Abstract
Photographer Anthony Mahone discusses his life and art. Born and raised in Cleveland, Mahone spent much of his early adulthood elsewhere; first, while attending a military academy in North Dakota, and later traveling to Europe and Africa. The bulk of Mahone's education was in Ohio (at Cleveland State and Ohio State University), where he also pursued his interest in Engineering, Physics, and History. Mahone discusses the influence of Cleveland photographer Misumi Hiyashi, as well as other faculty members at Cleveland State University. The artist describes the difficulties he has experienced as a black man who is also gay, sharing his insights on art, race, sexuality, family, and identity. This interview was conducted by telephone.
Loading...
Interviewee
Mahone, Anthony (interviewee)
Interviewer
Thurmer, Robert (interviewer); Busta, William (interviewer)
Project
Cleveland Artists Foundation
Date
1-13-2009
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
62 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Anthony Mahone Interview, 13 January 2009" (2009). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 901030.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/211
Transcript
William Busta [00:00:05] Good.
Robert Thurmer [00:00:05] Excellent.
Anthony Mahone [00:00:08] Hello.
Robert Thurmer [00:00:09] Hey, Tony, this is Robert.
Anthony Mahone [00:00:10] Hello, Robert.
Robert Thurmer [00:00:12] Good. Here’s the deal. I’m here with Bill Busta, and we’re already recording. Okay, cool. And so I just want to say thank you very much for agreeing to do this. We’ll probably go for about an hour or so. I’m going to start off with just a couple things that Bill thought would be better if I did, which is maybe your time at Cleveland State and, you know, when you were working for me. And then I’m going to hand it over to Bill and he’s going to finish the interview. Should take about an hour or so, probably a little bit less. Are you good?
Anthony Mahone [00:00:51] Yes.
Robert Thurmer [00:00:53] Okay. So, Tony, I’m sure that Bill will sort of follow up with more early memories that you have, but I was thinking maybe you could sort of give me a little bit of a history of your time at Cleveland State. What do you remember of that?
Anthony Mahone [00:01:15] I remember it being a very challenging. I mean, artistically challenging in a positive way for me when I began at Cleveland State. For me, of course, it was always about photography. So I met with Masumi Hayashi, and my intention was I just come back from living in London. I was living in London for like five years. London, Ireland, whatever. I came back to America for six months only. And while here, I thought, okay, I’ll take a course. So I met with Masumi Hayashi, and I was, of course, I guess, a little arrogant. I wasn’t sure she was a good enough teacher for me and all that. I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t be bothered. And we talked and realized she was really cool. And it began that way. That’s how it began. And she taught me enormous amounts. I credit her with taking me over from being a photographer to an artist that was doing.
Robert Thurmer [00:02:15] That’s really wonderful. So would you consider that Masumi was actually one of your mentors?
Anthony Mahone [00:02:22] In a way, Masumi was like a second mother to me.
Robert Thurmer [00:02:26] Is that right?
Anthony Mahone [00:02:27] And she knew it. We spoke a lot, even till her death. We spoke, what, sometimes once a month, sometimes once a week. Yeah. But usually twice a month. In my teaching, in my classes, it was Masumi who I would call. We would discuss artists and whatnot. Because I like putting varied artists in front of my students like to really really challenge them the way Masumi has enormous photographic knowledge. So I think of some photographer who I remember she talked about, and I’d call her up and we’d talk.
Robert Thurmer [00:03:01] Wow.
Anthony Mahone [00:03:02] And then like, see, you don’t know. You will have to see eventually, but for instance my students do Hayashis. They’re called Hayashis. I’ve taught my students to work in the style of Masumi Hayashi, and so for them it was a very unique thing. They hadn’t seen that before. So I just finished doing a show. What was it called? The Fourth Annual Photo Show. A very large photography show here in Northern California. And a lot of it was multiple imagery, a lot of it was Hayashi, because I’ve taught them that. In fact, I lecture on Hayashi. I’m assuming I was her assistant and I know her work very well. So I of course do one of those lectures with my classes. And at one point the students were asking me so many questions, it got challenging. I couldn’t answer all the questions, and so in the middle of class, I just picked up the phone and I called Masumi. And Masumi was at Cleveland State University teaching her class, her photography class, her evening class, her late class, whatever. And we start talking the two classes, it was amazing. We put her on speakerphone and we spoke for a good 40 minutes. And they asked her all kinds of questions and whatnot and went back and forth. And at the end of this whole session, my class applauded and she hurricane her classroom. It was really cool.
Robert Thurmer [00:04:25] That’s very great. Can you talk a little bit more specifically about how she influenced you aesthetically? How your photography changed? How your art changed from what it was when you arrived, and when you left Cleveland State?
