Lead image: untitled 2020 (Green Rug, 1976) 2020 Acrylic and newspaper on linen 11 7/8 x 15 3/4 in.
Check out more featured artworks below.
Jacket and coat by ZEGNA, sunglasses by DIOR, necklace is talent's own.
What are you working on at the moment?
At the moment, nothing.
Nice.
Yeah, I'm kind of just chilling. I've been doing some mockups at the crib. I need to actually not work, but sometimes the brain just keeps moving. So I've been doing some mockups at the crib because I'm supposed to have a show next year, so I'm kind of thinking about what the fuck that might look like.
Is that how you work? Do you paint for a period and then have a break and then come back fresh? Or are you always painting?
At this point, I go from show to show, so really the in-between time isn't that long before I'm scheduled for another show somewhere in the next couple of months or whatever, so I got to start working.
Coat, leggings, shoes, bracelet and ring by MM6 MAISON MARGIELA, sunglasses by FENDI.
When did you start painting?
Professionally?
No, like when did you first pick up a brush?
I can't even remember. I've been doing it my whole life. Like, kindergarten.
Did you always know you wanted to be an artist or was there a point where you kind of switched and thought, I could do this full time?
When I was younger, my initial thought was to be an architect. I was always into artwork, drafting and doing things like that, but I didn't know of an actual professional artist, you know what I mean? I was good at math and shit like that, and I was into drawing, so I thought architecture and drafting would kind of be a good way. But then I got too far into trigonometry and shit, and I wasn’t trying to do all that.
So it was like 2009. Honestly, it was around the Kanye Graduation album. I remember sitting down watching 106 & Park, and Kanye was on it. I think he paid Murakami, like a hundred thousand or some crazy shit to design the album cover, and I was like, ‘Who the fuck is Murakami?’ I looked him up and I saw all the artwork that he was doing and all the shit that he did for Graduation. I was like, ‘Oh shit, a nigga alive right now is getting paid X amount of dollars to work with Kanye off this drawing and painting shit. Alright, bet, I'm about to start. I'm about to figure out how I could do that.’
Before then it had never occurred to you that it was a realistic option?
No, the only artists I ever thought about were Renaissance period people, like Michelangelo. I knew graffiti artists and stuff like that, but the idea of contemporary art wasn't really privy to me. So yeah, the only reference I had was just historical figures in the art world.
Coat, pants, shirt and shoes by DOLCE & GABBANA, necklace by MARTINE ALI, sunglasses by GENTLE MONSTER X MAISON MARGIELA.
How would you describe your own painting style?
It's like deconstructed portraits, if you will. I feel like a lot of times when people try to interpret what I do or try to copy what I do, they more think it's collage work, like you're building up. You know what I mean? Taking the imagery, putting images on top of images on top of images. Whereas I'm taking what I feel is a solid theme or an idea, and I'm pulling back layers and revealing things that are going on internally more than I'm building up and trying to put on an outward persona or something.
It feels like that deconstruction relates to the complexity of identity in your subjects. Does that take influence from the complexity of your own identity?
Yeah, it really came from the complexity of my own identity because I was born in Brooklyn but my mother's from Guyana and my father's from Trinidad. So having immigrant parents and having a Caribbean background, and then at a young age moving to the South and living in different parts of Atlanta, it gave me different perspectives of an immigrant Caribbean lifestyle versus a New York Black lifestyle versus a Southern Black lifestyle. So it's three different ways of going about life that I got in pretty rapid progression from my parents. Then I lived in Atlanta for, I'll say elementary school. Then I came back to Brooklyn for middle school. Then I went back to Atlanta for high school. Then I came back to Brooklyn right after high school. So every time, it was like a three, four year period where I was just taking knowledge from here and there. And also as a child, I went to a magnet school in Atlanta.
What's a magnet school?
It's like a school for high achievers. You have to get tested into the school. So during that time in that school for fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, I was maybe the only Black person. It was like 98% white people. So the way I was treated in that school and the way that people spoke to me in that school also kind of garnered where my mind was at as far as identity, because I never really felt at home nowhere, you know what I mean? I was a little bit too white for the Black kids, too Black for white kids. I had a Caribbean background so I wasn't really a Black American, but I didn't fully adapt to the Caribbean background, I felt like I was more like a Black American. So, yeah it was kind of playing into all those identities.
How did you find the difference between Brooklyn and Georgia in terms of your creativity and your painting? Were you more inspired by one place than the other or it didn't really change?
Atlanta gave me a lot of the groundwork and the knowledge about Black American history that comes from that part. So that kind of helped me form what I would say was my art style. And then when I got to New York and actually started going to the museums and going to The Met, and the Thursday night gallery walks and shit like that through Chelsea, it gave me more of the perspective of the actual art world. So it was like blending the knowledge that I had from childhood and then bringing it up here and contextualizing it within the art world.
