Photographers - Part 28

 Paul Blanca

Paul Blanca (1958-2021) was a Dutch photographer.  Born Paul Vlaswinkel, he had a chance encounter with Robert Mapplethorpe in 1979 and followed him to the U.S.  In the 1980s, he made a name for himself with a series of self-portraits.  Above is Self Portrait With Roses, 1980.

Some of the self-portraits featured extreme body abuse.  In one, an arrow has pierced his cheek; another shows a picture of Mickey Mouse carved on his back with a razor.  Above is Self Portrait Lost Love, 1982, in which I think the heart shape is his own blood.

Others were more sexual.  This is Self Portrait Thailand, 1982.

Self Portrait Bull, 1983.

Back in Amsterdam in 1994, someone planted a bomb in the car of another Dutch artist, Rob Scholte.  Scholte lost both legs.  He named three artists close to him as possible perpetrators.  One of them was Paul Blanca.  Shortly before, Blanca had done a piece for a magazine showing how easy it was to obtain illegal guns and hand grenades.  Despite the fact that the car bomb had nothing to do with a hand grenade, in the public mind, Blanca was guilty of the bombing.  The police did not agree and closed the case without finding the culprit.  Today, the prevailing theory is that the artist was car-bombed by mistake, and the real target was a lawyer who owned a similar car.

Nevertheless, at the time, people accused Blanca.  Galleries refused to carry Blanca's photos, and museums and collectors stopped buying his work.  Blanca turned to drugs and alcohol and fell into a negative spiral.

This is Self Portrait Go Fuck Yourself, 1996, from the period following the bombing.  Both men in the photo are Blanca.

This is Self Portrait Suck Your Own Cock from the same period.  Again, both men are Blanca.

I don't think Blanca was gay.  He took many photos of nude women, which I have not shown, and he was married and had a son.  Here is an earlier photo, Self Portrait Father and Son, 1984, showing Blanca with his infant son.

Another earlier photo, Self Portrait Mother and Son, 1982, shows Blanca with his mother in a tender pose.

In an echo of that photo, Blanca made another photo Self Portrait Mother and Son in 2014.  He said "This photo is a self portrait where I carry my mother, just like I had carried her to bed for 4 years because she couldn't walk.  It was taken 32 years after the first Self Portrait Mother and Son."

Addicted to drugs and alcohol, Paul Blanca died in 2021 at the age of 62.