W.M. Hunt

 #somereallygoodones,  #collecting, #janetborden, #dumbosfeather, #rencontresdarles, #neilwinokur, #eggplant

“But I've been, done, seen about everything 

When I see a elephant fly 

What'd you say boy 

I said when I see a elephant fly”. 

-From the film, Dumbo, 1941, lyric by Ned Washington,

Other than curiosity and instinct, my earliest guide to looking at photographs and buying them was the phenomenal Janet Borden.  

Borden is a longtime photography dealer and one of the smartest and rarest people ever.  

In 2005 in anticipation of the first major exhibition of my Collection Dancing Bear — described by me as “magical, heart stopping images of people in which the eyes cannot be seen” — at Les Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles, France, I sat her down to talk about our lives in art.  

About collecting:  “Well, it might as well be fun to collect”.*1

We met at a photography fair at The Roosevelt Hotel, and my memory is that we just laughed.

JB: I think we laughed.

WMH: And then we had a date, a rendezvous. 

JB: And you were going to come over and see what I had. Because l was dealing privately out of my apartment. 

WMH: And what’d you do? 

JB: Before you came, I cut out two rectangles and put them over all the eyes of all the pictures in my house. So that when you came all of the photographs had their eyes masked and obscured. 

WMH: I thought that was just magical.  It was black electrician’s tape.

JB: Girls don’t have electrician's tape, you know that?  We just don’t.  There are things girls don’t have. 

WMH: A little duct tape?  No?  Paper squares, huh?  I didn’t buy anything.  I can’t remember what I bought from you finally.

JB: I can look it up, and I will look it up and get back to you. 

WMH: You were infinitely patient.  

It has been a unique collaboration.  Janet introduced me to some great pictures, by selling or brokering works by Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, E.J. Bellocq, Debbie Caffery, Harry Callahan, Mark Cohen, Fred Cray, Jed Devine, Stephen Frailey, Robert Frank, Jeremy Freedman, Lee Friedlander, Benno Friedman, Jan Groover, Lucia Moholy, Barbara Morgan, Irving Penn, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Cindy Sherman, Aaron Siskind, and Joel-Peter Witkin (one of his “Anonyme Atrocities” which was invoiced to me as “Picture of Pooch on Pussy”)  I even commissioned a trio of family portraits by her artist Neil Winokur who is represented here with his striking still life/portrait of an eggplant.  Eggplants were an unusual choice used to brand the Arles festival in 2005.  

WMH: And my time in photography — a very, very long time, thirty years — the first ten years, nobody knew who the fuck I was.  In retrospect, that wasn’t a bad thing.  I knew you, and I knew who everybody was, but nobody gave me the time of day, which was their mistake, really.  You were one of the few who got it.  Most everybody else, no, but you would bring me two things a year, would literally just call me and say, ‘It’s here, pick it up.’  Whereas others would show me … .  People don’t listen to what other people want.  In this world, people do whatever the hell they want to do; they don’t listen.  It’s probably why they don't sell as much as they might. 

Janet had sense.  She knew how much money I didn’t have and adjusted accordingly.  She never wasted my time, and I was always welcome to hang out. 

JB:  Do you like the dealing part or do you like the curatorial part? I’m curious.

WMH:  The curatorial part.  I hate the dealing part.  I’m the worst “closer” in town.  I start laughing when I try to close a sale.  I mean, I tell a client, ‘Now, this is going to be funny.  I’m going to try to close this sale’.

JB: I can’t make people buy anything. I don't care enough. 

WMH: Like you I’d rather they had a good time. I really do blame you for all of this.

JB: I do take some responsibility.  You know, it’s not much of a business model, but it’s not a bad life model. That’s how I look at it.

WMH: If they don’t like it, they’ll leave.

…

WMH: Two things happened. There was a piece in The New York Times by Chuck Hagen.  That was your fault, at the very least. 

JB: I know, I'm guilty. *2 

WMH: Chuck Hagen changed my life. That article appeared in the Times, and there was my picture in the paper.  Do you know the family story is that Peaches Herb — I think was her name— called my mother and she says, "Betty, Bill’s in The New York Times. He’s on the front page of the second section of today’s national edition." And my mother says, "Oh, Peaches, don’t be ridiculous." 

JB: Did she really? 

WMH: Yeah. 

JB: Oh, that’s great.  That’s funny. 

WMH: Hmmm.

I had become the Chairman of a worthy charity, Photographers + Friends United Against AIDS and was ambitious for its success.

WMH: Five people knew who I was. Five more people had a certain curiosity as to who I might be. Then the whole Photographers + Friends thing happened and that article happened.  I became very assertive about meeting people and reinvented myself.  

I became a dealer, a teacher and a writer.  

The relationship or. love fest between a client and dealer most often has a limited life expectancy.  Things change.  Clients became friends, former clients.  My friendship with Ms. Borden has endured, even thrived.  I say that photography changed my life, it gave me one. 

I like the notion of “Dumbo’s feather”, helping someone to fly as if by but without magic.  Flying is a big commitment, and JB handed me the feather.  

*1 Quotations are from a transcribed interview between the author and Borden in 2005.

*2 Charles Hagen wrote about photography and included Hunt in an article about collecting at Borden’s suggestion.

©2021

#somereallygoodones, #theunseeneye, #wmhunt, #collectiondancingbear, #collectionblindpirate, #greatphotographs, #howilookatphotographs, #photographsfromtheunconsicous, #collectingislikerunningaroundinathunderstormhopingyoullbehitbylightning, #aphotographsogooditmakesyoufartlightning, #photographychangedmylifeitgavemeone,#janetborden, #collecting, #rencontresd’arles, #dumbosfeather, #neilwinokur, #eggplant