René Capone

and Hedgehog Boy

Out to Save the World
An Interview by Nelson Santos
Nelson Santos (NS): You grew up
in the rural town of Niskayuna, New
York. What was it like and what kind
of things did you do as a kid?
René Capone (RC): I grew up in
a trailer park that was surround-
ed by the woods. I would play in
the woods constantly, hide and
seek, swords, or just pretending
to escape. My brother and I built a
huge tree house near a graveyard.
We’re talking multi levels! Entirely
unsafe, and wonderful…I did ev-
erything in the woods, and I do
mean everything…
NS: Did you draw a lot?
RC: All the time. I remember draw-
ing The Muppets and Frog & Toad,
from the book series. It was one of
the things that helped me through
some awful and tough times as a
child. I think the ability to draw and
play pretend, literally, saved my life.
NS: You ran away at age 15. Why
did you leave?
RC: I left because I didn’t want to be
hurt anymore, and I realized that I
had freewill and power. I came from
a disturbingly broken and dysfunc-
tional family. My mother shot her
second husband, my then stepfa-
ther. He survived and I was living
in a cold basement with his family,
next door to a very creepy grave-
yard. I was verbally abused to the
point of psychological ruin, and the
physical abuse was just the icing on
the cake. They hated me and I knew
it everyday. I wanted to die, I tried
to die, but then one day I looked
out the window and thought, “I’m
just leaving and that’s that”. I ran off
to try to find my mom, but I didn’t.
I was put in a mental institution for
two months until my grandmother
took me in. She’s been my support
and we are still close. ment, and I’m certain that for a de- RC: The Legend of Hedgehog Boy René Capone,
Kiss and Kill, 2007,
NS: You are very brave, that’s a veloping child, years of abuse dig is a graphic novel about a boy who Ink and watercolor on paper,
lot to go through at a young age. in like a screw and leave a very big runs away from home into an imagi- 24˝ x 22˝
Your work continues to examine the mark. It’s not always clear how it af- nary world in order to survive. He is
struggles and isolation of childhood fects my everyday life but one of the obsessed with clocks and books but
and adolescence. reasons I started Hedgehog Boy can neither tell time nor read. Once
RC: Who I am was forged by the was to stop the very intense flash- in the woods he puts a giant hedge-
developmental years of my youth. backs of physical abuse. hog on top of his head and declares
There were a lot of really intense NS: Tell me a little bit more about himself a monster. His imagina-
fucked up years before that base- Hedgehog Boy. tion fuels an alternative reality.