Jacket and coat by ZEGNA, sunglasses by DIOR, necklace is talent's own.
I want to talk about this studio space we’re in; the 71st floor of the World Trade Center. How did you come to get a studio here?
I came to get a studio here because one of my fellow artists and peers, Zeehan Wazed. He's a very big mural artist out in Jamaica, Queens, and he works for a lot of real estate companies, and one of the real estate companies that he works with has a space within the World Trade Center. So through a lot of leveraging, a lot of the friendships he's garnered over the years, he was able to ask for me to be a part of this floor because he's actually my neighbor on the floor; he's the guy right here to the left of us. So when he asked that, I actually got a chance to meet with the guy that ran the floor, Dara, in Miami, randomly next to Coyo Taco. Zeehan called me, he said, “Yo I see Dara right here, bro. You got to get down here.” Me and Twin was at the Airbnb, hopped in an Uber and got over there in 15 minutes, walked in, casually talked to him. Zeehan had already done a lot of the groundwork; let him see my artwork and let him know who I was as an artist. So when he finally got a chance to meet me in person and put the pieces together, the only thing he said to me was, “I’ll see you at the World Trade Center.” I sent over a few emails and they gave me my passcode and my security card, and we was up here, been up here since January.
You must be one of the only creatives in here. Obviously not this floor, but in the building.
In the building, yeah. It's really funny to see when you walk around, you walk downstairs, it's like our floor is a bunch of artists just covered in paint and shit like that, and everybody else is working for a tech company.
The security is crazy too. It’s wild.
I mean this building has Spotity, Uber, fucking StubHub, so there’s a lot of major companies in here.
Coat, sweater and pants by OFFICINE GÉNÉRALE, sunglasses by LOEWE, shoes by SEBAGO.
How did the opportunity to meet the Pope and give him one of your paintings come about?
The opportunity came about through my mentor, Domingo Zapata. So I worked for Domingo between the years of 2015 to 2018, and in 2018 he started doing work with the Pope’s charity, Scholas, which was talking about the importance of arts and culture in underprivileged areas. So he reached out to me one random night and he’s like, “I'm doing this thing with the Pope’s charity, just give me a painting, no matter really what it is, just give me something. We're trying to sell some work for some kids and shit.” I gave him the painting and he called me back two weeks later. He's like, “Yo, since you gave me the painting, the Pope is doing some shit at the UN. You got to come to the UN, they’re doing this little charity event, and you'll give a mini speech. If someone buys your painting, then the Vatican will pay for it. They'll fly you and the person that bought the painting out to the Vatican to have a one-on-one with the Pope.” This is December.
Fast forward to January, we go to Miami and at the end of the trip he asked, “Are you ready to go meet the Pope? We're flying out.” I think it was like May 21st through the 25th or something like that we was out in the Vatican. I have another friend that also flew over there by the name of Daniel Mazzone, another incredible artist out of Toronto, Canada. And honestly, truth told, it was Daniel's idea because was like, “Yo, you should paint like a Black Jesus, that would be hard. If you do a Black Jesus and bring that shit to the Pope, bro, that shit will go crazy.” I sat on the idea for a while but since I seen his big ass painting, I was a little insecure of myself so I started doing a big ass painting. Then I started looking at shipping costs and that like, how the fuck I'm getting this big ass painting over? So scratch that, I did one like a quarter of the size.
Right, something that could fit inside your luggage.
So we get to the door of the Vatican, we’re doing the security checks and Daniel and a bunch of other artists, got these big ass paintings outside. They go to the security gate and they won't let them inside because the paintings are too big to bring in. So I go to the security guard and I show him my shit. I'm like, “Yo, I have this personal gift I have for the Pope. Do you mind if I bring it inside?” He looked at it and said, “It’s small enough, just keep it tucked under your arm.” Perfect.
I go inside and they do this whole walkthrough. You are not supposed to take videos when the Pope is there, you're not supposed to do nothing when the Pope is there. Back and forth we go. The Vatican's hot as shit, they ain't got no AC, so we in there sweating bullets. Everybody fully three-piece-suited up, you feel me? So we in there hot as a motherfucker, it’s May. It takes three hours for the Pope to even show up. So the nigga show up through the door, everybody's on “Your holiness”, “It’s such a pleasure to meet you”, “This is such a great opportunity.” I'm not super religious as a person, so I was just kind of chilling in the cut. So yeah, he pulled up on me, it was my turn. He looked at me and we had a little bit of conversation. I had an interpreter there. The interpreter spoke horrible English so I just ended up speaking to the Pope. I was like, “Yo, man, it was a pleasure to meet you, brother. This is an honor. I'm happy to really be here. I came over here and I brought this gift for you. It's just something I just want you to personally have, it's a painting that I did.”