Anthony Mahone [00:04:41] My first thought is trees. She gave me this assignment, go shoot trees. So I went and shot some very beautiful trees. They were lovely. They were elegant. They were lovely and all such, and I came back to Masumi and showed her my trees and she thought they were very nice and whatnot. She said, go shoot more trees. Then I’ve now, of course, now I’m this world travel photographer and whatnot. I’m now actually a little annoyed this woman’s having me shoot trees when I’m so, well beyond this woman. So I go out and I shoot more trees to please her. And they’re even more innovative and artistic and beautiful and elegant and in fact, one won some awards somewhere. It was really beautiful work. I was even impressed. I really pushed myself. I came back and showed you this work and she’s going, yes, that’s really nice. Yes, go and shoot trees. Now by this time I am out, angry, rather annoyed, but she was insistent in her own delicate Buddhist way. She wouldn’t. She was insistent. So fine I’m going to shoot trees. So I’m walking around, what’s that big park, WoodHill Park or something like that. I’m walking around this big park in Cleveland, Ohio, or outside of Cleveland, and take a picture of trees. And I’m out and out angry. So what I do is I’m practically yelling, to be honest. I said, well, you want trees? I’ll give you trees. So I took the lens off my camera. Just took the lens off the camera entirely. Just pointed the camera at trees and just shot like crazy with fury and came back with these amazing images that blew everyone away, including Masumi. She went okay now you shot trees. Yes, that’s what Masumi did. And so, believe it or not, I teach, like her occasion. And so I’ve done that to my students before just because she did it to me. That was one way. Another way was. How can you say it? Content, social commentary. What was I saying? For instance, I lived in England. I traveled Europe. I was a Europhile. I embraced Britain, and I was there for years. It was all I focused on. And then I came back to America. When I came back to America, this is where my work got really social and political. What was I running from and why was I over in Europe? And I came back to America, I started focusing on the Black male. That’s when I started doing all those Black male nudes. I started focusing on my own culture. It started to become more specific and more specific. So first it was African American culture because I had been ignoring it as I was looking at European culture. And then it got more specific to the Black male. And then it got to where the clothing got in the way. It told to me stories I wanted to talk about. I wanted to take away your misconceptions. So it became just a Black male. He was always nude. And it wasn’t about sex, though that played a part in it. It wasn’t about sex. It was about- It was about not allowing you to judge that Black male by what he was wearing. Other artists have done that, like Karine Simpson. She did a series of Black male portraiture, or urban portraiture, where people saw the clothing and the clothing began to tell stories and you assume what they were about. And I wanted to get beyond that because there are so many assumptions being made about the Black male. I was still a bit of a culture shock. I was living in London for a while, so coming back to Cleveland, I had a bit of a culture shock. I was jogging down the street, and people would grab their purses. You know, women would grab their purse. And I felt like a- I did a piece entitled Rapist, Murderer, Beggarman, Thief. Because that’s how I felt I was being seen in Cleveland, Ohio. In fact, back- That’s not one of the pieces you’re putting on the show, I don’t think. But yes, that’s one of the pieces I did in that whole time period. How did Masumi help me? She helped me voice that she taught me. It was with her I began writing artist statements and poetry, actually that I add to my work. We discussed Dwayne Michaels and text and texture, and I got exposed to Essex Hemphill and Joseph Beam and other political writers. And words became part of what I was doing. It was no longer just about me taking a picture that I liked about communicating an idea or what I felt was important issue to focus on. She helped me do that. Masumi helped me find my voice definitely. So yes, Masumi was of enormous importance to me and at Cleveland State University. That’s why I was her assistant.
Robert Thurmer [00:09:56] Well, Tony, this is really, really good to hear. Unfortunately, I will have to leave and actually go and pick up some artwork, but Bill is going to take over and so good luck to you and it’s good talking with you and thanks for participating in the show.
Anthony Mahone [00:10:16] Thank you. I’m happy. Very honored.
Robert Thurmer [00:10:19] Thank you.
William Busta [00:10:20] Bye bye. Hello, Anthony. This is Bill Buster.
Anthony Mahone [00:10:25] Hello, Bill. How are you, sir?
William Busta [00:10:27] Good. Great. Have not really talked with you much through the years, but remember, I guess it’s been about close to 15 years since I first worked with you in an exhibition. Yes, but we’re going to start earlier than that. I have a set of questions that I ask everyone and some more directly and some less directly. But let’s- The first where I start is when did you first realize that you had artistic ability? How young were you when that happened?
Anthony Mahone [00:11:08] Artistic ability? I have to say around 15.
William Busta [00:11:13] Fifteen. You weren’t a child who did a lot of drawing or-
Anthony Mahone [00:11:19] No, because I can think- My drawings were very good. When I was really young, I tried to write a book because I thought, why not? So I still remember the story I tried to write. It was a murder mystery. I tried to write and my writing still didn’t quite work. My drawings were- I don’t have the patience for them. I couldn’t be bothered to sit there and try to draw a tree for you. I didn’t have the patience for that. And so my drawings, in my opinion, didn’t go anywhere at all. I enjoyed sculpture a bit, but all the stuff that I’m talking about was just a kid doing some stuff in some classes somewhere. It was not until my mother took me to a bookstore and we were just shopping. I’m just perusing the books and I came across this book entitled the Big Book of Photography. It was an enormous book. It was oversized and it was very thick and fat and filled with text and imagery. And for some reason I just wanted it. I don’t know why. My mother bought that book for me. And I took it home that night. And so I got home and my mother cooked dinner and I went to my bedroom and I began opening up this enormous book and began to read it. And by, I don’t know, seven in the morning, the next morning, I had been up the entire night reading this book. I actually finished the book in one night. I just read the entire book in one night. It was weird.
William Busta [00:12:52] What was it about it that just was so compelling to you?
