Richard Renaldi: I Want Your Love
It's difficult not to be enthralled by Richard Renaldi. The photographer has captured the art of self-expression through his moving portrait series for decades.
In fact, he made his first self-portrait in 1978 when he was 10 years old standing in the bathroom of his home in suburban Chicago, which initially evoked his curiosity of self-examination, which still remains today.
In his latest visual autobiography, I Want Your Love, Renaldi explores this intimate time in his life through his middle ages, showcasing themes of love, intimacy, and finding yourself.
Here, we're giving you an inside glimpse of some of the images and pages from the affectionate work of art.
I Want Your Love, by Richard Renaldi published by Super Labo
Edition of 1000, w18.9 x h25.2 cm, 176 Pages,
163 Images, hardcover partly clothbound
First edition published May 2, 2018
Order the book here. See more at Renaldi.com, and follow on Instagram.
"I'm hiding in the hedges that line the side of our red brick house, doing my best to avoid being spotted by the school-bus driver. I'm nine years old. The tornado and fire drills at St. Michael's elementary school in suburban Palos Heights, Illinois have become a regular exercise of dread, tears and pants wetting. The deafening alarm rings, looping over and over. Then the lights go out, and we sit in a darkened hallway in a duck and cover position for what often feels like an eternity. I cry, trying my best to conceal my tears. Inevitably it happens. I pee my pants.
"So on this day, I'm determined to stay home from school. My Nonna, who is babysitting us while my parents are away on vacation, is at her wits end, but she lets me stay home the rest of the week. When my parents return, I plead with them to not send me back. They transfer me to a private school in Chicago. The problem almost immediately disappears."
"I jump into Lake Michigan to get my hair wet and slick it back like a greaser. I return to the beach and my audience--a large group of relatives and family friends--stick a cigarette behind my ear and begin to gyrate my hips, reenacting John Travolta's dance to 'Grease Lightning.'
"It is the summer of 1978. The movie version of the musical 'Grease' is out in the theaters, and I have memorized all the words to the songs. It is also the year my father split up with my mom. My mom is heartbroken, even though their marriage has never been a happy one. For me, the break-up doesn't feel like a huge change, at least not at the moment, because my dad was never home very often anyway. I've been pawned off to my cousins for the vacation and get to spend a few extra weeks at the family cottage in Michigan and Oval Beach."
"Not long after the divorce, I discover the private beach just north of Oval, where gay men tan naked in the dunes. Whenever I make an excursion to this other vista, I tell my mom I am taking the trail out to the beach and that I will meet her there later. Then, instead, I make my way past Oval, through the sun-baked gulches of searing-hot sand until I spot groups of men basking in the sun.
"I'm nervous with desire. Mostly I just look. Often, I'm on the verge of making some overture, but then I lose my nerve and run away, feeling bad for even having those urges.
"But sometimes I meet someone, and we touch each other."
"To bankroll my video game habit, I return again and again to the bureau beneath the makeup mirror. It's where my mother keeps her pocketbook. I usually swipe singles, but sometimes, if I'm in an especially bold mood, I'll snatch a five-dollar bill and make my way to the arcade.
"I'm not an athletic kid or even exceptionally coordinated for a 13 year-old, but I am good enough at Frogger and Pac Man to place my initials -- RRR -- at the top of the high scorers list. My performance is never harshly judged at the Rubix Game Room, where I find an outlet for my modest skills and a minor addiction."
"During the warmer months, the scene at Oak Street Beach is where I want to be. All the slick kids from the different city schools hang out there. The path to the beach stretches beneath a graffiti-covered underpass where people often pee and I once got picked up by the cops for spray painting "Depeche Mode" and "The Clash" -- two of my favorite bands.
"We do ridiculous things like hyperventilate until we pass out. We blow up waterproof M-80s in the lake just so we can watch the massive splash bombs created by the detonation.
"We also have a ritual of going skinny dipping in the lake, usually close to midnight and after smoking a bowl. The feeling is sensational, swimming naked in the foreground of Chicago's glowing night skyline.
"One day in the spring of 1984, I am hanging out with my friends, and I notice a group of punk rockers emerging from the underpass. As they get closer, their Mohawks and the leather and metal studs adorning their bodies come into focus. And I realize the group walking toward me is Joe Strummer and The Clash, whom I just saw the night before.
"I ask Joe for his autograph, and he obliges, signing his name on a dollar bill and scribbling a Mohawk over George Washington's head.