It seemed like his reaction was pretty positive, right?
His reaction was positive. He took it out of my hand. He held it up. He looked up and down. He's like, “Oh yeah, this is good. This is good.” Then he talked to the security man behind him with the earpiece in, and he told him to take care of it. The security wrapped it up, put it to the side, and me and him finished having our little conversation. And then he tapped me on my shoulder and he said, “Make sure you pray for me.” I was like, “Yo, but you the Pope, you're supposed to pray for me.”
[Laughs] You said that?
Yeah, I was kind of caught off guard. If you see the little video on my Instagram, at the end he says that shit to me, my face kind of screws up.
I'm going to have to watch the video back now, that’s funny.
It's like, what do you say? He's like, “No, but I need you to make sure you pray for me.” I say, “I got you.”
Do you pray?
Yeah… in more of a spiritual way.
Like, giving thanks and that? Me too.
Yeah, I ask the universe for some things and, you know, I receive.
Coat, shirt and pants by HOMME PLISSÉ ISSEY MIYAKE, sunglasses and shoes by LOEWE.
Has there been any experiences over the years that have been integral to your expression and direction, the way you choose to perceive the world through your painting?
Yeah, the time period when I was working for Domingo was very integral. He showed me that any material that you need to use to get your narrative or your point across, you should use. Whether it comes to spray paint, oil sticks, acrylics, oil paint, he'll use whatever and whenever he needs to on one of his pieces. So that was very integral to me. I always thought to be an artist, you had to pretty much be a master in something. So if I was doing acrylic, I was only doing acrylic. If I was using charcoal, I was only using charcoal. But seeing him mix and match charcoal and acrylics and oils was kind of the basis of how I got to the point where I was at style-wise. It feels like it's a lot of different styles, but it cohesively kind of marries itself together.
Right before my BLK & BLUE show in 2018, I took a trip out to Paris with my friend Vernon O’Meally, and we got to go around and see a lot of original artworks. So that was my first time really seeing a lot of things that I had seen in books, in real life. And that's why I really got introduced to Caravaggio and seeing his work in person really changed the focal points of how I was even creating artwork. And I got a chance to go to the Musée d'Orsay, I know I'm pronouncing it horribly, but it's a big museum out there in Paris, and I got to see the Morse paintings from around the same renaissance time. So that was the first time I actually saw depictions of Black skin in the same period as the Renaissance period, which you only got to see those white figures.
I never thought about that.
Yeah, so it was really cool to see how they highlighted Black people's skin and highlighted people of color’s skin and the emotions that they showed, and some of the narratives that they were telling during that time period. So, that was integral, and that's why BLK & BLUE was the first step into the new foyer of how my artwork kind of started taking the direction to where it looked to this day. Because before that, it was really more cartoony, it was more comic-y, something like the one that you see behind you right there. But then when I seen those paintings, I was like, Oh, no, I can really paint. I really want to show niggas that I could paint. Because a lot of times people thought because I was doing all the extra line work, that I was trying to hide my mistakes, which it wasn't really that, it was just an expression. So when I heard that too many times, I was like, Oh, let me pull back on doing so much line work and actually sit down and paint. And then BLK & BLUE is the first show I did oil paint too. So that was me showing that I actually have a real skill and talent with this. I'm nice like that.
Jacket, pants and boots by HERMÈS, sunglasses by MIANSAI.
Throughout your years as a painter, is there something you've learned about yourself?
I'm really good [laughs].
Is there a message you hope your viewers take away when they see your art?
The message I hope the viewers take away from my artwork is that in those moments that you don't feel seen, always remember that someone's seeing you. You know what I mean? Don't ever feel like you are alone or that your experience is a solo experience. There are people out there watching, there's people out there seeing what you're doing, and there's people out there that still believe in you despite what you might be going through. Yeah.
We spoke about your nieces and nephews last time, and the excitement they get from Googling you and seeing you pop up and stuff. What are your hopes for the next generation?
My hopes for the next generation, honestly, is that they have the opportunity to actually get to see the generation after them. You know what I mean? And get to pass on some of the things that hopefully I've instilled in them because it's a great moment and it's a great feeling when you can do that for the youth. It is a really good feeling. I actually went to my little cousin's funeral — just because we talking about it — he was 17 years old, nigga got killed, like three days before my birthday.
I'm sorry to hear.
But I used to draw shit in his comic books with him and shit. My older cousin showed me a text message that she had with him in October, right before he came out here to visit, and he was asking where I stayed at and what I'd be up to because the nigga wanted to come visit me. And just to see that and hear that and think, Damn, if I would've stayed around a little bit more, if I had maybe been more active in those moments, I could have furthered that instead of that moment being cut short.
Coat, sweater and pants by WILLY CHAVARRIA, sunglasses by LOEWE, shoes by BURBERRY.
