It was , he was passing through and I had just joined the collective. He greeted me by saying that he had just stolen my book Carnival Strippers from a local bookstore. Danny was already a myth to me, with his immersive approach during the civil rights movement in the south.
I was envious, having been too young to go myself. He really became legendary with his powerful series on Texas prisoners Conversations with the Dead. In fact it weighed too much for me to ever really use, but it meant a lot to me that he cared enough to send it.
We both dive in, but I like to go back again and again to my subjects, he likes to move on. Danny likes to talk, I tend to listen, so here we are 36 years later, still getting to know each other. Danny Lyon Richard Avedon asked me that once; it was embarrassing. I showed pictures I made in whorehouses in Colombia in , a slideshow with music. They lacerated my work. He was putting the pictures on the wall and kept sticking pushpins into the prints.
I was horrified. DL Claude Lanzmann, in his new biography, talks about Jews having masks. Maybe this is an inherited survival skill. My greatest strength has been empathy with others different from myself. SM So, would you give me a sense of your show at the Menil Collection?
DL In , I was photographing the Texas prison system, and, when I was evicted from a farm I had rented next to the prisons, I ended up living in Houston. People quickly linked me up with Dominique de Menil. I ended up knowing Addie [Adelaide de Menil] really well through her work in the Hamptonsβshe remains a friend of mine.
