Soon after William Eggleston’s most recent monograph, 5 x 7, was published in January 2007, a friend invited me to a private book signing at Christie’s. The book was available for purchase for a very reasonable $45.00, and while you stood in line waiting for your 10 seconds to chat with Mr. Eggleston, the PR director requested that if you wanted your name written in the inscription, you needed to write that on a napkin before getting to the guest of honor.
Eggleston was drinking a glass of whiskey, which he poured freely from a bottle beneath the table. He wore a pale blue suit, a crisp white shirt, and a thin tie. He was visibly drunk. When it came my turn to have my book signed, he asked my name. I said “Youngna,” holding out the napkin, and he replied with a grunt and asked, “Well, how ’bout something else today?” I said, “No, that’s okay, Youngna is just fine,” and he replied, “Well, then you must be Korean.”
I paused, looking for a natural follow up (but thinking of none), still waiting for him to write my name (correctly) as he struggled with the sharpie.
“I go to Korea ALL the time,” he said.
I was glad he’d broken the silence and answered that I’d been there only once.
“Yep, that’s right,” he said. “I go to Korea ALL the time…It’s where I go to get the ladies.”
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The 5 x 7 prints at the Eggleston retrospective, currently up at the Whitney, are among my favorites in the show. They are larger and more pointed in subject than so many of his shots, portraits more formal than those that fall within his famously described snapshot aesthetic. The most recent shots in his oeuvre are the most disappointing to me–he claims to be working with large, abstract forms, and always looking for the quirky. Unfortunately, the presentation is of something less unique in its time than the first 90% of the show. That disappointment doesn’t detract feelings that Eggleston is still transformative, and seeing a massive number of his images in a single building is happily exhausting.
November 21st, 2008 at 9:48 am
HA!!!