Scott Mutter's passing...

Scott Mutter was a world-class 'photographer', though that appellation ill-suits him as inadequate. I was fortunate to be his friend for 40 years. I hassled him when I was a teenager, sneaking into his film screenings at Channing-Murray Foundation... then later I hung with him at Bubby & Zadies Cafe whilst we developed our Marxist theories of art, montage and surrealism.

During the 1990s his work became very well known. It was collected by museums and even was marketed as posters. Social-surrealist montage as a staple of dorm-room decoration! Recently I was privileged to spend several days with Scott in March of 2007 in Chicago. We had a blast. I celebrate his life and art. He was a friend and mentor, a fellow traveler on the hard road high, and I will miss him dearly.

He was one of the greats; a real artist. His images will long inspire, for they teach us that 'seeing' and 'thinking' at the same time is not only possible but necessary. You don't look passively at one of his photos, you intellectually and emotionally unravel it like a suspenseful, visual fugue or riddle. I predict that future generations will see our times refracted through some of his more archetypal works. What better image of our religion-soaked and deformed American culture is there than Scott's megalithic church with the highway running down the aisle? (See this image below; to see more of his amazing work, click here).

Photograph by Scott Mutter (Untitled) Church Aisle from his 1992 book, "Surrational Images'.

Scott created the following "lyric" to accompany the poster publication of his Time Travelers image:

"We come from beyond,
and we go from whence we came,
courting the hands of time.

We are bound by nothing
so much as our imagination."

Scott Mutter died March 8, 2008 at the age of 64. Scott my friend, thanks and fare thee well. I'll see ya soon my friend.

-Frank Garvey