Anthony Mahone [00:12:55] I don’t know. It was the voice having voice. All of a sudden. It became an outlet. It was my way of speaking. I had lots I wanted to say, I guess. And dawned on me I wanted to do it through photography. I fell in love with photography after reading that book. I’ve been obsessed with it ever since.
William Busta [00:13:17] Did you ever take any photographs before that?
Anthony Mahone [00:13:21] Yes, I had, but only because I didn’t want to be in front of the camera. So at those family outings, I would love to get behind the camera so I wouldn’t have to be in front of the camera because I guess I didn’t like how I looked. Which is actually classic.
William Busta [00:13:39] Right, right.
Anthony Mahone [00:13:40] And now I do tons of self portraiture.
William Busta [00:13:45] When, as you start you read this book on photography what did your mother do? Did she go to bookstores often? Was this something she took you to?
Anthony Mahone [00:13:56] Oh, yes. My mother took me to bookstores and opera I’ve seen. When I was a child, I saw eight or ten operas. Operas all the time. I went to a lot of classical music concerts. I really got into. Well, I’ve been into classical music since I was a kid. When I was six, my favorite composer was Rachmaninoff. I love the power of it all. So when I was a child, I was listening to classical music and going to operas and Cleveland, Cleveland Orchestra. I went to many, many shows. That’s where my fascination went.
William Busta [00:14:39] Your parents liked music a lot?
Anthony Mahone [00:14:42] My mother was really drawn to it. She used to sing a lot when I was younger. She said I should grow up, be a singer because she sang so much. And so music was a big part of my life. I played piano when I was a kid as well. We had piano in the house. So for me it was rock munging off with my hero. Then it turned Prokofiev and I got into Russian classical. That’s why I was a Russian studies major at Ohio State. Yeah, it was one of my second majors. Yeah, I loved Russian.
William Busta [00:15:16] So you read the book on photography. Did you have to go right out and buy a camera the next day?
Anthony Mahone [00:15:22] No, it was that a switch was turned on. I bought the book that evening around 6, 6pm or so. Went home, went to my bedroom and I just thought I’d look at it. And I read the entire book the entire night. And by morning when my mother was preparing breakfast, I came downstairs and said, I want to be a photographer. I had not been to bed. She looked at me like I was insane and I was all hyped and she just knew. And my mother got me a camera. She got me my very first camera, the Russian camera. It’s called a Cosmorex SE. I mean, this is silly, but it’s actually important. It was this old-fashioned Russian camera with very, very manual. And the reason it’s significant is I didn’t realize it at the time, but the camera she got me was the camera on the cover of the picture of the book that I bought, that she bought me the same camera, old Russian camera.
William Busta [00:16:18] Russian cameras are famous for being inexpensive knockoffs of much more expensive cameras.
Anthony Mahone [00:16:24] Exactly. I learned so much. I tell that story in my classes. I got the camera for Christmas and I went outside in Garfield Heights, Ohio. This is at age 14 I believe. Yeah, age 14, and I took pictures in the snow. It was snowing there now. It was tons of snow around Christmas. And I tell the story to my students specifically because I went and had the film processed. My camera worked perfectly. And I tell them, I asked them what color was the snow because I teach zones? Ansel Adams Zone Photography I teach that. And so if you follow Zone, if you listen to my lectures and go to logic, then you understand. Well me, this excited kid, taking my first pictures of the snow, of course the snow would be gray. And then I get into that and we start discussing zones of photography and why the snow is gray, how to make it white. It’s one of the stories I tell. It’s a true story.
William Busta [00:17:22] And these, you went out, you ran through the roll of film and I imagine you took it to a commercial developer.
Anthony Mahone [00:17:34] Yes, that’s how I got a darkroom because it became an obsession. So I would go take pictures and go get them processed and that was getting really expensive because I was really going through film like crazy. So that meant I had to get a darkroom. So my mother helped me build a dark room in my first bedroom. You know, my first dark room was in my walk in closet with my brother. So underneath the clothing hanging up what not was trays of chemistry. And I would go there late at night and process and make pictures. My brother’s pants fell into the stop bath. He never forgave me for that anyway. And so I did my first print on my own dart enlarger on the closet, on the floor of my closet. And then it was middle of the night, of course, so I had to ignite so light wouldn’t leak. And then I rang my mother with this print, my very first print dripping with chemistry. And she’s laying in bed and I’m here, look, dripping art. It was horrific. But she had to see it immediately. I had to show it to her. That was how it was. Now.
William Busta [00:18:54] Did you take any art courses in high school? Or was this? Were you? Pretty much.
Anthony Mahone [00:18:58] I took photography in high school. Oh, yeah. Art courses as well, but photography. But what’s interesting, by the time I took photography in high school, I already taught myself photography. But back to where it began, with me taking pictures. I took pictures like crazy. You asked when did I know I had talent? I was at Cleveland Heights High School and I aired this competition. I never aired a competition before. It was this competition and I got armed. I got second place actually for this shot, this picture I took. And the reward was to be honored at Cleveland Museum of Art. So I had my work hanging at the Cleveland Museum of Art when I was 16 years old. And I was so amazed by that. That my work was hanging in that museum. I was so impressed, and back to when I first thought wow I actually have talent because my work’s hanging in this museum. Well, someone must like it. I’m not really a thug after all, whatsoever.
