The Eyes Have It: Adamo Macri’s Sunglasses

The Eyes Have It: Adamo Macri’s Sunglasses (by Kenneth Radu, 2020) Sometimes focusing on a specific detail in a work of art leads me more deeply into the artist’s vision. In the essay Hirsute Pleasures, for example, I wrote about the appearance and effect of hair in Adamo Macri’s many portraits. The other day, unable to make up my mind, I spent an hour trying on new frames for much-needed new lenses at my optometrist. At the same time I recalled the presence of sunglasses and other eye coverings in the self-portraits of an artist in whose work I see so many layers of meaning and interest that I never tire of, well, viewing the images. A recent portrait 19.04.20 depicts Macri wearing a dark robe covered with white geometric designs with a hood, sporting an elegant and subtle pair of sunglasses in which reflections and eyes are visible. Once again I am smitten.

I stood in a boutique of mirrors and reflections. Staring at my own image in a mirror to see how I’d look with costly, designer frames,

the lower half of my face covered by a blue mask as protection against Covid-19, I was struck (and the verb struck is appropriate because I suddenly felt somewhat knocked off balance), by a vision of me as a portrait by Adamo Macri. Images of the artist wearing one kind of mask or another, and/or carefully selected glasses, merged with my own face to form a kaleidoscope of blended portraits.

Fortunately, I recovered a sense of my true self and surroundings when I looked at the price, and also failed to see myself transformed into a seductive movie star of irresistible charisma. Not remotely as interesting as a Macri portrait, I left the shop, gripped by the need to look further into, and work out my understanding of the decidedly significant eyewear in Macri’s art.

There are many Macri portraits featuring sunglasses, but I think focusing on specific works will convey my own fascination and perhaps say something about his art generally. As I look closely at the recent hooded portrait 19.04.20 and companion pieces (e.g. SP2019, SPApr2020, and 11.05.20), ideas, associations and implications jostle against each other, but I don’t want to explore the priest, sorcerer, weary roué, sleepwalker, kabuki actor, exhausted athlete, an otherworldly creature, or whatever character that figure brings to mind. It’s a remarkably rich portrait, so subtly structured, all the various elements so seamlessly interconnected and/or interwoven that I hesitate to isolate one feature to the exclusion of others. Still, for inexplicable reasons having to do with the forceful nature of Macri’s art, my own obsession with it, and the memory of what occurred in the optometrist’s boutique, my task at the moment is to look at the glasses, or I will not sleep.

If we compare the complexity of the image-filled lenses of 19.04.20 with Andy Warhol’s sunglasses in the latter’s striking, silk screen panel of four self-portraits in shades of blue (1963), it would appear that Macri is going well beyond the surface effect of things and sunglasses as a replacement for, or covering of the eyes.

Warhol’s sunglasses are iconic, designed to bring attention to themselves as a separate item of interest, or to convey a persona of mystery, or to suggest a specific aspect of character, usually sex, much like Tom Cruise’s in Risky Business or Sue Lyons’s in Lolita.

There are many examples of this in popular culture: you pay your money and take your choice. Macri’s sunglasses in various portraits,

however, are inseparable from the head that wears them. They not only cover but also form an inextricable part of the eyes. Even as they shield the wearer, they reveal the intriguing complexity of the artistry and artist. They contain worlds within them because through transparency and reflection they bring us into the mystery of the portrait of the figure portrayed, but not necessarily into the eyes of Macri the man.

I use the term eyewear because it suggests accoutrement or costume. Even when he doesn’t incorporate sunglasses, Macri often applies such adroit and complicated make-up around the eyes that arguably it serves the same purpose. This is no where more evident than in the haunting, even frightening, portrait entitled Nevermore, inspired by Poe’s poem The Raven. Rarely do we get a picture of Macri’s unadorned or uncovered eyes looking straight at the viewer.

When we do, the direct gaze has such a discombobulating effect on me (and surely I am not alone in this regard) that I avert my own eyes from his penetrating, dare I say invasive, stare. I don’t want him looking into my depths although I feel a restless stirring within my psyche, the weakening of resistance, when I look into and linger long in those relentless eyes Damo, 2013. What does the artist see in us?

Do we see the man Adamo Macri, or the artist creating a work about the power of eyes, who just happens to use himself as a model? What do we see in the intriguing art of eyewear?

Eyes uncovered contain drama or feelings of one kind or another; but eyes covered also suggest another, or other kinds of hidden drama or feeling. Eyes are living theatre and eyeglasses are either curtains drawn across the stage or participants in the action, the glasses becoming part of the drama, if I may strain the analogy. Look at the spectacular dark glasses symbolizing wings in flight in Macri’s The Bat, the Birds, and the Beasts. This is also apparent in the compelling collection of photographs entitled 2008 posted on YouTube. Therein Macri presents several headshots, each with a pair of sunglasses, the heads often covered and held at different angles, even the lips are posed, the face mostly unshaven and, of course, the famous play of hair styles. Many viewers understandably imagine or sense sexual implications and fantasies because all the handsome photographs exude a provocative, seductive aura, and the glasses contribute to the erotic tension. We cannot, however, neglect

the element of play in many of Macri’s portraits, wherein eyewear of one kind or another, including sunglasses, sometimes serves a satiric, even self-mocking purpose. We do the artist a disservice if we take his portraits at face value or lose sight of the role of humour in his work.

