As you may have gathered from his last show at Salon 94, the artist David Benjamin Sherry is more than a photographer (David shot our SS10 lookbook). He is a celestial rover––half-geologist, half-mystic. He divides his time between the confined space of the dark room, where he prints his photographs, and the wide expanse of the desert, where he explores different mineral textures, shapes, surfaces, and landscapes. OC first with David back in 2010, when he shot the Spring/Summer lookbook. I dropped by his Brooklyn studio with Jeremy one recent afternoon.
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Alexandre Stipanovich: Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
David Benjamin Sherry: I was born in 1981, and I grew up in Woodstock NY. I left home at 18 and went to Rhode Island School of Design for four years, then I came to NYC in 2002. I went back to school in 2006 at Yale University and received my MFA in Photography.
AS: How do you think growing up in Woodstock influenced your work?
DBS: Everything about Woodstock––its funky (literally), liberal character; its place in history during the political and sexual revolution of the late 60’s––was naturally part my upbringing. My friends and I had a lot of freedom growing up as kids in the 80s and 90s. There was a huge emphasis on art in the community, so I began creating things organically.
At 12 or 13, we started taking buses to New York City and going to raves. My friends and I discovered this underground culture and adopted this great style that was still foreign to our small upstate community. At the height of the rave scene, I could have described myself as a “polo” raver. I'd wear 60-inch wide jeans called Aura’s E, which was a brand by this girl in Long Island named Aura. I shaved my eyebrows completely off, pierced everything on my face, put platforms on my running sneakers... I’d work day and night in the mall upstate so that I could buy my rave tickets and take bus trips to get all the cool clothes in the city. I found out about everything from shops like Liquid Sky and Satellite Records––they would put flyers out and you had to call hotlines to find out all the rave info. All the great mixtapes were sold at the stores too. It was a real beautiful time to be a teenager and so close to NYC.
AS: Is that how you were introduced to the clan of New York artists that you know today?
DBS: No, that didn’t happen until after I graduated from college. One of my dearest friends whom I met while at RISD was Raina Hamner, and she grew up in Tribeca and knew a lot of people in the city. Right after we graduated, Raina took me out one afternoon and just introduced me to the whole group. I remember one of my first days in the city in 2003, when I went to The Hat on Ludlow Street and met Marc Hundley, Ben Cho, Dash Snow, and all these great people. Ben really took me under his wing. Marc was the first man I ever kissed.
I spent the next two years here having an incredibly fun time and taking tons of pictures. I was really broke at the time and was living in an apartment in Brooklyn with about ten other friends, and we were all sharing beds. It was a very messy, glorious, carefree, youthful, and dreamy moment for all of us. It felt so real and innocent, yet in retrospect I was also getting sidetracked from my own dreams and work. I realize that I was quickly swept into a wonderful family
_____________________________________________________________
Alexandre Stipanovich: Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
David Benjamin Sherry: I was born in 1981, and I grew up in Woodstock NY. I left home at 18 and went to Rhode Island School of Design for four years, then I came to NYC in 2002. I went back to school in 2006 at Yale University and received my MFA in Photography.
AS: How do you think growing up in Woodstock influenced your work?
DBS: Everything about Woodstock––its funky (literally), liberal character; its place in history during the political and sexual revolution of the late 60’s––was naturally part my upbringing. My friends and I had a lot of freedom growing up as kids in the 80s and 90s. There was a huge emphasis on art in the community, so I began creating things organically.
At 12 or 13, we started taking buses to New York City and going to raves. My friends and I discovered this underground culture and adopted this great style that was still foreign to our small upstate community. At the height of the rave scene, I could have described myself as a “polo” raver. I'd wear 60-inch wide jeans called Aura’s E, which was a brand by this girl in Long Island named Aura. I shaved my eyebrows completely off, pierced everything on my face, put platforms on my running sneakers... I’d work day and night in the mall upstate so that I could buy my rave tickets and take bus trips to get all the cool clothes in the city. I found out about everything from shops like Liquid Sky and Satellite Records––they would put flyers out and you had to call hotlines to find out all the rave info. All the great mixtapes were sold at the stores too. It was a real beautiful time to be a teenager and so close to NYC.
AS: Is that how you were introduced to the clan of New York artists that you know today?
DBS: No, that didn’t happen until after I graduated from college. One of my dearest friends whom I met while at RISD was Raina Hamner, and she grew up in Tribeca and knew a lot of people in the city. Right after we graduated, Raina took me out one afternoon and just introduced me to the whole group. I remember one of my first days in the city in 2003, when I went to The Hat on Ludlow Street and met Marc Hundley, Ben Cho, Dash Snow, and all these great people. Ben really took me under his wing. Marc was the first man I ever kissed.
I spent the next two years here having an incredibly fun time and taking tons of pictures. I was really broke at the time and was living in an apartment in Brooklyn with about ten other friends, and we were all sharing beds. It was a very messy, glorious, carefree, youthful, and dreamy moment for all of us. It felt so real and innocent, yet in retrospect I was also getting sidetracked from my own dreams and work. I realize that I was quickly swept into a wonderful family