TONS of people have completely wacked out childhoods, but they don't grow up to be psychopathic predators.
So true HeatherAnne.
Did you think the NY Mag article was slanted strongly in his favour? I think they might've tried to do that, but whether that was the case/their intention or not, I still came away from reading it with a
decidedly negative view of him, regardless of his sad childhood or his "assistant" who says she had "fun" writing sl*t on her forehead and giving Terry blow jobs.
As the quotes I highlighted suggest, the guy is oblivious to his faults. When someone has a tough past but works through it, becoming more self-aware in the process, then I have a tendency to be forgiving - or at least understanding. But Richardson is in constant denial.
Good for Jamie Peck for responding and thanks Mulletproof for posting that!
BerlinRocks...should we judge somebody's work on his/her behavior/political thoughts ?
This is a unique question in Richardson's case, though, because his work - the work on which this thread is mainly centred - has been created through and by committing explicit harm to other human beings: i.e., it's the work itself that is exploitative, and in a physically harmful way. In his case, then, I'd say that, yes, we should judge it accordingly. It's not even within his personal life that he's allegedly assaulting or abusing young women; it's specifically under the auspices of working with them that he is. It's different, I guess, with Celine or Pound or Wagner, etc, since their personal anti-Semitic views, whether expressed in their work or in their personal lives, didn't lead to - or certainly wasn't created while - harming other humans. That is not to say it's okay - not at all. Let me be clear. It's just that it's slightly different. I hope you take my point. Separating art from artist is complicated, and probably something to look at in a case-by-case scenario. It's also very individual/subjective. Personally, I still like/listen to some of Michael Jackson's music but I abhorred the things I read/viewed about his private life.
With Richardson, for me anyhow, it's not complicated. I actually don't think
any of his work is aesthetically good! - not the mainstream stuff he does with pop stars and major models, which I deem to be predictable, bland, sexist, and really quite boring, nor the underground work, which is, in my opinion, essentially p*rn*gr*phy, of the worst order.
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