William Busta [00:20:05] That sort of presence. Did the museum have any other presence to you when you were a child? Did you go there frequently or once in a great while?
Anthony Mahone [00:20:14] No, I went there frequently as a kid. I went to museums. Cleveland Museum of Art. I loved the Cleveland Museum of Art. It was so big and so expansive. It covered so much. I’ve always been a student of history. I love history. And so it was the Cleveland Museum of Art. And I wasn’t really into the art scene or aware of the art scene, like all the galleries and all that. I really had no knowledge of that. But I knew about the Cleveland Museum of Art because it was near where the Cleveland Orchestra was. And so I was used to going to see the orchestra. So I went to Cleveland Museum of Art and just wandered around. And it got me so interested. I wanted to be a historian. When I was in college that was what I wanted to do, but I didn’t think I’d make any money at it. So I became an artist instead.
William Busta [00:21:09] Exactly. So you’re in high school and you started thinking about going to college. You had said before that. Did you even think about going to art school? School or being an art major?
Anthony Mahone [00:21:25] My father told me that there were no Black photographers. I was too young to know if there were ones. For instance, like I know now of Gordon Parks and what’s his name, Van der Zee and whatnot. Now I know, but at the time, I didn’t know any better. My father wanted me to have a job and earn a living and, you know pay the bills. And I wanted to be a photographer. And so he told me I couldn’t be a photographer and there were no Black photographers. I remember that. And so I was to go to school and get a good job so I can pay bills and whatnot. That’s why when I went to college, I actually majored in engineering. That was on orders of my father.
William Busta [00:22:11] You started college where? At Ohio State?
Anthony Mahone [00:22:15] Yes, at Ohio State University.
William Busta [00:22:19] That would have been.
Anthony Mahone [00:22:19] Yeah. No, actually, it was North Dakota State School of- It was my North Dakota University. I started in North Dakota. I was in the military.
William Busta [00:22:30] Oh, let’s talk about that a moment. You were in high school and you went into the military first?
Anthony Mahone [00:22:35] Yes.
William Busta [00:22:36] And why was that?
Anthony Mahone [00:22:38] Sorry? You said why? Yes, to get away from home. Because I was. I was young and I was gay and I was Black. And that wasn’t- It’s almost the same way now, just not so bad. But even back when I was a kid, it wasn’t a good thing or it wasn’t some easy thing. Being gay, that just simply wasn’t the case. But for Black people, it was different. I tried to explain it to people. It was different. If you are Black and gay, then frankly, you have just given up your rights to be Black. It’s like your color is taken from you or something. You’re no longer Black. You’re kicked out of the club in Black society, especially then, even to a degree right now. To be gay and Black means you’re somehow disgraced. Your color and your people, and your manhood all above. It’s really rather overpowering so good Lord. I wasn’t coming out of any closet and I had a really tough self image issue. So that was one of the reasons I left Cleveland and wanted to get away. Of course I couldn’t escape myself, but that’s one of the reasons anyway.
William Busta [00:24:00] And you went to North- I imagine this was the Air Force?
Anthony Mahone [00:24:04] Yes, I was in the Air Force and so I didn’t have a choice where I was sent. I was sent to in Minot, North Dakota, which was horrific. 98 below wind chill factoring. Oh, it was intense, and of course I was the only Black guy there.
William Busta [00:24:21] Not very many Black guys there within 200 miles.
Anthony Mahone [00:24:26] Yeah, yeah. Yes, it was North Dakota and I continued my photography there. As always. My photography always continued and I always went to school. So I went to North Dakota State University and Wahpeton State School of Science and whatnot. Schools there. That’s what I did. Wherever I went, I always went to school. So I’ve always been attracted by academia.
William Busta [00:24:59] Did you do photography in the Air Force? Was there any official use of it, like publication or was that something you just did on your own?
Anthony Mahone [00:25:07] I did it on my own. I was very. To this day, actually I am. I’m very selfish about my photography. It was always mine, mine. It’s the one thing that was exclusively mine and I’m very protective of it. You can’t have it. You can’t manipulate it. You can’t exploit it. It’s mine. So frankly, it’s always been about art for me and I didn’t want anyone to think they have the right to take my photography and somehow manipulate the use of it for their own purposes. Where my head was at. And so it was my one thing and it always remained my best pal no matter what happened. I had my photography.
William Busta [00:26:00] After you were in the service? Three years?
Anthony Mahone [00:26:04] Four years.
William Busta [00:26:05] Four years, and after your time in the service, did you ever think of a career in the military or was this something?
Anthony Mahone [00:26:13] No, I thought it was a great mistake that I made because I was young and stupid or I always need to say, therefore it’s a great waste of life. I can’t prove any of it. I did not enjoy my time in the military. I attempted suicide when I was in the military. My one only real cool attempt to suicide. This is not anything melodramatic to me. This is actually artistic. That’s why I even bring it up. I wouldn’t bother because I did a piece about it. I did an art piece about this attempted suicide which I occasionally lecture on. But yeah, I was really messed up mentally, I guess I was. No I hated the military.
William Busta [00:27:03] Oh, so as you were finishing your enlistment, what did you start thinking of doing? Excuse me. What did your plans, did you realize, did you know that you wanted to go to college afterwards?
