| It's not about 'fucked-up kids'. For me it's all
about outsiders. There's
something attractive about society's outsiders, loners, victims
and those who are different, or choose to be different.
— SIX, 3 a.m. Magazine
During a trip to Prague in 2000, SIX discovered a fascinating,
underground youth cult — hitherto unrecorded by the West —
inhabited by a group of
incredibly stylish young male petty thieves and prostitutes. Spending
days on end high, the Czech drug Pervitin provides the fuel and
purpose for their way of life. Captivated by their natural sense
of style and raw energy, SIX spent the next 12 months getting to
know this group, winning their confidence, and recording what he
saw. The exhibition is the photographic result of his
critical but non-judgmental eye. In this series of 36 vividly colorized
portraits shaped to spell the word “PERVATEEN”, SIX
presents us with a stunning yet provocative group of raw, beautiful,
modern-day Brandos and Deans. Disenchanted with Eastern-bloc culture
— like low-life young gods in a Harmony Korine movie —
these mostly unemployed 15-19 year-olds are completely sold on the
West’s obsession with consumerism while having no means of
obtaining it; gradually Calvin Klein’s ad fantasy has become
an unself conscious and ironic reality where the invasion of market
capitalism creeps into the self.
www.pervateen.com
In the late ‘70s SIX worked and trained with Malcolm McLaren
when McLaren was experimenting with situationist theories through
punk rock and the Sex Pistols. He then worked with Vivienne Westwood
in the world of avant-garde fashion and so obtained a true apprenticeship
in street style and culture, constantly using crude still and moving
cameras to document what he saw.
SIX uses photography and film to confront Western conventions of glamour,
sexuality, and humanity and to capture and acknowledge the world of
the outsider, the victim, and the unseen/unspoken secret. Hecolorizes
the prints in order to show that these are not documentary shots but
are rather in the true tradition of portraiture.
In 2002 SIX had his first solo exhibition, Pervateen, at the Chamber
of Pop Culture, the Horse Hospital in London. |
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