Ward Of The State

WARD
OF
THE
STATE

TONY WARD Artists’Muse

WARD OF THE STATE
TONY WARD Artists’Muse

Curated by Robert Standish

WILL THE REAL TONY WARD PLEASE STAND UP, 4|5
PLEASE STAND UP,
PLEASE STAND UP… He rarely ‘mixes up’ his friends. Each of us hears a bit about the other, but for
by Michael Gregg Michaud the most part he keeps us apart. He can own us, one independent of the other, and
we can think, if just for a moment, that he belongs solely to each of us. He’s best
I met Tony Ward in the bathroom. Well, at the bathroom door. I was attending one person at a time, usually getting lost in a crowd where he’s not particularly
an opening reception at an art gallery in Los Angeles, and the free sushi made me comfortable.
sick. When I went to the bathroom, Tony was exiting. Our eyes met and he said,
“I wouldn’t go in there right now if I were you.” My impression of him was that He is curious, bright, goofy, generous, enviable, codependent, impulsive, hedon-
he was short, his leather pants were painfully tight, and he needed more fiber in istic, unassuming, unaffected, and silly. He is an anarchist, a conspiracy theorist,
his diet. Why is this important? Tony stepped out of a public bathroom looking and a naughty boy. He is fashionable, magnetic, guilty, lovable, reckless, quiet, and,
like a million bucks, that’s why. yes, sexy. But only because he still doesn’t really think he is. In fact, in person, he
is the opposite of what his worshipers would likely expect.
I had first “experienced” Tony Ward in 1987 when my friend, Steven Arnold,
photographed him. Steven invited me to his studio to watch. Though Tony was At first, modeling was a way to attract attention. But when he discovered he
very beautiful to look at, the surrealistic sets and exotic makeup made him almost could parlay seduction into a career, it became a way of life. He is all things to all
unrecognizable to the naked Tony Ward I first saw on the cover of In Touch maga- people. You want him, or you want to be him.
zine a couple of years before.
Though well on his way to becoming a symbol of masculine beauty in the mid-
But our friendship began at that gallery bathroom door in April, 2000. 1980’s (Herb Ritts referred to him as “The Body”), Tony’s personal associations at
the time propelled him into the world of high fashion, the paparazzi, and infamy.
The nature of our relationship is intimately familial. He accompanied me to He has an unfailing and daring sense of self, and a body that can wear literally any-
Maine when I went to settle the affairs of my gravely ill mother. We then drove thing with style.
cross country, taking weeks to return to California. We stopped at the usual natural
and man-made wonders. I photographed him and his varied personas at break- Whether a work for hire, or a more casual artistic endeavor, each artist will
fast, lunch and dinner. Several years later, I traveled to Northern California with have their own personal story and relationship with Tony. These varied images
him to claim his father’s remains and clear out his belongings. The only decora- give the viewer a profoundly revealing look at an inspiring and chameleon-like
tion in the one-room apartment was a collection of pictures of Tony that his father man.
had cut from magazines and taped to a wall. I photographed Tony as he scattered
his father’s ashes in a grove of trees in Redwood National Park while a herd of But how many different ways can a person look at the same object and see some-
Roosevelt Elk watched. We then visited his grandmother in San Jose. A wall in thing different? Tony has a relationship of sorts with every artist with whom he
her living room was covered with framed photographs of a very young Tony works. That exchange results in an objective representation that has as much to
modeling suits and sportswear. Another road trip took us to Sonora, California, do with the way Tony reveals himself to the artist as it does to the way the artist
the gold-rush town where Tony had spent his formative years. We drove to the wants to see Tony.
little house he had lived in with his two brothers and hard-working single mother.
We climbed up a nearby hillside to a water tower where he used to lay around In the modeling industry, everyone has a shelf life. Models are exploited, tossed
naked in the sun and masturbate. And he did it again, this time, though, for the camera. away, and usually forgotten, but a career lasting more than a quarter of a century
is testament to Tony’s power of reinvention and his own respect for his fellow
Who is Tony Ward? Everyone who knows him will give you a different answer. collaborative artists. That certain rhythm that an artist and model must strike
He compartmentalizes his life and friends. He cultivates each friendship with cannot be easily explained or quantified. It must be viewed. The collection of work
intensity. He reveals a certain self to each different friend he has. And he does in this show is a startling example of artistic individuality and style, and salutes
the same with any artist, stylist, designer, or photographer he works with. When artistry, and a timeless muse, Tony Ward.
he’s being photographed, or rendered by an artist, he is a willing muse, a daring
model and an immodest man, but he is most uncomfortable being “himself”.
“Mr. Ward” is an invention. Immediately, he slips into that imaginary persona
and strikes a pose.