I suppose the great question is: why are Macri’s eyes covered in so many of his portraits, either by sunglasses, cosmetics, raiment or masks? I have written extensively about Macri’s art, often going over the same terrain because his work is so intricately modelled and photographed that one viewing is inadequate. Frankly, I shift my understanding so often that my thoughts about it feel as if they’ve been captured by Procrustes, who needs to twist and turn and reshape them to fit his bed. That, dear reader, is a pretentious metaphor to express a simple truth. Macri’s art eludes me; therefore, I am always changing perspective and adjusting to new perspectives and opinions. Sometimes exasperated beyond patience, I metaphorically pull my hair and gape like the troubled soul in Courbet’s The Desperate Man, whose large black eyes immediately draw the viewer’s attention.

We all know sunglasses are connected with identity, mystery, and eros. If we can’t see the eyes, how can we see into the person? But Macri is not inviting us into his own self; rather, he is asking us to see aspects of nature, reality, alternative ways of being and seeing, and to recognize aspects of our own selves in his portraits. He is asking us to enter into the mystery of things, to recognize shadow and subtleties, dreams and desires, fluid genders and shifting identities, and freedom from the limitations of logic and ordinariness. We need only to remember what he accomplishes in Utterly Fungible and the Suspension of Disbelief, Backstage Evidence, Mercury of Golden Fleece, Icono Emoter, Phenotype Bardo, to confirm the notion that he’s working against the conventions of self-portraiture and shaking expectations. When he wears no eye covering, then his eyes usually are directed away from the viewer in order to maintain the mystery. The superb application of cosmetics often darkens or obscures the otherworldly eyes, and here otherworldliness is of the essence.

Like many people, I wear sunglasses, not because of mystery or sex, but to protect my eyes from the damaging effects of the sun. Paint me or photograph me in sunglasses, however, and arguably they become something else, acquiring a new function. Artists and photographers have long been fascinated with mirrors and reflections.

In some respects, sun and other glasses elicit the same attention. I think, for example, of a specific photograph called Glasses by Andreas Feininger. The photographer holds a large circular magnifying glass behind which we see one of his eyes enlarged behind the equally enlarged lens of his eyeglasses. Within those layers of glass appear reflections and lights, so the portrait becomes an exploration of the magnitude of sight and the act of seeing.

Go back to Macri’s “eyes” works SP2019 and SPApr2020, and notice the reflections in the oversized lens of the glasses behind which his just visible eyes do not look directly at the viewer. The eyewear in both portraits not only enhances the essential mystery of the man and contributes to his allure, but it also demonstrates Macri’s stunning sense of colour, light, texture, and the psychological and erotic depths achieved by averting the glance and costuming the eyes. Not all his portraits, though, featuring sunglasses incorporate reflections. I think of a dramatic portrait SPDec2019, wherein nothing is reflected in the large black glasses, each lens a solid patch of black as if taken from a Japanese print, although subtle light plays upon the skin and lips. A composition built upon the interplay of black colour and shadings, the relationship between hair and robe so finely interconnected that I spend a long time gazing at it, fixated by the portrait’s erotic shimmer. If I may be allowed to quote from one of my first essays about Adamo Macri’s self-portraits: “They bring to mind the underlying tensions of play and carnival, the subterfuge of satire, the powers of pretense, the discomfort caused by exposing in nuanced ways what has been suppressed or repressed, the spirit of carnival, Mardi Gras, if you will. They silently mock and sabotage conventional pieties of appearance and decorum, not to mention blowing up standard portrait idealizations by commercial photographers” (Facing the Faces).

I don’t pretend to have explained the entire purpose of eyeglasses in Macri’s art, but they rivet my attention like other elements, whether it is hair, robe, mascara, or even the lips, those dramatic lips. I never

sense mere arbitrariness or careless selection in Macri’s art. He is rigorously in control of what he does, or else the portraits would not succeed as well as they do. Because of the particular difficulty they pose in photography, eyeglasses present a great challenge to the artist and performer, as well as to the viewer. He masters the necessary technical skills and applies his unerring sense of theatre to present mind-altering portraits that invite the intellectual and emotional involvement of the viewer, who risks becoming possessed by the mystery of Macri’s eyes.

Kenneth Radu has published books of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, including The Cost of Living, shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. His collection of stories A Private Performance and his first novel Distant Relations both received the Quebec Writers' Federation Award for best English-language fiction. He is also the author of the novel Flesh and Blood (HarperCollins Canada), Sex in Russia: New & Selected Stories, Earthbound and Net Worth (DC Books Canada).