All the People Who Died, Jonathan Postal’s exhibit at the Robinson Gallery, is more than a collection of his photographs of erstwhile friends; it is an exploration of reproduction and depreciation, objects of value, and the preservation of photography as art. Postal uses light boxes, “ghost boxes,” old TVs and various other objects to control the viewer’s observation of his photographs.
- Jonathan Postal
- Michael and Deedee
You have an impressive collection of photographs, with a number of fairly famous subjects. Where are they from?
I’ve been a photographer my whole life. I was in San Francisco and involved in the punk scene, with my band, the Readymades. Before that I was in a band called the Avengers and we played with Blondie. I was there at the last Sex Pistols concert. That’s where I got the Sid Vicious picture that’s in one of the boxes. And we played with Talking Heads and the Stranglers. But I didn’t always pull my camera out. I was actually pretty good friends with the Clash, but I don’t know, somehow I just felt it was inappropriate to pull my camera out. The same thing happened with Alex Chilton. I never felt like I should ask ‘Hey can I take some pictures?’ I took one later, and that’s the one shot I have of him. After doing that I moved to NYC and I wound up getting a position at the SOHO weekly news, and every week I was shooting somebody. I was out every night being friends with people.
- Jonathan Postal
- Sam Phillips
Why not just display your photographs, your digital prints, as they are?
My dilemma was I walked in Jay Etkin Gallery for my last show and looked at my show and I thought ‘I wouldn’t pay $1500 dollars for these. I wouldn’t pay over $100 for these.’ Because they’re digital prints and in my mind, just a digital print alone is not worth that much money. You’ve put it into your computer and generated it from your computer and part of the value of photography is how many editions there are of the print and how was the print made. I’ve talked to people who say it doesn’t matter, but I can’t see how it wouldn’t matter.
