|
Journal and Courier, Friday, April 28, 1995
Lafayette-West Lafayette, Indiana
The Naked Proof
Joe Z. knows his work can be difficult to deal with.
So can his last name, Ziolkowski, which is why most people in Chicago
call the fine art photographer and Art Institute of Chicago instructor simply
Joe Z.
Working with nude images, evocative lighting, an eye for emotion and
a camera is what Ziolkowski likes to do. In many ways he is just one of
thousands of artists who have been drawing and painting and sculpting nude
figures for thousands of years.
He just happens to live and work in the Jesse Helms/Pat Buchanan era,
when heated conservative voices that do not reflect the opinions of America's
majority still yell the loudest.
Ziolkowski, who displayed and talked about his work to an enthusiastic
and supportive crowd at Purdue University last week, also just happens to
live in the shadow of Robert Maplethorpe.
But Joe Z. is the kind of artist you have to admire. He doesn't dissolve
into the long, murky shadows cast by controversy or conservatives. Believing
he has something to say, he steps out of the shadows and continues to exercise
his artistic voice.
His work is drawing fans: His nudes have been exhibited in major cities
across the country, as well as Germany. An art book, Walking the Line,
is dedicated to his work.
"I will not allow the ideology of a person like Jesse Helms dictate
what I can and cannot depict in my arts," Ziolkowski says. "My
work as a commercial photographer has always supported me, not the National
Endowment for the Arts."
He is open about the fact that he is gay and that some of his work directly
addresses AIDS-most important, a series dealing with the suspense and tension
of waiting for HIV test results.
What he fights for with all his art-whose models come from all walks
of life and equally from straight and gay communities-is the right to look
at the beauty of the body in its many expressions.
Ziolkowski talks about his art in terms of building bridges and acceptance
between gays and straights.
"I'm definitely a voice for the gay population, but I don't want
to categorized as a gay artist. I am an artist who deals with gay issues,"
Ziolkowski says.
His images, photographed in black and white against stark white backgrounds,
are filled with physical and emotional tension. The titles of his works
accurately reflect content-Compelled, Trepidation, Defeated, Fixated, Anxiety,
Edge.
They show grief, pleasure, joy and pain as visual metaphors of elemental
human conditions rather than articulating fantasies.
While doing graduate work in 1984, Ziolkowski first heard comparisons
drawn between his work and that of Robert Maplethorpe, with whom has wasn't
yet familiar.
Maplethorpe's most controversial works draw his respect because they
record a time in the gay community that doesn't exist anymore because of
AIDS.
"I love Robert Maplethorpe, but his work is very sexually orientated
and I couldn't relate to that," Ziolkowski says.
"I don't make a show to be censored. I make imagery that's pleasing,
provocative and makes you think about what's going on," says Ziolkowski,
who's taken his share of lumps for taking risks.
Like Maplethorpe, he believes artists should put themselves on the line.
"Fear makes you boring," he says. "If you do something
that makes you feel like it's put you on a line between the World Trade
Center towers, keep doing it."
"Challenge yourself, challenge society. It makes us all better
as people."
|