From A Translation: by Angelica Weihs
Entering the vestibule, which divides "Western Projects" from their exhibition halls, we face our first Richard Renaldi - a 150 x 100 cm photograph of two freshly groomed Punks in polished perfection. My first judgment rattles like their chains: brilliant technique, balanced composition, clean-cut, staged personalities - the typical California Technicolor theater.
Cliff Benjamin, owner of the one-year-old gallery in Culver City, the newest "hip and hot" art scene of LA, his muscular arms artfully adorned with mysterious tattoos, shakes his head just slightly. He knows Renaldi as a humanist: " He has this unbelievable connection to ho his models."
In the exhibition space, surrounded by seven Renaldis, a sudden and absolute silence enwraps me. There are only these eyes in these wall-filling portraits. They ask for acceptance - of old age, aggression, fear, hope or hopelessness.
Awe takes the place of the babbling brain.
"Margaret" looks at me, a smile on her 84 year old Asian face. Her dignity shines between the stars of unforgettable celebrities on the Hollywood Boulevard - one of the last Hollywood ladies who walk to the newsstand in her morning gown.
Renaldi worked for photographers of the well-known Magnum agency in New York, when he loaded his 8x10 Wisner camera on a cart and pulled it through the elegant Madison Avenue to photograph wealthy "uptown types". Fascinated and at the same time appalled by the opulent show of competing beauty he escaped to the fashion desert of suburbia, to Newark (NY) and Fresno (CA) to pay homage to the little man with the greatness of his pictures.
The selection of his characters is spontaneous, the selection of the surrounding is intuitive - the photographic process is time consuming and highly sensitive. The technique of his 8x10 camera - in its heavy mahogany housing with copper fittings like a relic of times long passed - demands a calculated act. It makes a snap shot impossible, which would express the irrelevance of the moment. Renaldi's technique defines his encounters as destined not accidental. Photographer, model and place create a perfect triangle,
His decision to exchange his 450 mm lens with a 300 mm lens offers him more background, an extended theater space, which does not diminish the person in its middle but adds to his or her relevance.
The result is a photography, which allows for direct involvement, speaks to our hearts and invites us to look again. Without preconceived notions the smooth surface reveals stories and tensions.
"Jeffreys" eyes, child like, innocent and vulnerable don't match his tight fists, which suggest a tough Chicano attitude - but then again his "Star trek" watch is so cute.
The super stylish Punks present themselves as powerful; the world is ours as shown by the tree marked with our graffiti. Behind them though the well-behaved SUV of "mom" awaits them in front of the school they just visited as any good boy would do.
Renaldi's work - be it naked manhood, gay retired couples or simply outsiders with self-confidence - stands in contrast to a modern US, who calls for missionary conformity and fears "the other".
