By Renee Rosensteel
April 25 - June 13, 2008, Space Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
Gallery Talk: May 17, 1 P.M.
“Circle of Truth” is hard to look at. I like it that way. I want the viewer to be jarred by the struggle, by the blood…as middle class westerners we aren’t confronted with the animal within unless we go looking for it. The guys in that cage don’t just look for the animal, but call it out. I want the piece to challenge people—if you don’t know that piece of you that is barbaric and carnal, you are missing a piece of your own journey.
“Fighting,” some people say, “is no way to solve problems.” But cage fighting, also known as “mixed martial arts” or “no holds barred fighting,” is not about day-to-day conflict resolution. Most responsible trainers and serious athletes separate surviving the cage from finding ways to work out issues with family and friends.
The game is obsessive. It demands everything. Fighters think nothing of training three hours a night. That does not include the time they put in to cardio. If they stay with it, their bodies change. They get hard and sharp. The training methods vary, but there is always an intense intimacy in the process. Fighters learn one on one. Learning a technique it often requires that someone trust you enough to practice, on his body, moves that are meant to efficiently injure an opponent. It is a vulnerable feeling. Your neck is in the tiger’s mouth. Still, there is a negotiation about training intensity. It can’t be too light, or your partner goes in to the cage unprepared. It can’t be all out, because bodies break. You have to learn about getting along with people because you can’t train for this sport alone.
The sport is, though, about working out larger conflicts, conflicts that are personal and often inexpressible except through the ordeal of training and the greater ordeal of facing defeat in the cage. Usually, the first question people ask me is, “Do you LIKE getting hit in the face?” My answer: No, but I like to hit people in the face. The point is that people instantly relate to the possibility of humiliation. That and uncertainty about the limits of their own bodies draw out fears that we don’t often face. My photos show the reality of humiliation. Someone loses. Everyone in the sport knows what that feels like…and that you have a choice to live under the cloud of failure and humiliation, or to get past it. When you decide to get past it, other parts of life get a lot easier (So you have a rough board meeting…it’s low on the stress scale compared to getting choked out.)
You know what it feels like to get knocked down, to live through a concussion, to feel ribs crack and tendons rip. You know what it feels like to get back up again. The idea of physical violence becomes much less frightening when you believe in your body’s ability to heal. There is a freedom and a sweet audacity that follows when you can say, “I’ve done some really crazy things. I can knock the living daylights out of a lot of people…on the other hand I’ve had my world shaken pretty hard and I’ve gotten back up.”
I’ve been in the MMA world since the ‘90s. Most of the photos are from the last three years in fights in Ohio, Nevada, Florida, and Oklahoma. The fighters range from amateurs to professionals including one of the legendary Gracie family members coaching from the sidelines and the fall of a legend as Ken Shamrock gets knocked out in the UFC’s “The Natural” event in Vegas.
I was also interested in presenting a range of gesture—the hard, clean lines of boxing, muay thai kickboxing to the complex intertwining of grappling.
The two sets of portraits contrast each other. I wanted to juxtapose images of fighters when they are relatively in control with the complexity of the game. I wanted to accentuate their individuality. The dark background photos are fighters at their best—a week prior to a pro-am event, relaxed, confident, showing their public face.
The portraits with the light background were taken at weigh ins before a pro fight. They have to be in the same room as their opponent. They are irritable and irrational as they transition to their game face. Some fighters cut dangerous amounts of weight. You can see it in their eyes – the glazed animal look that comes when a person has been starved and dehydrated. The animal begins to emerge.