Jeff Sheng, “Jeff, Bend, Oregon,” 2009

#somereallygoodones, #jeffsheng, #dontaskdonttell, #roaringsilence

Roaring Silence.

My grandmother talked about how the world had changed in her mother’s lifetime with penicillin, airplanes, and telephones. These things we take for granted were miracles for her. In my life there have been changes that I would never have imagined, like landing on the Moon, television, the Internet.

Sex is probably pretty much the same except for the constant talking about it, the way we are literally banged away by it. By comparison my childhood was shrouded in conspiratorial silence about sex I was about ten when I heard one of my father’s friends use the “F” word out loud, truly an “ah ha” moment for me. For someone who can really walk the walk as an adult, I was pretty sheltered.

50 years ago parents were a miserable source of information about the great unknown – sex. Today I can’t imagine what kids do not know or can’t figure out in an instant.

Sex is the elephant in the room, the great fly in the ointment – choose your own metaphor for whatever is confounding and paralyzing in society. It fucks up everything. And we are most certainly still in the Dark Ages when it comes to gay sex. Gay Pride be damned, a lot of America cannot really accept it. Same sex, shame sex.

At this point my politics and sexual inclination should be obvious. Further, I am a gay veteran who served in Vietnam. (Full disclosure, I thought about sex with men then but didn’t get around it until later. Further I had a fabulous time in Saigon, a very unexpected tour full of fun and self-discovery, “Good Morning, Vietnam”, 1969.)

In a circuitous way, this all brings me to Jeff Sheng and his “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” photographs.

As a collector, dealer and teacher of photography I have been a mentor of sorts to Jeff since his undergraduate days at Harvard. He literally picked me up a number of years ago and has brought me along for his ride.

Mr. Sheng is so smart. He has always made very good photographs but I think it is important for you to know that he feels very deeply about the things he feels very deeply about and that shows up in his photographs. You want to see images of his old boyfriend? He has a road trip full of them. You want to see gay amateur athletes at the top of their game? Go to one of several dozen college campuses where he has set up one of his exhibitions. He is unstoppable.

The best news is that these DADT photographs are really good. Not only has he sought out and found cooperative soldiers who are obviously risking something by collaborating here but also these pictures work. They are clever and thoughtful, and they’re mysterious. They offer a journey that is dramatic and dispiriting.

There are some subversive elements in these. Why do they all seem to take place in motel rooms or childhood bedrooms, places where the subjects do not seem to truly be at home, but at odds with their environment, somehow displaced. Often there are ominous light sources - closet lights shining from the side of the frame, or bright bursts of light making silhouetted shadows on the wall. “Mark, Savannah, 2009” sits in darkness, his mirrored reflection bisected vertically with his face hidden; the light in the adjacent hallway keeps him somehow separated from us.

More to the point these are heartbreaking. You don’t need to know the stories. You can see that these individuals are in a kind of shitty limbo, not of their making. They are victims of an unenlightened or misguided society that has made its way into bedroom protocol, sustaining an out of date moral code.

“Jeff, Bend, Oregon, 2009” sits with his hand at his face, vignetted in the light, shielding it or holding back tears or praying or screaming. This is the most iconic one, illustrating several of the criteria. “Jeff” as he is known here may not be a Jeff in fact. That may be a pseudonym or the name of a lover or the name he has chosen for this project or perhaps he is actually Jeff from Oregon. The image is strikingly and hauntingly enigmatic.

There is a great deal at stake in these images. An anonymous “outing” e-mail can be enough to persuade the military to discharge someone in the service. It’s like Salem. There is no “reasonable doubt”. You’re out! And in more ways than one.

It takes a lot of nerve to volunteer for DADT because you risk your military career. You can be discharged and have to pay for any bonuses. It’s a bad and inequitable system.

Many photographers want social change. They imagine that their work will agitate and create awareness and that they will impact opinion and policy. In this country, there is a long stunning legacy stretching back to the photography of Alexander Gardner in the Civil War to Lewis Hine and W. Eugene Smith. Mr. Sheng's portraits put a dramatic, compassionate face on a horrendous situation. Maybe my Republican Aunt Mary in Florida will see these - when I send them to her - and she will have the wit to get it, to recognize that these are her grandsons and granddaughters and they are being treating unfairly. Maybe she would hear these photographs.

It could happen.

Originally commissioned for “Jeff Sheng, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (Jeff Sheng Studios 2010)

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