Finding the magic
Photographic works by Guillaume Zuili at the Palos Verdes Art Center
When he was a youngster growing up in Paris, Guillaume Zuili watched American serials like “Mission: Impossible” and “Mannix.” He recalls one of the “Mission: Impossible” episodes in which Peter Graves, the actor who played Mr. Phelps, receives his next assignment. “He’s in San Pedro by the Vincent Thomas Bridge,” Zuili says as we sit in the garden outside of his Seventh St. studio, “taking the phone call to get his next mission. And now I live in Pedro” — a serendipitous turn of events that makes him smile.
“Those images,” he says, “really stuck with me when I was a kid.”
Zuili emigrated to the States in 2001, married to an American woman who was missing home, missing Los Angeles.
By then he’d already established himself as a serious photographer, and says that it all began in 1986 when he traveled to India and spent 10 years there taking pictures. His inspiration was a 1959 film by Fritz Lang (a two-part work: “The Tiger of Eschnapur” and “The Indian Tomb”). This led to the publication of the first of six monographs and an invitation to join VU’, the French photography agency.
One might conclude that Zuili is a news photographer or photojournalist. I don’t know if that was the case originally, but it sure isn’t the case now. “I used to work for the press, for magazines,” he explains, “and almost from the start I was not interested in doing that. I was interested in doing my personal work, and I left the field. What it means is that I don’t care at all about reality.
“My photographs are fiction, in a way,” he continues, “and also I’m in love with the darkroom so I do my printing myself; and I have been addicted to that.” By experimenting with chemicals and paper and time exposures Zuili has created an ongoing body of work that can on occasion be mistaken for something else, a lithograph or even a painting, for example. In other words, this isn’t what we might consider traditional photography.
Much of what he shows me is stark, high-contrast work, often grainy, in a sepia brown, the images looking like they may have been taken in a sandstorm. But then you realize that they’re the product of ceaseless experimentation and Zuili’s personal vision.
This is evident as he turns the pages of his monograph, “Smoke and Mirrors.”
“I’m obsessed with black contrasts,” Zuili says. “For me a picture doesn’t exist if there is no black, because in the picture the blacks are the column vertebrae. It’s really what makes the picture. And if you want to see light you need the black. If you don’t have black you don’t have the sense of, the power of light. So this is my main obsession.”
He has already stated that his photographs are fiction, and adds that photography is a lie because, by framing or cropping, an image can be manipulated into something else. But this also frees up the medium and encourages the viewer’s own interpretation.
“My major influence was not photographers,” Zuili says; “it was movies. Beginning at age 14 or 15, I was watching movies almost every night. My pictures are like a window, you can look at it, and if you can make your own story I have won.”
What kind of movies?
“Film noir,” he replies. “Film noir is my matrix, French and American. They are different but they are a lot alike, and most of them are in black and white” — just as his photography has always been in black and white.
“But I was born in Paris,” he continues; “I know my city like nobody else, and I could recognize every place where they were walking,” even though it was recreated on sets. “It was a black and white movie and the lighting, everything — I was just speechless the first time I saw it, and I am still speechless when I see it today.”
Lighting up
One might think that his familiarity with his hometown, both in reality and in cinema, would make him the perfect candidate for snapping photos along the Seine or on the Îsle de la Cité. Surprisingly, Zuili disagrees.
“I am from Paris and it is impossible for me to take a picture in Paris because the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden, that was where I was playing every day. And when you see that every day you don’t see it anymore, and it’s impossible to have the distance. Here, I have the distance, and I see those things that you see every day and that you don’t look at anymore.”
Which means that when Guillaume Zuili moved to Los Angeles he saw the region with a fresh pair of eyes.
It’s quite different from Paris, he says. “Absolutely, the yin and the yang.” All of the Hollywood movies he watched as a kid sank in. “So when I came, in a way I already knew the city.
“I’m stuck in time,” he adds. “With Los Angeles I always look for the ‘50s or the ‘60s, maybe ‘70s. Today doesn’t interest me at all. There is really an identification from that time that I’m always looking for — and I love it because you can still find it. You can travel into time here, easily.”
“The light here is really special because basically you don’t need a light meter. The light never changes; it’s always the same light. It’s a beautiful light, soft, with shadows. You have both worlds; it’s really incredible. There is a reason the (film) studios came here.” He laughs. “They knew what they were doing.”
“It’s funny. I was always photographing cities, never interested by the countryside, the landscape; never interested in that. It all changed when I moved to California because I was just blown away by the amazing landscape of the west.
“I shoot a lot of landscapes now, and I can see the John Ford influence, it’s there.”
Materials and magic
These days, very few photographers give much thought to the chemicals in their development trays or the papers on which their pictures will be printed. Zuili does. And why’s that?
“At first it was about solving a problem. The pinhole negative (he began his experimental pinhole series in 2006) doesn’t have any contrast. So you get a print that has no contrast and you can’t work from it. So I had to find a way to give them blacks and contrast. I discovered Lith printing, and that brought me everything. I couldn’t believe the results — I got amazing contrasts, deep black, and even colors on the black and white prints. Basically, I opened the door and I couldn’t close it after that. Since then I am just doing Lith prints.”
So what exactly is Lith?
“Lith was a strong developer,” Zuili replies, “and at first it was used only for art graphics, black, white, no middle tones. And in the ‘70s, a guy made a mistake and used that to do a regular print. He found out that if you dilute the developer you get this kind of result.”
“The problem with the Lith print is that they work only with old paper, because in the new paper, or the papers that are still produced today, you have some key components that have been removed because it was bad for the environment or even bad for humans. They removed this component, but it doesn’t work with my process, and so I am looking every day for old paper. The beauty of that is with each paper you get a different result — a different color, a different contrast, a different texture — and it’s absolutely amazing.”
But someday you may not be able to find any of that old stock. Then what?
“I have a huge vault, so I have a treasure,” Zuili assures me. “But,” he adds, “I have a Plan B. In case there is no more I have a Plan B to continue. It’s funny, because I would go back to the origins of silver printing, which is salted paper, that was invented in 1825, and I would coat the paper myself with salt and then silver nitrate. That is Plan B.”
I applaud his hands-on process, and admit that for me taking pictures is quite simple. It seems to begin and end with just a click of the shutter.
“For me, taking the picture is the least interesting part,” Zuili says. “I like to take pictures, obviously, but it’s not the key part, not at all. The key part is the time spent in the darkroom and printing, because you change everything, and you make something beautiful from nothing.
“But,” he emphasizes, “I am a darkroom nut. In the darkroom you shut down the lights, you are in a different world, so it’s like an aesthetic journey. And I love that. There is no photography for me if there is no darkroom, and the print is the most important thing. This is what lasts.”
And yet, each piece is slightly different. How does Zuili decide on the one he likes best?
“This is amazing,” he adds, “because you cannot control everything, and that is the beauty of it. There is always an element that you don’t control and that gives you hell or magic.
“When I photograph, I find the spots that interest me. I go back and go back and go back, because one day everything is in place.” But not the light. “One day you have the spot and the light. Another day you have the spot and the light and something else you didn’t expect, and suddenly you have the magic.”
Guillaume Zuili: The American Years is on view through Nov. 15 at the Palos Verdes Art Center, 5504 Crestridge Road, Rancho Palos Verdes. (310) 541-2479 or visit pvartcenter.org. PEN