6|7

8|9

MAYA MERCER LADYKILLER } 2011 } 20 x 25 } C Prints } Edition of 5

|10 11

RAY TURNER Tony#1 } 2011 } 12 x 12 } Oil on glass
Tony#2 } 2011 } 12 x 12 } Oil on glass

|12 13

RICK CASTRO Tony Ward Tea Cup and Saucer } 2011} Bone China, functional tea cup and saucers } PAUL RUSCONI Tony Lives in London } 2011} Bone China, functional tea set } Edition 1/5
set of 4 } Edition 1/5

|14 15

PAUL RUSCONI Tony } 2009 } 61 x 48 }
American Idol } 2011 } 96 x 72 }

Digital screen inks on plexiglas with nail polish on c-print mounted to sintra

|16 17

ROBERT STANDISH ABW 2600 } 2011 } 10 x 8 } 100 U.S. dollars bills on panel
Buy, Sell, Loan (Mr. Ward) } 2010 } 421/4 x 221/4 } Oil on panel

|18 19

GREG GORMAN Tony Bent Over, Los Angeles } 1988 } 24 x 20 } Silver gelatin print } Edition 5/25
Tony and Rosetta Series #6, Los Angeles } 1988 } 20 x 16 } Archival pigment print

|20 21

MICHAEL GREGG MICHAUD Tony Ward, Mojave Desert, California 2 } 2004 } 11 x 81/2 Clockwise, from top left:
Archival ink jet print } Edition of 7
Tony Ward, Phoenix 1 } 2000
Tony Ward, Mojave Desert, California 3 } 2004
Tony Ward, Mojave Desert, California 1 } 2004
Tony Ward, Mariposa, California 2 } 2007
11 x 81/2 each } Archival ink jet prints } Edition of 7

|22 23

PATRICK MARTINEZ Pure Hustle } 2011 } 48 x 40 } Mixed media on plex and neon

|24 25

RETNA Untitled } 2011 } 58 x 42 } Screen print enamel and ink on paper

|26 27

HERB RITTS Man with Chain, Los Angeles } 1985 } 20 x 16 } Gelatin silver print
Tony with Body Mask, Joshua Tree } 1985 } 20 x 16 } Gelatin silver print

©Herb Ritts Foundation

|28 29

PAUL RUSCONI Zen Warrior } 2010 } Video } 8:45 } Edition of 3
Following Page: Zen Warrior } 2010 } Video Still #1–4 } 30 x 40 } C-print mounted to plexiglas

|30 31

|32 33

STEVEN KLEIN Tony Ward } 2002 } 315/16 x 61/8 } Polaroid

|34 35

RICK CASTRO TONY WARD IN STRING BONDAGE } 1997 } 24 x 20 } Matte fiber print
TONY WARD AS A BIKER BABE } 1997 } 24 x 20 } 2 of 13 } Matte fiber print

COURTESY ANTEBELLUM GALLERY

|36 37

JULES MUCK Me } 2011 } 30 x 72 } oil and spray paint on canvas
Green Tony } 2011 } 40 x 30 } spray paint on canvas

|38 39

PATRICK HOELCK Pope } 1999 } 22 x 16 } edition of 20
Pure Ward } 2008 } 16 x 22 } edition of 20

|40 41

TONY WARD Self Portrait } 2007 } 40 x 30 } Gelatin silver print

|42 43

CHRISTOPH SCHMIDBERGER Jordan } 26 x 24 } Oil on panel

|44 45

ESTEVAN ORIOL Painter } 2008-09 } 16 x 20 } C print
Six in the Face } 2005-06 } 16 x 20 } C print

|46 47

PATRICK HOELCK Mohwak 1 } 22 x 16 } edition 1 of 20
Mohwak 2 } 22 x 16 } edition 1 of 20
Mohwak 3 } 22 x 16 } edition 1 of 20

