Michael Marcelle

Conversation with Jon Feinstein

Jon Feinstein: I’d like to show images from both Our Wild Indians and your newer body of work Cove in our Humble solo show. While you describe Our Wild Indians as abstractly referencing landscapes from horror and science fiction films, and Cove distinctly being about your relationship with your father, they feel like there is a common thread. They seem to relate to each other not only aesthetically, but somehow spiritually/emotionally, much more than your earlier work. How do these two projects intersect (or not) for you? Can you talk a bit about how your practice as a photographer has developed since graduating from Bard?

Michael Marcelle: The two projects are closely related to each other. Our Wild Indians sought to explore my relationship to where I grew up by isolating one aspect of it (seaside resort communities) and abstracting it to become something elevated and strange. I was also very interested in fusing the work with horror and sci-fi references, as it was growing up mildly goth and roaming around these seaside towns in my early teen years where those things became really important to me.

Cove is simply a more direct approach to exploring those same ideas. I decided to shoot only in my childhood home and hometown, although more recently I’ve been going down to my parent’s new condo in Florida. I’ve also started to include my father into the work. I wanted to tone down a lot of the horror/sci-fi imagery, but I think that same sense of strangeness is still pretty present.

My practice has changed a lot since Bard. I’m much more comfortable directing and setting up shots, where my old work was much more documentary. I also never had specific projects in college, as I think I was more interested in just figuring out what I wanted the work to look like. Now that I’m more confident in my own aesthetic, I think it’s become a lot easier to confine and challenge myself to projects.

JF: Do you think the explosion of online art/photo activity has influenced your work? Why/ why not?

MM: I don’t think it’s necessarily influenced the production of my work, but it’s certainly been incredibly helpful in terms of getting work out there. It’s also been great in being able to see other people’s work, and getting inspired by that.

I do think a problem the Internet has created for photographers is how easy it is to overexpose yourself. I think, at least with what I do, editing the work down to a concise body of work is very important, and it’s so tempting to just upload way too much content onto the Internet. But that’s also been helpful in a way, at least for me, as it’s pushed me to think more about putting together a project before showing any of the images. It’s also what makes sites like Humble or I Heart Photograph so great, because they act as aggregators that put some thoughtfulness and cohesion to the huge pile of images on the Internet.

JF: Your work is mostly large format/4×5, but there is a casualness to the way you shoot. Do you agree?

MM: A few people have said that, and I actually don’t really see it. I think of the images as feeling really slow and meditative. A lot of my influences are from outside of photography, like sculpture, painting, and even more accessible things like album covers. I think with these projects, I’ve been trying to emulate the singularity and forethought of those things, rather than capture decisive moments with a camera.

JF: You were recently accepted into Yale’s coveted MFA program. Why grad school at this stage in your career?

MM: I’ve wanted to go to grad school for a long time, and the work that I made in the last couple of years was finally something that I thought was a good jumping off point to start the process. I’ve lived in NYC for a few years, working as a studio manager and freelance photo assistant while doing my own projects, and it just seems like the right time to switch gears and really immerse myself in my practice. Fortunately I got into a program that I really admire and respect, and it should be a really intense, crazy experience.

JF: What are you most excited about in art/photography right now?

MM: I’m very excited about the new Stan Douglas show, the new Katy Grannan show, and I’m most excited to move to New Haven for two years and figure myself out.