Dear Shaded Viewers,
A few days ago I met with Zoltan, an old friend from back in the days of Balade de L’Amour, an AIDS benefit in 1992 created by Susanne Bartsch.
The photos below include the show invitation art directed and photographed by Zoltan where he cut me off at the waist making me feel like the talking head in Fox and His Friends. The t-shirt is a little worse for wear but kindly supported by Armani Exchange. Keep in mind, in Paris this was a time when people did not want to be associated with AIDS. Thanks to Jonathan Newhouse, Conde Nast produced the magazine which was art directed by William Stoddart. The show was produced by Alexandre de Betak, if I remember correctly he was 21 or 22 at the time. Nick Knight did the cover and co-responsible with Susanne Bartsch was my dear friend Gary Lee Pennington, who unfortunately died of AIDS one year later just after his 30th birthday. I was only in Paris about a year at this time and that is when I met so many great people all working on this charity for AIDS. I worked directly with Alexandre de Betak and my assistant for the production was none other than Etienne Russo . Both Etienne and Alexandre went on to be the most successful event producers.
If you click on the link above my friend Gary Lee is pictured with his dog in a polaroid that I took back then. We both moved to Paris at the same time and he was a really dear friend and one of so many casualties of AIDS.
