Ghosts in Los Angeles
Ghosts in Los Angeles
Arthur Aghajanian
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” — Matthew 25:40
My first Los Angeles neighborhood was invisible. A bleak landscape of drab warehouses and forlorn industrial buildings, it had no official boundaries. Wedged between downtown and East Los Angeles, it was a liminal space populated by nomadic subcultures: truckers, day laborers, transients, and prostitutes. It was also home to a reclusive colony of artists, living hand to mouth, cloistered in spacious lofts walled off from the world.
In the early 1980s, the warehouse district seemed poised for cultural renewal as the new center for L.A. artists. Attracted by cheap rents, abundant space and a romantic outsider vision, artists set up studios and living quarters. Galleries and bars followed, and an art scene got underway. But by the time I arrived, a decade later, it was over. The area had become a magnet for the homeless, uprooted by construction in the city’s center and forced eastward towards the warehouse district. Spilling across a labyrinth of alleyways, loading docks and concrete walls, they drifted like ghosts, vacant like many of the anonymous buildings hemming the narrow streets.
As a hub of commerce, the area had developed for mixed-use. A provisional space of labor and transport, its denizens were largely invisible to one another.
My vision of an artist’s life didn’t include living side-by-side with the bereft or having to contend with placelessness and the foul smells of urban decay. My need for connection prevailed over my attraction to a gritty lifestyle, and within a year I had abandoned the warehouse district for a more hospitable neighborhood in nearby Glendale.
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On the opposite coast, one artist was steeping himself in the world of the overlooked. The subway tunnels are in-between spaces in New York, L.A.’s art world rival. Journeying through the underground stations late at night, the artist Andres Serrano was making portraits of the homeless. He met his subjects where they were, slumped or huddled on the subway platforms, discarded, and lost to time. With only simple backdrops and photo light, Serrano allowed each person to decide how they would be photographed. The collaboration would yield a body of images conveying the fragile beauty of the human condition. The series was called Nomads.
Serrano titled each photograph with its subject’s first name, suggesting a familiarity with those portrayed while retaining their anonymity. This choice seems to make his portraits both casual and iconic. The images mimic the visual style of fashion and advertising, while also referencing historical portraits of the wealthy and powerful. The work restores the visibility along with the dignity of its subjects. Serrano has said that all his work is a form of self-portraiture, but in these nomads, I discover something of myself as well.
Like the photographs of Edward S. Curtis, documenting Native Americans in the early twentieth-century, Nomads might seem like a classification system for a “vanishing race”. But unlike Curtis’s The North American Indian, Serrano’s portraits are difficult to romanticize because of their subjects’ proximity to our everyday lives. The power of the work is in its ability to draw us towards identification with the people before us. His diverse group reflects the vulnerabilities we all share, and the grace that sustains us in adversity.
I think about the transaction between Serrano and his sitters in the stale, lifeless air of the subway station, battered by the wind of passing trains, the artist struggling to communicate over the screech of metal and the drone of loudspeakers. What would it have been like to witness Serrano negotiate the creative process with each of them? I appreciate that he kept himself largely out of the work, allowing me to see each person without distractions. Confronting us directly, their presence is monumental, and my attention is captured by the particulars, imbued with added significance by the large scale and chiaroscuro lighting that recalls Baroque portraiture. Knowing that each individual chose what they would show us adds an affecting subtext to the portraits. I’m moved as much by this as the aesthetic surprise of finding Jesus’s “least of these” occupying the exclusive spaces of the gallery or museum.
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What’s most essential to these works is that they attach themselves to the viewer. I feel called to make myself available to each person in turn. Bertha is galvanized against the merciless cold of a New York winter, awkwardly wrapped in an armor of fabric. Her face is resolute, buried beneath head coverings that appear strangely exotic. The opulence of Johnny’s fur hat and velvety coat contrast with his rugged features. He could be a hunter or a king, his profile making him archetypal, taking his place in an ancient lineage of important men. Sir Leonard is like a dapper cowboy, showing off his belt buckle emblazoned with the phrase “In denim we trust”. The attention he’s placed on his appearance and his proud bearing testify to his desire to be seen. The rich variety of textures in his clothing and the play of light and shadow across his face are a visual delight. Leaning forward and to the side, Sir Leonard’s presence seems to pierce the space between subject and viewer.
Ravaged and abandoned in a hostile world, Serrano’s subjects remain resilient, telling me their stories through whispers—raspy, guttural, plaintive, trembling.
Georgia Boy’s name conjures up images of the old south, making me wonder how he ended up living on New York’s unforgiving streets. He is hunched over, worn out by life. I imagine him sharing wisdom scarred by the embers of sadness and loss. Lucas is both tough and wounded, his snug cowboy hat and wooly scarf clues to a life lived in the harshness of the outdoors. His prominent, drooping mustache and blood-stained eye are sorrowful reminders of the hardscrabble lives lived by those society has cast out.
