Ah, David Lynch, that inscrutable master of macabre doings on Main Street, U.S.A. The deranged impresario behind cult classics like Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and his Palme D’or-snagging Wild At Heart, a twisted reading of that penultimate American fairytale , The Wizard Of Oz. Perhaps you recall his bizarre 1990s attempt at infiltrating prime-time television, the noir-ish soap opera “Twin Peaks”, which fizzled quickly during its second season on ABC. Lynch chose to swim in network waters again with Mulholland Drive, his struggles with TV execs memorably recounted in a lengthy New Yorker piece, and the film ultimately sent to theaters.

It seems inconceivable now that such projects could have materialized on mainstream television, but Lynch was the enfant terrible du jour during that culturally transient decade, and the suits wanted to get into bed with him. Silly fools…they didn’t realize they were wading in dangerous straits. No, David Lynch peddles a particular flavor of New American Gothic, always within a milieu of working-class Mellencamp America, “Peyton Place meets “The Twilight Zone”, with a helping of Ringling Bros on the side. His tales from the dark side would certainly be more at home on premium cable, perhaps IFC or Sundance, but not at one of the Nielsen giants.

Lynch’s visual sense has served him well in the photographic arts, as well, as evidenced by his latest offering, a multi-media presentation/collaboration with avant-indie pop darlings DangerMouse, aka Brian Burton, and Sparklehorse. His newfound partners provided the music, i.e., their album Dark Night Of The Soul, and Lynch provided the pics, all recently on display at the Michael Kohn Gallery, near Beverly Hills. As one might expect, Lynch had little difficulty coaxing the absurd and elliptical from the evocative tunes he was handed.

For the song “Little Girl”, Lynch cooked up a series of photos which seem a satire of early -1960s beach party flicks. We first see three young women, in 50s-chic dresses, strike surfer poses, yet they stand on grass, not a board in sight. Are they merely dancing? We don’t really know. Next, one of the women, the blondest, stands over a barbecue grille in darkness, fork in hand, while another woman’s hand, attached to a body unseen, holds tongs.

The women are curiously absent in the next picture, as only the grille is visible, it’s daytime again, and smoky flame mars the gorgeous sunset in the background. Finally, a seemingly unrelated picture presents a young woman – we’re unsure if she’s one of the trio – her face obscured by a garish, scarlet theatre mask, and herself dressed in an equally bright red dress. She dances wildly, with abandon. The theatrical mask has a rather satanic visage, and one wonders if this correlates with the burning flame of the previous photo.

Another highlight is “Jaykub”, the tale of a scrawny nerd, in tragically unhip briefs and toupee-dense hair, who dreams of being a superhero. Jaykub, frighteningly reminiscent of NPR host Ira Glass, is alone in what may be the attic of a prewar home, surrounded by domestic accoutrements like a claw foot tub, full-length mirror, and the most basic chair and table imaginable. The hapless Jaykub performs pushups, hoists a barbell, and downs a blended beverage, possibly a protein elixir that he ordered from a comic book ad. Alas, poor Jaykub looks hopelessly dorky while preparing to fulfill this Mittys-eque fantasy, and maybe this is Lynch’s point, that we(Americans)are too preoccupied with inner dreams – and superficial manifestations of such, i.e., tattoos, flamboyant attire, 300-hp cars - to truly connect with each other and lead conscious lives.

“Pain” unfurls like an episode of the dystopian “Cops”. It’s nighttime, and a crew of police officers pounce on a half-dressed man sporting a shaggy, unkempt beard, a mysterious blue paste hanging from his crotch. One cop wields a dripping garden hose, ostensibly to wash off the gooey gunk. Then, a pair of Latino boys flash mirthful smiles as they watch the proceedings. Tellingly, both youngsters wear gray t-shirts, blue jeans, and Catholic crosses. Is Lynch making a statement here about the conformity of suburban youth? Perhaps the weirdo being corralled by the local constabulary represents a fly in the neatly manicured ointment, and is thus removed, like a tumor. We next see an enraged young woman flipping off the boys in blue from the backseat of an ancient Chevy Nova, as the car speeds off.

In “Every Time I’m With You”, an evening streetscape hints at a Bukowskian noir, as a couple, their faces a blur, stroll down an avenue. A corner bar, housed in a quaint brick building, appears in another photo, while a paramedic van foregrounds the bar in the next picture. Why is the truck there? Has someone been injured in a drunken brawl inside? Has a veteran lush collapsed outside in an alleyway? Finally, a full moon – that storied reminder of crazy nocturnal occurrences - greets us in the final picture, as we gaze up at the gleaming orb from the sidewalk. Or is somebody else looking up at the sky? Perhaps the aforementioned drunk, waylaid by too many shots of Johnny Walker.

In interviews, David Lynch invariably comes across as shockingly ordinary, his face having that taciturn, hard-bitten look associated with Dust Bowl photographs. A native of Missoula, Montana, he’s never been noted as a left-leaning agitator, and much of his writing was done at a Denny’s in Los Angeles. Yet, he remains an intriguing oddball, obsessed with poking out the strangeness in banal, day-to day existence. He’s canny enough to recognize that his sensibility will never be a mainstream one, but he refuses to examine our world in any other way.

Fans of Lynch’s cinematic oeuvre will recognize the surrealist-kitsch tone of these photographs. If Rod Serling had been a show runner for “Peyton Place”, then dropped some acid on the side, he might have morphed into David Lynch. Speaking of which, I wonder if Lynch finds Serling too earnest, or even preachy, for his liking. No one has ever accused Lynch of being an easy moralist. But who knows? It may be that his sensibility is most effective with stills, where so much is left to one’s imagination. Lost Highway devotees can now start their tantrums, but I think that worse things could happen than David Lynch choosing to remain a shutterbug.

>Written by d/visible contributor Terrence Butcher.

All images are the property of Michael Kohn Gallery. © 2009 All rights reserved.
A big thank you to Melissa Goldberg and Michael Kohn.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 11:49 am and is filed under Culture, Illustration, Film, Art & Design, Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.