Anthony Mahone [00:27:19] Oh, yes. I’ve been wanting to go to college since I was a child. Since I was, what, 13? It’s like if I could have gone straight from age 13 to a college campus, I would have been thrilled. I actually did that. I went to visit my brother, older brother, on a special program at Ohio State University where I was allowed to sit in on his classes. My brother was a bit older, so he was at Ohio State. And I studied at Ohio State for a while. And I loved it. I loved it so much. I was in academia. I got to talk about ideas and concepts and philosophy. I love philosophy. It was glorious.
William Busta [00:28:05] And you started when you finished with the Air Force? Where did you go? You went to Ohio State at that time?
Anthony Mahone [00:28:12] Let’s see. After the Air Force, yes, I went to Ohio State for, for a few years. And I went there as an engineering major and always taking my photography classes. Always. I loved that, and Ohio State University had, at the time, one of the premier photography departments in the country because they had this enormous four story building, large building with two photography studios. Full film studios in them, and tons of equipment, including an 8 by 10 larger. All this stuff, all this equipment. Now a lot of it’s been sold off, but at the time, it was the bomb. I loved it. I engrossed myself. It was my safe haven, the photography building. At the time I was an engineering major and I really enjoyed math, but the classes were getting harder and harder and harder. And there was a racial component because I was the only Black guy around in the engineering department. And I had no real concept of fraternity. It was a real click there. I felt very uncomfortable, and then one day I was walking by the engineering building and my palms began to sweat. I noticed it. I mean, that was ridiculous. My palms were sweating. I never had that happen before, and I realized I really did not want to go through engineering. I didn’t enjoy it. I dropped engineering major and went into journalism, trying to find a way to incorporate more of my photography into what it is. I do try to earn a living, but eventually I just simply focused on photography. That’s all I really wanted to do anyway. Of course, I had this strong Russian thing going on. I took every Russian course I could. I took all the arts, history courses, all of them. All the music courses, culture, everything I could think of in Russian. And then that was as an undergraduate. And then my advisor who taught in the Russian department, helped me devise graduate courses that I was taking as an undergraduate in Russian studies. And I got to take all the courses. There was nothing left to take out. It was kind of annoying, so I started sticking to Russian language. After that just. I ran out of courses. So I studied Russian language for three years. I just studied Russian. Russian became an obsession. My father never understood that.
William Busta [00:30:48] Why did you choose or how did you choose or how did it come about for you to leave Ohio State and start trying to traveling?
Anthony Mahone [00:30:57] I was desperate to get abroad. I was at Ohio State University. I lived in the graduate dorm there. It was really cool, so I had a lot of intellectuals around me. I never had to really experience the whole undergraduate scene. I was always with the older, more doctoral students and whatnot. And it was some ungodly hour in the morning and I learned that Dublin was going to celebrate its millennium or something. This was 1988 because I decided I wanted to go, so it was a decision made at 4 in the morning. I wanted to go to Ireland. And so I decided within the next few months I would find myself at the Irish Millennium celebration in Dublin. I’m just going. And I went.
William Busta [00:31:53] And you didn’t know anybody there? It just was a compulsion?
Anthony Mahone [00:31:57] Oh, yes. I’ve always wanted to see Europe. I was a Europhile. I mean I really truly was. Oh, I studied a lot of that. I studied English, British history, War of the Roses, I mean, the royal family, back into the decades and ages and all that. I’ve always been a student of history. I love that stuff. I thought it was a one big giant soap opera, and I really enjoyed the soap.
William Busta [00:32:20] Right.
Anthony Mahone [00:32:21] So yeah, I used to really get into that, so I went to Ireland and I was there. I was in Ireland for nine months. No, correct you. Is it three? No, it was nine months, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I was there for nine months, and then from there I went to London and I was there for a little bit more time. I lost track of my time, came back to Ohio State University, took courses again. But now I knew how to travel. I went back to Europe and I stayed for years. Oh yeah. When I was in Dublin, I took a course at Trinity College in Dublin. Yeah, it was a beautiful campus, and I loved working on the campus so bad because I love college campuses. Carnegie College is a very gorgeous campus, and I wanted to walk around like the other students. So on lark, I went in there and they enrolled me. I thought it was a big problem, but it wasn’t.
William Busta [00:33:24] When did you start? I see, you did a lot of traveling. Did you ever work commercially as a photographer?
Anthony Mahone [00:33:31] Let’s see.
William Busta [00:33:33] I mean, did you start to work, actually sell photographs to a newspaper? Or did you start to do portraits? Or was that something that came later?
Anthony Mahone [00:33:44] I did portraiture. Correction. I work for the paper at Cleveland State University. Oh, yes, and Ohio State University. So I work for the paper. The paper at Ohio State University was a major publication because Ohio State University is one of the larger contestants campuses in the country. It had a serious, large readership. So it was actually surprisingly, a major source for news in the area. I was a photographer there for a good while. It was a way of earning money and doing my thing. So I did that at Cleveland State University as well. I worked for the paper there. My commercial work was never really in photography. That’s probably because of why I said I’m very protective of it. You can’t have my photography. It’s all I got. You can’t have it. So I keep it to myself. But I have worked as a graphic designer before.