"The autograph has faded, but I still have that bill."
"As I pick up my bags to board my train, I take another look around for the soldier with a broken arm in a cast. Moments before, he held my gaze as I dipped my head, cigarette between my lips, to catch the flame cupped in his hand. But now he's gone. His face, handsome, unshaven with a deep Iberian complexion, is still strong in my mind.
"It's the end of my year abroad, and I'm traveling through Spain and Portugal. The announcement for the train heading south to the Algarve has interrupted my spellbound state. I scurry to the track, still hopeful to pick up where I left off with the soldier. I see him in his khaki uniform boarding the train a few cars away from me. He catches my eye again and smiles.
"A half an hour into the train ride, I gather my courage to find the soldier man. I walk through the train cars as they speed across the rural Portuguese landscape. Eventually, I find him sleeping, stretched flat across a seat with his unbroken arm extended slightly into the aisle. As I pass, my knee lightly brushes his knee, causing him to rustle, but I feel awkward and make a quick getaway.
"At the next station stop, I walk back to his car, hell-bent on meeting him. As I get closer, I notice him in the window of the next car waving at me. There is no ambiguity about our intentions toward each other. Strangely, as I move forward, his figure appears to retreat though he is still standing in the window. I realize the train has separated, a new engine carrying him in the opposite direction. He continues waving, as his figure grows smaller, everything draped in the luscious yellow of a setting sun."
"One of the only times I remember my mother touching my father after their separation is in the parking lot of a courthouse. My mother gently pinches the surface of my dad's suit and pulls off a loose strand of thread. A judge has just dismissed charges against me because it is my first offense.
"I am twenty, and we are all there together thanks to my arrest for carrying an open container of alcohol in a park. At the time the cops pick me up, my ex-boyfriend Terry is the only one drinking, but the police overlook those details and decide to arrest all of us: me and Terry's new flame Juan as well. In a Cook County jail cell, Terry and Juan erupt into heated bickering. They are hiding pot and don't know whether to come clean to the cops. Against Terry's advice, Juan breaks down.
"A year after charges against me are dismissed, my court file with my mug shot and fingerprints arrives at my home address in Chicago. I am living abroad then, and my mother opens the package. Filled with shame and embarrassment, my mother stuffs it into the trash.
"I would have liked to have seen my photograph, how I looked at that moment, the expression I'm wearing on my face. I would probably have included it in this book, and you would be looking at it now, but my mother got to it first."
"David sends me letters written on Canadian-themed picture postcards every week we are apart. I am in a trance.
"We first encounter each other in 1993 at a Montreal gym, our eyes locking for an instant but nothing more. Hours later, I meet him on the dance floor of a nightclub. We're of similar stature, and our hands are exactly the same size. I go home with him that night, and we begin a long distance relationship.
"David is a go-go dancer and a leisure studies major. He's definitely good at leisure, the smoking and snorting kind. His parents are alcoholics, and he has rotten self-esteem. But he's mischievous and playful too. Often, in the corner of a museum or a nightclub or when we're posing for pictures in public, he nonchalantly lowers his pants to let his dick or butt hang out. He likes having sex in public places -- the bathroom at MoMA or the Ferris wheel on Toronto Island. He takes risks, which seems like a plus, until it isn't.
"One summer he tries living with me in New York, working as an art handler. We snort Special K and rollerblade the entire length of Manhattan. We go to Fire Island and get into a big fight on one of the boardwalks. He throws me into a heap of sand. Later, we make up and crash a fancy party where all the guests are wearing white.
"But he moves back to Montreal and breaks up with me. He unravels. The reports come in from concerned friends. David is seen running around naked at the Black and Blue Ball, claiming to be giving birth to sea monkeys. I get pulled back into the relationship. I call his parents, who send him to rehab. I try, I really do, to make it work. But I'm no match for his need to self-destruct.
"When we go to Paris, he decides to break it off, so he can "do" Paris. Later, in Positano, he is sick with hepatitis and wants to get back together. I make the difficult decision to be free."
"'You're not gay are you?' My mother asks me this question as she drives us along Interstate 94 in her Buick Regal, speeding to our Michigan cottage.
"'I am,' I tell her. According to my mother's recollection, the revelation causes a near accident. But I remember this as a moment of relief, a deliverance from all the lies. I am eighteen years old.
