In China, a dog is not considered a pet. Wok The Dog, © Charlie Grosso
On a brisk Sunday morning a few weeks ago I had an opportunity to sit and chat with fine art photographer Charlie Grosso at the Hungarian Café on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
One of the first misunderstandings that she thought I should clarify for my readers is that she’s “Not Italian, nor a man.”
Charlie Grosso, however, is a Chinese-American woman who was born in 1979 in Taipei, Taiwan. In 1990, at the age of 11, tragedy stuck her family and she was forced to move to Los Angeles to live with her estranged Aunt.
In turn, she grew up a “Valley girl,” and eventually escaped the San Fernando Valley when she left to attend the University of Southern California, where she received a BA in Theater Design.
So, how did you make the dramatic leap from production design to being a full-time photographer?
It wasn’t actually much of a leap because I started taking pictures when I was 18. I needed a hobby and so photography fit the picture quite well. Within a year of starting, I was working in commercial photography as an assistant.
So, I’ve been a photographer for a while, but did not decide to pursue it professionally until after I began applying for an MFA in lighting design. As part of my portfolio the schools wanted to see something creative apart from what I had done in production design. So, I showed them my photos. After everyone during my interviews began to focus on my pictures, instead of my design work, I had a Come to Jesus moment and realized that I should pursue photography full time, instead.
Subsequently, I apprenticed with many well-known commercial photographers including, Jay Maisel. So although, it’s taken me a few years, I feel that I’ve honed my craft and now I shoot mostly my own jobs, and assist about 10% of the time.
My clients have included Variety, Wine Spectator, Reed Elsevier, Arts District Citizen, Z. Cavericci, and my alma mater, USC.
However, my commercial jobs primarily pay the rent. What I’d really like to focus on now is my artistic work, like the Wok The Dog series, which was recognized by En Foco last year with a NewWorks award, an exhibit, and a feature in their magazine Nueva Luz.
Can you please tell more about that body of work?
I started the Wok The Dog series when I was 18.
I had gone home to visit my family in Taipei and decided to challenge myself. As a child I had always been afraid of the meat market, so I mustered up enough courage to go and explore with my camera.
As a result, I fell in love with this misunderstood enclave and over the years have grown to understand that food markets all over the world are fun and traditional places where communities come together both to do business and be social.
And every year since 1997 I’ve gone back to a market to take pictures. So far, I’ve been to markets in China, Tibet, Turkey, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Japan, and Argentina. Now, I’m applying for grants so that I can go to Central America and continue my work.
Ideally, I’d like to create a comprehensive survey of markets all over the world to create an easy access point by which others can learn about other cultures.
What do you feel your market photos teach us?
I feel they create a cultural dialogue by which we can understand the effects of industrialization and how disconnected we actually are from the source of our meals.
This is particularly true for those us living in Western society where we are disengaged from the process. Instead, we are simply presented with geometric pink packages and ultimately desensitized. As a result we devalue the source of our food and forget that life is indeed precious.
Are you a vegetarian than?
No, absolutely not. I love meat, but admittedly, now I eat less protein, because I truly understand where it comes from and know I don’t need as much as part of my diet.
I imagine that the pictures of headless goat carcasses in Tibet and the skinned dog strung up through its eye sockets in China have offend some of your viewers?
Yes, absolutely, some people find my work quite offensive. I’ve found that people either love (this series) or hate it.
I’ve hit the pavement with this work quite a bit in New York and one gallery owner just rolled her eyes rejecting my work with a disgusted, “I love dogs.”
It’s because of her, and others like her, that I think my work is so important. Because I’m not trying to shock anyone. What I am striving to do is reconnect people to reality and to educate them about where their food comes from.
When I first started, I thought that these traditional market places wouldn’t be around much longer; I thought that supermarkets were the wave of the future. Now, I’m beginning to believe the opposite is quite true, because what I’ve learned is that America is not the norm, rather it is an anomaly.
Moreover, I think there are some old fashioned social studies lessons to be had by my work as well, because we can be particularly ignorant of other cultures here in the States. For example, Chinese and Koreans don’t view dogs as pets.
So, they eat any kind of canine?
In China they primarily eat short-haired yellow dogs, and usually dog meat is considered a delicacy, which is raised by farmers, just like any other animal we eat.
More importantly, like in many non-western cultures, food is of vital importance to the culture and often has special healing properties. For example, in China, dog is a warming food, whereas in Korea it is a cooling food.
What is one of the greatest lessons you’ve learned from this project and your adventures around the world?
Once I was talking about my work to a young girl at a market in China and I told her that all our meat is pink and wrapped in plastic. She looked at me rather puzzled and said, “So how do you know than, if your chicken is fresh?”
It was then that I realized that I was doing the right thing with my photos. Because for her, when they get their meat they are involved in the process—they know it is fresh because they pick it out, it is killed on the spot, plucked and then they make it that night.
Here, in America we are far removed from the reality of where our food comes from, and thus we are less healthier and disengaged from the natural world because of it. Which is why I’m looking to reengage people with my work.
For More Information:
|
Artists & Photographers
Mark Kessell
|
Curators & Dealers
Bonni Benrubi
Howard Greenberg
|
To keep up to date on what’s up, what’s new and who’s notable in photography and the art world in New York City, subscribe to my column by clicking on Subscribe to Email above!
Comments
Excellent article. Very enlightening
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!