respective trades.

Dan was hooked when he drove his dad’s Peugeot 404. That was back home in Jerusalem when he was seven. He then knew he wanted to work on cars the rest of his life. He was sixteen when he bought his first car, a blue 1973 BMW. German cars has been his specialty ever since.

After learning the trade from an uncle, he opened an auto body shop in Jerusalem 24 years ago that he still owns. He then started coming to Minnesota on vacations to visit relatives, but on one of the visits he fell in love with a woman, who was also born in Jerusalem, and decided to stay. They now have five children and he goes back home every couple of years.

Dan started working at Mill City Auto Body nine years ago near the corner of 38th and Chicago. I asked him if working on cars is different here than back home. “We did real body work there,” he replied. “Here they just change things.’ He explained that body parts were often not available there so he would have to, say, make a fender out of sheet metal, while here you just order the part. He was more of an artist then.