LOS(T) ANGELES

by Michael Dressel

Whether it’s Catwoman and Batman on the sidewalk, a Demon on the beach, Darth Vader waiting to cross the street, the Topless Girl in front of the bench or the Trans on Skates, wherever you look we are in Hollywood, Los Angeles, the capital of disguise, fun and surprise. 

The images of Michael Dressel derive from his outdoor ventures, throughout the Californian metropolis, seeking folk in costumes. These unusually clad people serve as both protagonist and background in multifaceted scenes. The uncompromising black-and-white achieves a lapidary quality as it captures the common people, many afflicted by severe poverty. The ‘warts and all’ portrayals show wrinkles and skeletal bodies, backpacks, super carts filled with plastic waste bags, whiskers of dirt and copious tattoos. There is more, however, another level caught by the photographer's eye, a third layer, of inanimate things. We are treated to images of mannequins, naked or clad only in suspenders, abandoned among the rubbish or standing as silent totems in the shop windows - there is also a latex mask of “Liar Nixon” – a reverberation of disappointment and exhilaration. 

If life is representation, as a famous essay by Erving Goffman suggested, Dressel's book is a compendium, a figurative manifesto, confirmation. Hollywood, the Capital of the Modern Imaginary, stirs up messages from the deep and it’s impossible to say which meaning prevails in the struggle to live and survive. If it’s a dream it’s also a nightmare – the grimace appears in a photograph of the lame woman, advancing from behind a policeman with a belt.  Conversely,  the nightmare becomes a dreaming – in another photograph Mr. Muscles smiles happily at the camera. A man covers his entire face with the bilingual menu, “Bread-Pan”, “Chicken-Chicken”, “Salads-Ensaladas” (will the metropolis feed everyone?). To top it off, two sweethearts stare at each other intently, immersed in their cocoon of longing, as if nothing else matters. 

B.H.