Number 30 • Spring 2009 The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation 21
Above: René Capone, In his world boys live in isolation
Tremble, 2005,
Watercolor and mixed from society, wear animals on top of
media on paper, their heads and talk to living teddy
20˝ x 16˝
bears. Deep in the woods he finds
Right: René Capone,
Page from Hedgehog Boy another boy, whom he affectionately
Graphic Novel, 2009, calls Kitty after placing a cat atop
10˝ x 14˝
his head. Kitty teaches him to read,
and through this the boys bond and
fall in love…
NS: So there are some similarities in
the stories you’ve just told me. How
much of Hedgehog Boy comes from
your childhood?
RC: I’d say almost all of it, but the
characters are pieced together from His neck stopped sticking up right RC: It was sometimes a little rough,
a few different periods of time. The after that. He was kind of a fucked being gay and out in a transitional
beginning is very real...and the rest up E.T. at that point, but I still carried period—people are nasty bitches
is me picking apart the universe in him around. in high school. I was the kid all the
my own weird way. NS: What are some of the other tragically cool girls would go bitch
NS: Why a hedgehog? themes in your work? to in the art wing. We wore black,
RC: He’s an animal you think would smoked and were the pinpoint de-
RC: Time, fantasy, courage, love.
want to be touched yet is not re- piction of that Generation X-Y peri-
Man’s internal knowledge of himself,
ally touchable. Something bad hap- od. Mr. Honicki, my high school art
and that relationship to the world.
pened to that animal and Mother Most recently I found that charac- teacher, looked the other way as
Nature gave it spikes. I don’t think ters do these themes justice in my we took over the art hall. He was a
he wants them...but he’s “burdened work. A story is like magic, it grows great influence and made me go to
by swords”. and engulfs and along the way, college—Parsons. My best friend
NS: Your story also includes sweet people find bits of themselves in the Gillian lived near me, she just hap-
and light-hearted moments. There is characters. pened to be a butch lesbian that
a character named Frank, who is a liv- I adored. That made it easier, we
NS: Do you think of your work as queer
ing Teddy Bear. Did you have a spe- really grew up together. There was
or having a queer/gay reading?
cial stuffed animal friend growing up? a path in the woods between our
RC: I was allergic to everything and RC: Most certainly, and I’m happy to houses. I actually became a les-
wasn’t really allowed to have too be part of that. I think my artwork really bian for a few years, flannel and
many stuffed toys, but I did have a shows a young generation of “queer”. boots—and I can sing Melissa
hairless E.T. doll. E.T. went every- NS: Speaking of young and queer, Etheridge songs backwards in my
where with me, even in the bathtub. what was high school like for you? sleep.
22 The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation Number 30 • Spring 2009
René Capone,
I Am a Monster,
Hedgehog Boy
Graphic Novel, 2009,
10˝ x 7˝
NS: Did you have a high school
crush?
RC: Yes, his name was Luke Cassidy.
He was the other school homo. We
made out to Diamanda Galas in his
bedroom after school. How avant-
garde for 17...
NS: Your work is also very sensual
and sometime sexy. Do you consider
your work erotic?
RC: Sometimes. I’ve made some sexy
stuff, but I did it with intent. I have
never done it without other meaning
or content. Sex is a powerful element
to put in a piece of art.
NS: Your earlier work often focused
on isolation, but your current graphic
novel introduces new characters. How
do you see this change?
RC: I think it’s because I was so lonely
and traumatized by my childhood that
I learned to be distant, but as a young
man of 30 I want to know where I be-
long and with whom. So this graphic
novel is really about character inter-
action, both good and bad.
NS: Where do you see yourself in 20
years?
RC: Leader of a cult. A cult that saves
children...
René Capone lives and works in San
Francisco, CA. He has had several
solo exhibitions. His graphic novel,
The Legend of Hedgehog Boy will be
published in March 2009, and artwork
from Hedgehog Boy is on display at
the San Francisco Library through
March 5, 2009. For more information,
visit www.renecapone.com
Nelson Santos is an artist, the Associ-
ate Director of Visual AIDS, and a fre-
quent contributor to The Archive.
Number 30 • Spring 2009 The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation 23
SERAPHIM: PHOTOGRAPHS
BY DOUGLAS TURNBAUGH
An Interview By Bill Caldwelll
Seraphim:
Photographs by Douglas Turnbaugh
Taurus Editions 2009,
100 pages, $ 45.00
Bill Caldwell (BC): Your photos represented
in this book are in the “appropriated images”
genre, that is to say pictures of pictures made
by somebody else. This collection of still pho-
tographs you’ve made from porn films played
on your television screen over the past couple
of decades. How is an appropriated image dif-
ferent from the original image?
Douglas Turnbaugh (DT): It needn’t be dif-
ferent in any way, but even if it is merely
transferred it is not the “original.” If an exact
copy is manufactured to deceive, then it is
a forgery. As an artist-photographer, I take
photos of subjects that intensely interest me,
whether found live on a beach or on a huge
billboard or in a grainy newspaper ad. I often
find fabulous images in other photographers’
work. If they represent perfection to me, I
would never touch them. But when I see an
amazing image, neglected or undeveloped,
an endangered species, I want to save it, to
stockpile it with my other finds, in hope of
re-presenting it. As with these otherwise lost
boys from old porn films, I want to salvage
their ethereal beauty and ecstasy, and thus
make it part of my own life experience. Aes-
thetic intervention on my part ranges from
subtle to quite obvious changes including
cropping, distortion, focus, shooting at an
angle, and color manipulation. My photo-
graphs are virtually original, my creations:
nobody else has produced them.
BC: What about the craft of photography?
DT: So many people believe that evidence of
high-level craft—“look at how he has painted
every single little blade of grass”—is a basic
qualification for High Art. That attitude has de-
valued photography in art: it was “too easy”
and “anybody” can take a picture, while only a
real “Artist” can paint one thousand blades of
grass. Currently, signs of the making or craft-
ing of a work are minimized. Richard Prince
has said, “I treated my photographs as ob-
jects (not photographs).” I feel exactly the
same way. It is not in the craft but in the object
that interest lies.
BC: What were you looking for when making
this collection?
DT: I wanted, from miles of footage, the single
frame that captures a beautiful young man’s
face in that split second when it is distorted
by reaction to the excruciatingly overwhelm-
ing force of an ejaculation. Whether he is in the
throes of breathtaking pain or ecstatic pleasure
is moot here: we know he is a working porn
star at the moment of the “money shot.” These
young men are experiencing the climax of that
virile drive which propels them into ecstasy.
Note: There will be a publication party for
Seraphim: Photographs by Douglas Turnbaugh,
Tuesday, May 12, 2009, 6–8pm, at the Leslie/Lo-
hman Gallery, 26 Wooster Street, NYC 10013
Bill Caldwell is a retired businessman, and active
in volunteer organizations in New York City.