Arimondi 1942-2001
photographer - model - friend
Arimondi: from Vogue to Homeless - 20 Years of Philosophy in USA
at Muddy
Waters Café, 5211 Valencia at 16th Street, San Francisco,
January 1999
by Lionel
A. Biron
The title of Arimondi's
exhibition, curated by the photographer himself, is short on textual
information -- no pretentious statement of purpose, no biography,
and no cards to explain the work. Yet the organization and structure
of this 20 year retrospective clearly reveal themselves.
The photographs in the front room are divided into the following
three sequence: two fashion photos including an I. Magnin ad for
Italian shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo that appeared in VOGUE
magazine in January 1981; two photos showing people surrounded
by flowers and personal articles suggesting a photographic equivalent
of the AIDS quilt; and finally, some brightly colored photographs
of clown drawings including one which reads: "This is one
of my Homeless Clowns that I've been drawing since 1983."
Immediately, the tone is established by this unexpected juxtapositioning
of subject matter.
On the same wall in the backroom, a series of 10 brightly colored
still-life images that combine natural elements such as leaves,
flowers, and fruits with sardine tins, and an MGM poster card
of Gretta Garbo and Robert Taylor in the film "Le Roman de
Marguerite Gauthier." Well constructed compositions exploding
with color and suggestiveness.
On the left side
of the backroom is the logical end to the exhibition with two
series run together: the first, showing men at work -- construction
workers in the streets of San Francisco -- two of them bare-chested
climbing and shoveling. These images are direct without the least
hint of contrivance as one might well expect from a fashion photographer.
And the second series, seven simple black-framed 8x10 photographs
in his recent San Francisco Homeless series showing six men and
one woman.
Again, using no photographic gimmicks, these powerful mainly individual
head shots of the homeless in their natural surroundings -- the
Streets of San Francisco -- are presented honestly without the
least hint of irony. One younger man, like the ones we have become
all too accustomed to seeing in any street in the City, holds
up an old piece of battered cardboard which reads like a poem
or mantra: "Homeless and Help Any Help will Help. God Bless."
It is the final
photograph is this series which sums it all up and provides one
of the most compelling statement regarding Homelessness: The Portrait
of Ivy Nicholsson with Arimondi's notation within the frame of
this matted masterpiece: "even famous high fashion models
become HOMELESS!" What makes this portrait particularly poignant
is a magazine cut-out, angled in the left-hand corner, inside
the frame, which bears the model's name and shows a beautiful,
gloved Nicholsson draped in an elegant leopard skin trimmed overcoat
-- probably from the late 70's -- that contrasts dramatically
with the elderly, modestly dressed, proud woman in Arimondi's
recent portrait. The 20 year circle from Fashion to Homelessness
is now complete.
Arimondi's message is stated eloquently and directly through the
photographs themselves. Go see for yourself and please don't take
my word as a substitute for the experience of these enchanting
images.