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We’re conditioned to project a set of ideas about the homeless onto anyone we see living on the street. Yet because Serrano presents his subjects as important—as worthy of respect, we shift from general projection to a meaningful encounter. The dignity of the portraits stirs our curiosity and invites engagement, disrupting our preconceptions. Now boldly visible through the beauty of the photograph, each person calls to us, and we begin seeing them as equals. We search their portraits for something familiar: for ourselves, as we do with images of family members from the distant past. As I linger on a face, a subtle gesture, or a makeshift arrangement of clothing, I want to understand something about the sitter. A sense of connection leaves no space to objectify others. Prejudice and bias melt in a sacred vessel of deep human encounter.
Despite his defiant stance, Pat can’t hide the woundedness in his eyes. Many times, I’ve chosen willfulness in the face of uncertainty, and I probably looked a little like him when I did. Studying Catherine’s portrait, I think of how a mother can be consumed with worry about those she must care for. As she averts the camera’s gaze, her expression is apprehensive. Her head is cradled by a thick scarf that seems to both protect her and bind her to a life she didn’t choose.
Though I can never know how each of these people ended up homeless, the contemplative power of this work stirs me to care. Art often provides a bridge across the unfamiliar or threatening, allowing us to see in new ways. Nomads is the result of a meeting between neighbors, in which the depiction of the human drama becomes a mirror of our true selves.
The Nomads prompt us to return to the lawyer’s question for Jesus in Luke 10: “Who is my neighbor?”
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For most children growing up in a Christian home, the parable of the Good Samaritan was a lesson in being kind to strangers. But the Samaritans were “untouchables”, and Jesus was preaching something radical. Holding the Samaritan up as a righteous neighbor, Jesus points to how the despised man recognized his shared humanity in the fallen Jew whom he helped when others wouldn’t. Scripture continually reminds us that Christ dwells in every person. In John 17, Jesus speaks of our shared relationship in God: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.” When we are attuned to the relational nature of Christ, we no longer define our neighbor by a zip code or geographic boundary. Our neighbors then include those outside our path. We know them when we connect, and Serrano’s portraits provide the occasion to do that with those we usually avoid.
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The neighborhood I live in now couldn’t be more different than the one I first tried to settle in almost thirty years ago. But the homeless crisis in Los Angeles today has grown so extreme it can’t be escaped. Setting up encampments on sidewalks and freeway underpasses in almost every part of the city, it’s as though they’re following me, and that God’s asking for them to be acknowledged. With the help of Christ, I can see that at a deeper level, L.A.’s homeless are my neighbors as surely as are the single-family homeowners on my street.
Like Curtis’s Native American and Serrano’s homeless, the Imago Dei (image of God) is in danger of invisibility. Politicians, the media, and other social forces are causing many to hate their neighbors. Identifying others by their beliefs has always been a dangerous game, but now it threatens the very fabric of our democracy. The Good Samaritan broke boundaries, becoming a neighbor to one who ordinarily might have hated and feared him. In a society demarcated by racial and economic lines, we’re restricted from meaningful relationships with people who are different. And we’ve time and again abandoned Christ for what is comfortable. We need to develop the will to break out of the limits we’ve imposed on ourselves, or accepted from those in power, to see people for who they are. In Colossians 3:11, Paul says: “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” We all need reminders of this truth, and some works of art can help us by cutting through old, limited habits of seeing. That’s what Nomads does for me.
Seeing Christ in our shared humanity will not only draw us closer to our true selves. It will also keep us from building barriers against others and living in fear. On a global scale it undermines the evils that lead to nationalism and xenophobia. The Imago Dei is fundamental to a just world.
Art has the power to make visible the transcendent reality of God in the world. As a form of artmaking, portraiture attempts to get at something deeper than outward appearance. Nomads reveals this as the sacred nature we share with our invisible brothers and sisters. Setting the wheel of interconnection in motion and then getting out of the way, Serrano gave the people he met agency, trusting that the beauty of the resulting images would transform each of them in our eyes. Nomads confronts us with the broken lives we ordinarily overlook, in quietly expressive portraits that reach out to us. The artist lifts up those in the margins, making us see them, and ourselves, anew.
Arthur Aghajanian
Writer & Educator
Arthur is a Christian contemplative, essayist, and educator. His work explores visual culture through a spiritual lens. His essays have appeared in a variety of publications, including Radix, Saint Austin Review, The Curator, and many others. He holds an MFA from Otis College of Art and Design. Visit him at imageandfaith.com
All images courtesy of Andres Serrano
Cover Photograph by Joaquin