William Busta [00:34:48] Well, I’m thinking that you said you spent several years in Europe and you wound back up at Cleveland State in, I guess about 91 or 92 to finish your BFA. And what was it that changed? What was it that you were looking for?
Anthony Mahone [00:35:05] What change was?
William Busta [00:35:06] Why come back to Cleveland after living in London?
Anthony Mahone [00:35:10] See, that was exactly it. I actually voiced this in one of my artist statements. I was a Europhile, I spoke the Queen’s English and I embraced England and Europe and all that. Then one day I was walking around in London, in Covent Garden, actually, and I’d been thinking about it for a while and I asked myself, why was I embracing this culture that saw me, the Black male, as I want to say, lesser terms. There’s a strong history of colonization in England, in Britain, and that reflects in the society it’s there. And if you’re a foreigner traveling around or American traveling, you don’t see it. It’s just really fun. But if you live there, the gray veil lifts, as I forgot the author who termed it the gray veil. But the gray veil lifts and you see things in different light because you’re no longer this tourist. You’re living here for a long period of time. So there is a thing, I can see where the history of colonization comes into the culture there. And so why was I embracing this culture so much and what about my own? And that made me want to go back to America and That’s what got me to go back to America, actually. And when I got back to America and I began at Cleveland State, I made the choice to start focusing on the African American culture. And that’s how it worked out. It just developed into- As I focused, I got a little pinpoint and became the Black male.
William Busta [00:37:01] And when you had spoken earlier about your relationship with, with Masumi Hayashi, were there other teachers at Cleveland State that influenced you?
Anthony Mahone [00:37:10] Definitely. I had this thing I would do, it was like this weird mental game. I would take every course, I had everything and see how I could make photography from it. It’s just what I did. So I took my history courses. And history courses, to me are big stories. Like I love to read. They’re like movies in my head. Well, I would literally take the images that I create in my head from the stories I read in terms of history and create art with them. I just did. I thought it would be fun and so I create art that way. In fact, one of those pieces is in the shell. It’s called Possession. That’s an art history piece. Possession was a course taught by. The course was taught Kathy Curnow Nasara. Kathy Curnow. She was an enormous influence upon me. She’s a world renowned Africanist. And it was in her courses I learned so much about African history, African arts history. She’s one of the toughest professors I’ve ever had. And I incorporate what I learn into the images I create. I did it with physics as well.
William Busta [00:38:37] Obviously at Cleveland State, when you graduate, you were fairly successful and you sort of start to see your. As I imagine yourself teaching photography, because most people who go immediately into an MFA program have that in mind. And you pursued your master’s at the University of Colorado that same year that you graduated?
Anthony Mahone [00:39:03] Yes.
William Busta [00:39:06] And just as you started at Colorado, your work was shown in Cleveland in the Cleveland X show as well as at the Black Box Studio. Was this the beginning of you exhibiting as a professional artist?
Anthony Mahone [00:39:27] This was. Yes. This is me pursuing. Yes. This was me pursuing exhibitions more actively. Yes. I shoot incessantly. I always have, even now. But I have to. I had to push myself to actually get my work out there and show what I’ve been doing. I work in spurts. I always have. I’m assuming you’re- That it would be really swell if I worked in some timely manner based upon timetables and as it should be. But it never really worked out that way. I would think about doing enormously a long time and then I would shoot when the time came. Like crazy. So my shoots actually happened really fast. Art’s in the head. My art was always created in my mind first, and then the photography came afterwards, was just what came out from the thought process.
William Busta [00:40:25] So your work as you began, I mean, I certainly remember those works from the early 90s. A lot of the focus was on the head. A lot of the. A lot of interesting things that you were doing with color that were pretty much on the human figure. You had said earlier about being- The difficulty of being gay and African American at the same time. And has that culture changed much through the years?
Anthony Mahone [00:40:58] Yes, but I’ve changed much through the years. But what’s interesting is there’s a core that hasn’t. It hasn’t really changed. I’ve been discussing this recently with other students actually trying to explain the Obama phenomenon, because there’s younger people and white people who will say, Obama, great guy, he’s our president. And, well, he’s- Come on. He’s part Black, he’s part white, and he’s all this and all. That’s very true. However, there’s an older culture, the older Black people who grew up when racial discrimination was a bit more blatant, who openly claimed Obama as Black because back then it didn’t matter if you were partially white or if you had white parents, whatever. If you had any bit of blacking, you were considered Black. And it was just thing. And so now for these people, finally, there’s an African American president and they claim him, he’s Black. All there is to it. It’s a mindset. And I bring that up because there’s also that old school mindset that I brought up about being Black and gay in African American society. That has definitely changed. It no longer has horrifically changed. Taboo and insane, whatever. And that’s true. However, there are. There is a significant portion of Black society that is of the old school thinking, because it was traditionally how it is. So if you’re gay, frankly, you’ve somehow forfeited your right to be Black.
William Busta [00:42:45] And that still exists. That still shows up in things like the California initiative.