"Not long after that, I am summoned to dinner with my mother and father, one of the few times they will ever come together again. They ask me awkward questions and suggest I see a psychiatrist to help me work through issues I have with coming out.
"I detect fear and hope, on their part, that this is a phase. The country is in the height of the AIDS epidemic, and I am about to go to New York University to study arts in a city that has among the highest number of AIDS cases in the country. Hysteria and ignorance are the common reactions among the general public to the disease.
"My shrink, Dr. Koff, looks like Mark Twain. As I talk to him, I admire a beautiful Japanese scroll painting behind his desk. Of the Freudian school of psychotherapy, he only offers many head nods and minimal conversation."
"As I wait for my results, I am nervous. Since adolescence, I have been living an energetic, sexually active life against the backdrop of a profound fear of HIV and AIDS. I get tested after my ex David calls to inform me that he has tested positive. So I'm not surprised when I do too.
"The doctor who informs me is a dermatologist. I'm comfortable with him, and his manner is reassuring when he tells me the news.
"As I absorb the information, I feel stupid and scared. I'm afraid of the lesions, Kaposi's sarcoma and the process of dying and wasting away. I worry I will not live into the new millennium. But the doctor tells me that if I had to pick a time to test positive, this is it. The new protease inhibitors are saving lives and changing the course of the disease.
"Later, I don't feel angry at David. I know I wanted the intimacy, even though I was aware I was taking a risk. I stop partying and begin dating. I tell a couple guys about my status, and they reject me. But then I meet other men who don't mind and have been in previous relationships with HIV positive partners. When I tell my family, they are upset but supportive."
"I am at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware with a new friend, but I am determined to find the attractive man who waved at us earlier. We were walking down the beach, when he emerges from the water, glistening, and raises a hand to acknowledge us. Neither my friend nor I can stop staring.
"I comb the beach and find him sitting on a towel with a gallon of apple cider beside him. I ask if I can sit. His name is Seth. He's a photographer and shares my obsession with Sally Mann. We end up chatting the whole afternoon. Then, we go for pizza together and return to the house where I am staying. We make out. As I walk him to his car, I ask for his number but he refuses.
"'It's not like we are going to date or anything,' he says.
"I give him my email anyway, feeling a little miffed because I thought we had a special day. Two weeks later he sends me an email to apologize, and we both begin writing long emails to each other.
"We shape a life working and traveling together. The two of us make it to all fifty states and then to Asia, Africa and South America. We hike and camp in our national parks, sit on plastic stools and eat street food in hot Southeast Asian cities. We go to Burning Man, the desert and the rainforest. Along the way, we take self-portraits of ourselves in our hotel rooms, building a collection of hundreds of images.
"Seth and I sometimes bicker and banter. We are both stubborn and strong willed. At some points our relationship can feel like a struggle, but we endure. We are best friends.
"It is 2018, we are together for twenty years now."
"I have wanted, sometimes quite fiercely, to make myself an object. And the object I desire to be is one with muscles, one that will erase that sense of invisibility I felt as a gay kid.
"Over the years, I fantasize about becoming a body builder. Big, beefy, muscled men are constant distractions. And eventually I end up taking steroids. They have the desired effect on my physique and give me a surge of power when I'm on them. Addicting.
"On the Internet in the early 2000s, I cultivate a following in the gay world that, adjusted for inflation, would be the equivalent of Instagram star status today. I want love and affirmation. But it's not long before the attention and artificially elevated testosterone begin to warp my life. I experience a disconnect between my values and the over confidence I feel. I stop taking steroids for a long time.
"Years later, when I try them again, I am even more motivated to extinguish the feeling of impotence. But I feel agitated and moody, and I stop. I realize I have never been fully committed to being merely a thing. I love being in motion; I love being in the world. Despite the best of my misguided intentions, I couldn't become the object of my fantasies."
"Today, as I write this, I am sick, immersed in the delirium of a high fever that comes with the flu. I am reminded of the time my mother suffered a major stroke. Frail and vulnerable in the hospital bed, she whimpered for her mother. A seventy-year old woman still hungering for the nourishing love of a mother.
I feel some of that longing today, wishing my mother, or some metaphorical version of her, could be here to take care of me. But just as she was motherless then, lying in that hospital room, so I am today. She passed away two years ago on March 21.
"My mother had a long and painful demise, and in many ways I think she left us in that hospital room in suburban Chicago long before she died. As I approach fifty, living an active life as an HIV-positive man, those issues of health and mortality move closer and closer to my center."
