Philip Glass isn’t the only East Village fixture with new work out. Novelist Porochista Khakpour, a onetime East Villager herself, sits down with Richard Kern, who still keeps an apartment in the nabe, to talk about his new book and Thurston Moore-soundtracked DVD, Shot By Kern. The conversation (interspersed with Kern’s NSFW photos) clears up the myth that “Alphabet City girls” come to his door at all hours asking to model naked, and touches on Kern’s current case of photographer’s block (“if it’s just pretty girls, I don’t even know what a shot is anymore”).
Kern also opines about those accusations that fellow downtown photog Terry Richardson has exploited some of the hip young things who’ve posed for him over the years.
Well, he went through a period where he was fucking asking for it. He was doing some crazy stuff. I understand you’re in a certain world and everyone around you is part of your world and no one ever says anything so why would you think anything was wrong. Whatever happened, I can see why he got into the situations that turned out to be problems.
Which doesn’t mean Kern wouldn’t step into Terry’s World if the price was right. “Yeah! Definitely. ‘Could you come in and imitate Terry Richardson?’ Why of course I can! I gotta work, I got to make a living. A photographer’s motto: I’ll shoot anything.”
Make sure your boss isn’t looking over your shoulder and head over to Nothing Major for the q&a.