Anthony Mahone [00:42:51] Yes, it showed up at Cleveland State University. I get some work about that. Specifically, it was called the Lust Series. It was shown at Cleveland State University in the art gallery there. It was Kavanagh Ibeji Oppo Faithwalker is Kavanagh is the workshop, the Cleveland Museum of Art. And him and I curated with Robert Thurmer that art show called Senses and Art World Censorship. Something like that. Yeah. Surmounting surroundings like that. Really cool show. We Worked on it diligently for a year. My first time doing anything that serious about in terms of curating. It was a full year project where I worked at Korea Atlantic almost a daily basis. And we did this show. And during the opening of all this work, I was dealing with a great deal of the Black community because it was a Black focus show, if you like. So therefore a lot of the Black community came out this, this big exhibition. And I felt the. The disdain from some people, if you like, because where they really enjoyed the show, they appreciate the show, but they didn’t appreciate me because I wasn’t- I’m not in your real closet anymore. I just don’t bother with that anymore. And being Black and gay in the Black community is not always accepted, especially by the old guard people. So with that said, I was actually annoyed by that. I remember that. And so it spawns a body of work. So I did another show at Cleveland State University where I call it, where I did a piece, a five or six piece series called the Lust Series, where I did these really intense choreographed nudes of two Black men. People thought I had shot someone having sex. I didn’t. These images were choreographed. I mean, they were sketched out. I knew exactly the poses I wore. I was trying to put across a message. So I put out this really strong work. I was kind of angry at the time, or at least angry enough to create the work.
William Busta [00:45:15] Right. What do you feel you accomplished with those pieces?
Anthony Mahone [00:45:22] I shoved it in their face that this is part of their society as well, which is what I wanted to do. I wanted to remove that closet. I had to think about the images, what I was trying to say. Like I said, they weren’t just pictures of two Black men who were naked or having sex. That wasn’t the case at all. They were sketched out specifically designed to give a certain message. I was trying to convey a message with the work. I’m happy I did. I thought the work was strong and I didn’t want to be silent about that, I guess.
William Busta [00:46:08] Since you left for graduate school, have you lived in Cleveland for any period of time?
Anthony Mahone [00:46:14] For a bit, yes. I did come back to Cleveland after I, you know, after grad school and after. Was it somewhere around after India? Yes, after I returned from India, I spent four months in India. And after India, I came back to America and lived in Cleveland for a few months before I moved on and living.
William Busta [00:46:43] Just as a general statement and because I ask this of everybody has growing up in Cleveland, in the Cleveland area, you said you Lived in. I guess you were born in Cleveland. You lived in Garfield Heights and in Cleveland Heights. Has living in the Cleveland area affected your work, particularly as you reflect back from living in California?
Anthony Mahone [00:47:06] Yes, Cleveland’s more of a. Cleveland’s more urban. There’s an urban aesthetic as an urban aesthetic to the. How can I put this? Students at Cleveland State University don’t have much, or I don’t mean to put it that way, but they don’t have great access to resources, yet they produce some extremely powerful work. It’s a lesson I learned. So I had students, I taught at Cleveland State, so I had students, I lived there, I did my work at Cleveland State. I taught there myself. And students at Cleveland State University would have an agenda where they wanted to say and do artistically, but wouldn’t have the resources, yet they got the job done brilliantly. And so it wasn’t about the resources so much. It was about having the determination to do it. I learned that in class.
William Busta [00:48:11] Cleveland, as an artist, do you feel that there have been any. Have there been any obstacles in your way in developing your career as an artist? Has being gay. I mean, we’ve talked about being gay. But since, let’s say, since your education, as you’ve sort of been out there, how has it been African American affected your career?
Anthony Mahone [00:48:38] Oh, you Black people. I’ll even be generalized Black people, or even especially Black men, because Black men are somehow seen as being a target in society. Black men are taught by their parents to not allow for that factor. It’s- It’s too easy to allow for that factor. There is racism in the world, and it does rear can one way or another. And so Black people in general, people who are stereotypically used to being discriminated against, cannot give themselves that excuse. And parents, Black parents, Black mothers, teach their Black sons specifically that they cannot allow that to be a reason or excuse for not succeeding because it’s a slippery slope. So I’m saying that to you because, yeah, of course it played a factor, sociologically speaking, it probably did in one way or another. And I can tell stories, but I generally don’t accept or allow for that possibility because if you do, it can hold you back. And you don’t allow for that. You just don’t. It’s drummed into you from a kid.
William Busta [00:50:08] Who have you found to be your audience for your work? Have you. What types of people have responded in particular to it?