TONY WARD: |48 49
THE PROJECT, THE PROJECTION
by Peter Frank If you think about it, Hollywood’s star system, and the avant-garde, soi-disant
anti-commercial film worlds of Paris, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles
Artists’ models are, normally, as blank as the canvases and lenses they sit before. itself are all built on this dynamic of larger-than-life individuality being subjected
The act of rendering, or if you would capturing, a figure is the act not simply of to larger-than-life artistic reinterpretation. Every auteur is an artist, every actor
re-inventing a human being, but of inventing one out of the exquisite lump of flesh a model fleshing out and at the same time hi jacking the auteur’s fantasies. Is this
presented to you. You can’t eat it. (That’s a still life.) You can’t live in it. (That’s a what has gone on in these renditions of Tony Ward?
landscape.) You can’t pleasure yourself with it. (That comes later.) All you can do is
conjure its humanity, its pathos, its right to the same dignity and its experience The spiritual wrestling match between Ward and those who depict him has
of the same abjection as yours, from the little you can see and less you know. not been so prolonged, so fraught, or so thoroughly consuming as those between
Man Ray and Kiki, say, or Rembrandt and his wife. The project that brings these
A portrait subject, on the other hand, prevents invention and at once demands images together has been established on the basis of investigation and experi-
and resists re-invention. You can project only so much on the individual; after all, mentation rather than obsession and dependency—although a few of those who
as soon as s/he sits before you, the individual is projecting back at you the same gaze here on Ward, at least, have done so before, and knew well when asked to
kind of distinctiveness, the same claim to uniqueness, you see in yourself. The participate what they were getting (back) into. Still, Ward’s self-awareness, and
subject arrogantly sees eye to eye with the artist, no matter what the condition of the self-possession his artists hope to exercise in response, guarantee confronta-
the sitting or the actual regard of one for the other. tion between artists and subject rather than simple contemplation of subject
by artists. The subject matter here is not passive; this life is not so still. Tony
What happens when the model and the portrait subject conflate? What hap- Ward has collaborated with the artists here—not in the making of their artwork,
pens when the present human is present as a human? What happens when the but in the making of their condition.
everyman is a particular man playing everyman, playing himself, and playing
with the concept of the self and the everyman (especially if in the process he is
perfectly willing to play with himself)? Traditional roles become not just skewed,
but garbled and entangled. The physical leads to a contemplation not (just) of the
metaphysical, but of the social, the emotional, the narrative. The subject’s object-
hood segues into the object’s subjecthood.

Under these circumstances, Tony Ward is born. Or a concept of “Tony Ward”
emerges. Or Tony Ward gives birth to himself, the artist functioning here not as
mother but as midwife. The act of posing for the canvas or the camera truly
becomes an act, a ritual of projection, an enactment of image, at best a collaboration
between Ward and those minding him, a place where who Tony Ward thinks he is
meets how the artist thinks about the world.

Tony Ward is not the first artist’s model to “model forth” in this mode,
to intrigue and inspire the artists of his time into struggling with his persona.
Models famed for their daring, their submissiveness, their striking appearance,
or for various other distinguishing characteristics, have served for centuries as
provocative muses-for-a-minute, refusing to disappear behind each artist’s style
but yielding to it even while confounding it. Bohemian Paris ran with such enacters
and enactresses—think Kiki of Montparnasse—and stories abound of their equiva-
lents in Renaissance Florence, Golden-Age Amsterdam, fin-de-siecle Vienna, and
even late-modernist New York.

© 2011
All rights reserved.
Design: Jason Pickleman, the JNL graphic design, Chicago
www.jnldesign.com
Printing: The Smart Group
This book was printed in a case-bound edition of 99 copies.
Robert Standish would like to thank the following for their valuable contributions: Estevan Oriol, Paul Rusconi,
RETNA, Jules Muck, Patrick Martinez, Patrick Hoelck, Michael Gregg Michaud, Christoph Schmidberger,
Greg Gorman, Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber, Rick Castro, Maya Mercer, Ray Turner, Steven Klein, Carlos Rivera,
Peter Frank, Jessica Lynn, Gary Bushnell, Naomi Weiner, Jeff Benes, Smart Group, Jason Pickleman, Dan
Marsden, Jen Roa, Mark McKenna, Ray Azoulay, Jason Sugars, Stephen Cohen, Mario, Elizabeth, Rick, Trish
Swords, Christina Jeffords, Adam Sherman, Sergio Arguello, Adam Dyer, Shoshanna Blank, Flaunt Magazine,
Nic Kne, Eriberto Oriol, Angelica Oriol, Neda Nikayin, Melanie Dahan, Absolute Framemakers, Stephanie Chao,
Maryam Parsi, Shayna Gaffen, Mikaela Bender, Daniel Rivas, Angela Bruce Ward, Wendell Sakiestewa, Jenna,
Jennifer Joyce, Just Omar, Craig Clawson, Conrad Carey, Mike Messex and Messex Industries, Herb Ritts
Foundation and Malibu Magazine. Special thanks to Tony Ward and Rivera Gallery.
SA STUDIOS thanks the following for their dedication to this project: Angel, Olivia, Toni, Ernesto, Angela, Mom,
Dad, Angelica, Soul Assassins, the staff at SA Studios, Juxtapoz, Upperplayground, Joker Brand, Drago, Schulman
Photo Lab, and, of course, Tony Ward.

Robert Standish (left) and Tony Ward