Celebrated New York artist Walt Cessna has died.
In a Queerty profile from 2012, writer John Russell described him as:
a teenage publishing wunderkind, an underage club kid, a zinester, and a designer, stylist and darling of the fashion world. He styled Nine Inch Nails’ Downward Spiral Tour; he dated Mario Testino when he was 18 years old. He was a hustler in San Francisco, a photographer in New York. He’s battled addiction and has been living with HIV for year—facts about which he maintains a gleefully dark sense of humor. He’s been in multiple comas.
Related: PHOTOS: The Marvelous Men Of Walt Cessna
“There’s no denying that [my life] was completely out of control,” Cessna says in the same profile.
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But I think I was fascinated by everything that was going on around me. I guess, through that entire period, the reason it never really affected me was because I was pretending it was all like a movie. And then when I was thrust out of it for several years, I was like, “That was demented, actually!”
Fans and friends are busy writing tributes on Cessna’s Facebook page. In a touching remembrance, his friend Trey Speegle writes:
He was brilliant and complicated and like many creatives, his own worst enemy. He was constantly writing and photographing and musing and telling us all what was “correct”, a term he used to describe anything he deemed brilliant and worthy of praise….
The tributes are pouring in on his Facebook, a place where we kept in touch and where he poured out his heart and tended to overshare, but everyone loved him for it. Sad to lose a friend, so relatively young.
Give the devil hell and the angels some styling tips, Walt. You were so correct, in so many ways. I’ll meet you by the back bar at Area –I’ve got drink tickets.
dwes09
I cannot comment on his accomplishments as a stylist, “club kid” (is that even a thing worth commenting on as it simply involves leisure time spent dancing, drinking and doing drugs), hustler (nothing to be particularly proud of for any reason) or writer, since I am not familiar with him in those roles. I will say that his photographs (if the queerty compendium of them from 2012 is any indication) are pedestrian at best and in no way art.
Sorry, certainly, that he has died so young, but it is unclear why he is being lauded as some sort of cultural icon if the photographs are an indicator of his level of creative prowess.
ChrisK
I think the implication is something like Andy Warhol and yes I agree on the pedestrian opinion.
queenfrostine
Do you feel better about yourself now? Do you need a towel to clean up? Do you think it’s going to change anyone’s mind? Will people suddenly think: “You know what, I should stop liking Walt’s work now because dwes09 weighed in on his obituary and now I’ve seen the light.”
If you didn’t like his work, why was your time commenting. It’s okay for people to like things you don’t like dwes09. You’ll be okay. Promise.
ChrisK
The description of the guy is visionary, Icon, celebrated, etc. That denotes someone who’s at the top of their game. That also makes people curious if they’ve never heard of him before.
I have to agree with dwes09 but of coarse art is subjective.
o.codone
ChrisK, but of “coarse”, spelling is not subjective.
nogym4urface
Bitter. Old. Queen.
dwes09
It is fine for people to like things that i don’t, but objectively, the photography is pedestrian. Whether you like it or not it has no obvious artistic intent. His obvious influences (Nan Goldin for example) produced photographs immensely more engaging and with formal qualities his do not have at all.
And i was not objecting to or weighing in on his obituary (do you know how to read?). Call someone a visionary or cultural icon, be they alive or dead, their work had better be compelling and visually challenging, not dull. Nor was i commenting on whether I liked it or not. There are many artists i do not like, but whose work i can see is important. I was commenting on its merits. There is a difference.
And as for your “do you feel better about yourself” line, you are projecting. I made observations, and they are unrelated to my self image or self esteem, but clearly not yours. As for changing minds, there is no accounting for taste, but there is an objective arc to art history, and artists who are important and not just producing snapshots. I said i was not familiar with his writing so could not comment on that, but writing similarly has objective criteria by which an author may be evaluated. Visionary status would similarly carry a burden of obvious accomplishment not just coolness.
dwes09
“Bitter. Old. Queen.”
Get a brain missy. There is nothing bitter about comments on someone’s work, especially when hyped as visionary. And I am possibly one of the least bitter people you’ll ever meet, but certainly critical regarding the visual arts, And not a queen either.
As for old, I am 66 and proud of it (but still outpace many of the 30 year olds on the bicycle rides i lead professionally). It always amazes me to run into people who are so stupid they think “old” is an epithet. Are you that dull as to have never realized you will grow old as quickly as I have? And are you unaware that the alternative to that is to die? How pitiful for you, as you are unlikely to actually value your own life or youth. The death of the artist in question is sad as he was young, but that is not reason enough to label him as a visionary.
ErikO
Exactly this guy is not an artist, and his “art” is neither inspirational, original, or even that good.
nogym4urface
Back to being a bitter old queen again I see.
alex171
Why was it necessary to be so judgmental and unkind on the occasion of someone’s death? Sad.
dwes09
They referred to him as a visionary. That sets a standard that needs to be addressed whether he is alive or being described in an obituary. It spurred me to research his photography and it was undeniably not visionary. Nothing sad about that. One word sentences after the style of Donald Trump in a non-Twitter setting are very sad by contrast!
And observations about someone’s artistic output, especially when hyped so neither diminishes their life or death to those who knew them.
TuringsApple
Definition of visionary
1
a : of the nature of a vision : illusory
b : incapable of being realized or achieved : utopian a visionary scheme
c : existing only in imagination : unreal
2
a : able or likely to see visions
b : disposed to reverie or imagining : dreamy
3
: of, relating to, or characterized by visions or the power of vision
4
: having or marked by foresight and imagination a visionary leader a visionary invention
If you knew Walt in the slightest you would know that to call him a Visionary was putting it mildly. Mayhaps the limitations of a moniker like Writer/Photographer are the issue.
Walt was a kinetic human being that drew like minded people to him in his wake. He challenged everything on a daily basis and refused to be labeled or tossed in a box. Creation was a compulsion and something he believed in. His imagination was a thing of true beauty.
and i will miss him
‘THE ONLY PEOPLE FOR ME ARE THE MAD ONES, THE ONES WHO ARE MAD TO LIVE, MAD TO TALK, MAD TO BE SAVED, DESIROUS OF EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME, THE ONES WHO NEVER YAWN OR SAY A COMMONPLACE THING, BUT BURN, BURN, BURN LIKE FABULOUS YELLOW ROMAN CANDLES EXPLODING LIKE SPIDERS ACROSS THE STARS’. – JACK KEROUAC
ErikO
He’s not a visionary, just one of many druggies and hookers in SF, who was HIV+ who believed that he did not have to take meds. Comparing him to Jack Kerouac is laughable.
May he rest in peace.
TuringsApple
I wasn’t comparing him to Kerouac… just sharing something that reminds me of him. A man that pushed me to think bigger and create more.
He was nothing but kind and lovely to me.
Good luck with the throwing of stones. I hear it generally works out well.