Anthony Mahone [00:50:23] People with open hearts like to think, but I like people with open minds. I like my work to address or I like My work to be approachable by many different people. I purposely produced it that way. I will, for instance, my work is beautiful. And that has nothing to do with my arrogance. I chose to make my work beautiful because I want you to visually enjoy looking at it, just simply going, oh, yeah, it looks pretty to my eye. And then I’ll add content to it that you may or may not get based upon if you read that book that I read or lived that life experience that I lived. And so you might be able to relate to some. Some of it or parts of it. I personally believe as an artist that our commonality is our human experience. And that even though I may have lived a bit different life than you have, being a Black guy, whatever, my difference is from you, that we are more alike than we are different. And we have a shared common humanity that you will see in my work and relate to it in front of. And this is art, so it doesn’t have to be literal like I am saying such and such a thing to you. With this text in prose, it can be, in essence, a feeling. It can be ethereal. That’s why I do my work. And so when I produce the work, since I do claim that when I produce the vast majority of my images, it’s done in my head. It’s even sketched out to the nth degree before I’ll even shoot. And so I have an agenda, and I will cover all these bases from it just looking visually exciting. So you will like to look at this picture to all the other things that may be in there. And if you’ve read this certain book about Russian history or African history, whatever or whatnot, then perhaps you even get this one little piece of it. Or not. And I include writings in my. I include what I read into my work all the time. That’s why I’m a big fan of. bell hooks isn’t about agreeing with everything she says. It’s about she has very strong opinions that affects my work. I’ll put that in my thesis. And if you happen to have read that chapter, then you might know, for instance, the Black Male News and bell hooks. Bell Hooks wrote in one of her books about how no one should do blackmail nudes anymore because blackmail has been objectified in the nude. This is what she wrote. And she references Mapplethorpe and the man in the Polyester Suit and that whole series of work. She talked about the Black male nude. And then she argued in the same chapter of this book. All right, all right. If you’re going to do a Black Nun, Nude. You should have this, this, this. You start listening to all these little things and I’m reading all this. So just for fun, I create that image and I entitled Hooksey and Nude. So if you read all that, you might get the list of things that she talked about. But you don’t have to rebel hooks in order to appreciate the image.
William Busta [00:53:50] In December of 1993, which by that time you had left Cleveland. But in the show Cleveland Spaces, there were a number of other artists who were also African American and actually who are going to be in the show, including Mark Howard, Kevin Everson, Dexter Davis, Kushmir Bell and Robert Banks. Did you have contact with any of them before you left?
Anthony Mahone [00:54:20] Definitely. I knew all the names. I know them and I was terribly impressed with that list. I’m very honored to be among them. Their work is strong and affected me. When you mention their names, I think of their work.
William Busta [00:54:35] Kushmir, were you friends with any of them?
Anthony Mahone [00:54:38] Sorry?
William Busta [00:54:39] Were you friends with any of them?
Anthony Mahone [00:54:41] Yes, I hung out a bit with Kushmir and Kevin Everson and Robert Banks and his films. Yes, we all know each other, that we’re all doing our thing and we know each other well to just casually. But yes, and there’s a mutual respect and I respect them enormously.
William Busta [00:55:01] Well, it’s an interesting group to me because I curated that show. And still looking back at the people that we chose in ’93, often those sort of shows, the forecast shows the people don’t turn out to do very much in the future or there’s a lot of bad guesses. And I think this is the best one I’ve ever worked on. And I wonder, there’s not a comparable group of, let’s say, African American artists in Cleveland that you would have been able to identify that way in the 70s or early 80s or. Frankly, I’m not. I don’t know about today, but certainly it seemed to be very special at the time.
Anthony Mahone [00:55:50] I agree. I don’t know about before that. I wasn’t aware before that. And I’m not really cued in what’s going on there now in terms of now either. But at the time, yes, I’m terribly impressed with those people. I know the work they’ve done. I have hung out with them. I’m certain. I consider them friends. And their work is powerful and it affected my work. It raised the bar, it raised the game a bit. Look what they’re doing. Oh, I have to actually do something. I can’t just lollygag here. Say something.
William Busta [00:56:27] Look what they’re saying now Kevin’s in the Whitney Biennial. That was very special for all of us. We’re going to close now, but is there anything else that you’d like to say? Anthony?
Anthony Mahone [00:56:44] I want to- A question was brought up about the teachers at Cleveland State and how they affected my work. And I said that I incorporated their teachings into my art. And I did do that. And it made me very impressed with the teachers there. I give it to practically everyone. I did that with Kathy Curnow. In fact, I went to Nigeria with her for six months.
William Busta [00:57:11] Really?
Anthony Mahone [00:57:12] Yeah. Yeah. I was her photographer for six months. I shot in Nigeria, and we covered the country extensively. And I shot enormously for her. She got a grant and she went there to do one book. Well, as she said, well, clearly you don’t go to Africa for six months to do a book. So we did five. Yeah, it was amazing. And I shot enormously. I shot for her, I shot for me. I shot separately. Just portraiture for me. I just shot like a. I had, like, cameras all over me. It was insane. And I couldn’t turn off. I just took pictures like Matt. And the last thing is actually physics. When I was about to graduate Cleveland State University, I had kept my head down, done my courses because. Did my thing. But like many artists anyway, I avoided all the science classes as much as possible. Why? Focusing art. Then it got to where I was near graduation and someone told me, well, you’re not going anywhere unless you get through all this science or something. And so, because I was literally forced to do it, I took. I took a double class in physics, which I knew would kill me, and discovered something that I didn’t know. I love physics, even to the point where I would have been a physics major if I had taken physics earlier. Oh, my God, this stuff is wonderful. I love it. It controls everything. I incorporate that into my photography.
William Busta [00:58:47] Well, that’s great. Well, thank you so much for talking to us.
Anthony Mahone [00:58:50] It’s an absolute pleasure.
William Busta [00:58:52] Admired your work a lot through the times and seen it in the exhibition considerable times. And this is really the first time we’ve had an opportunity to talk. And I really do. Thank you very much.
Anthony Mahone [00:59:03] I thank you as well.
William Busta [00:59:05] Bye. Bye.
Anthony Mahone [00:59:06] Goodbye.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