Is painting something you can see yourself doing forever?
Yeah. I've always had visions of myself being in a wheelchair. I even thought about myself being found dead in my goddamn studio or some shit. Yeah, wheelchair, bed, hospital bed, wherever the fuck they put me at, where I'm laying at the end of it, I'll be using some kind of pen or pencil to draw something, paint something.
If you weren't painting, what do you think you'd be doing? I know you mentioned architecture before, is there anything else you could see yourself doing?
You already know, man, I'm gonna be an actor. I'm gonna be an actor, I’m telling you. I'm just waiting for the opportunity. I know some people in that field, you know. I'm just waiting for them to see something in me and book me with that role, baby.
Did you do theater as a kid?
Hell no [laughs]. I just believe in myself.
Yeah, that's what's up. That's all it takes, really.
If we see it, then I feel like we can achieve that.
Check out some of Malik's artwork below.
Partial undress in required to enter The Meeting, where a pile of shoes greets visitors, as Bennett has installed a white wall-to-wall shag carpet in the apartment’s living room to accompany what is presumably the gallerist’s furniture: a grey mid-century couch, a stack of art books, and a circular white coffee table on which The Joy of Sex is displayed for visitors to peruse—all so aptly suited not only to the era of the book’s publication but to the form and function of Bennett’s work. After taking off your own shoes and sliding across the soft carpet in socks, you’ll find yourself caught in the reflection of eight mirrors, each etched with a drawing inspired by the publication’s illustrations.
Given the content of the drawings, their re-presentation as mirrors—particularly the largest of the group which pictures a couple copulating on the floor in front of a full length mirror—recalls a view one might encounter in a bedroom outfitted with mirrored sliding closet doors. I used to think that such fixtures were the epitome of a tacky aspirational middle class, installed in apartment buildings with dirty beige carpeting and linoleum countertops for people deprived of good taste or self respect.
A mirror in this context seemed, to me, equivalent to Le Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation apartment building in Firminy where highly streamlined spaces for an efficient existence proved widely out of touch for the low income demographic that they were built for. Excess belongings, veritable garbage, piled up on the balconies when the individuals that inhabited this modernist building couldn’t afford or maintain the curated lifestyle and Platonic ideal that Le Corbusier believed would simplify their economic and domestic lives.
Mirrored doors, across from one’s bed, seemed to perpetuate the same false promise. Instead of picturing a refined existence, and an effortlessly, permanently sexy self, these doors would inevitably reflect back at the individual the overflowing stuff of their unmanicured existence—piles of clothes, unhoused makeup and toiletries, a stray condom wrapper—and the various bodily experiences that we deny experiencing, even to ourselves.
But I recently stayed in a beautiful apartment, admittedly beyond my means, that had mirrored closet doors across from the bed—and there is now nothing I enjoy more. Bennett’s work only serves to compound this realization. His drawings, like The Joy of Sex, outline various positions and are titled accordingly: frontal, hand work, matrimonial, breasts. While none are remotely surprising—I’m sure any and all teenagers have encountered far more explicit content—they are, simply put, satisfying: bestowing upon the viewer the opportunity to see into the private lives and behaviors of other people, to take stock of what was once societally believed to push the boundaries of “normal” fetishization.
On opposite walls a series of three and four sequences unfold across the mirrors, one picturing a man on top largely obscuring the woman beneath, and concluding, somewhat unexpectedly, given the rather, let’s say, tame nature of the positions, in bondage; and the other chronicling the woman’s “hand work.” Her eyes are at first closed, but in the final image as she rides her partner, his hands on her breasts, she makes eye contact not with him but with us, the onlooker. It is this moment, and this sequence, more than the others, that engenders a visceral experience.
Many female friends have recounted to me an out of body experience during sex, whereby it is not so much their partner but themselves that they fantasize about. At the opening, which proved ripe for admissions of both exceptional and traumatic sexual experiences, a friend recounted an encounter with a too short, excessively hairy man in a hotel room with a mirror on every surface including the ceiling. When I inquired how this could have possibly been “some of the best sex of her life” given her description of the man and decor, she clarified “I only watched myself.”
A sexual experience, any experience, in front of a mirror becomes a performance, in much the same way that an experience in front of a camera becomes a performance, irregardless of an audience. The photographic documentation of Bennett’s exhibition that pictures a frontal view of the works includes a reflection of the camera on a tripod such that it simultaneously becomes an avatar for the voyeur and a threat of your own capture as a participant.
Despite the absence of the camera in the moment of viewing, we anticipate its existence, not only evidenced by our own instinct to take a picture, but by our bodies, which intuitively alter their behaviors to account for the voyeur’s eye. Echoing this phenomenon, the press release sites Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness,” wherein the author describes the realization that he is being watched while looking through a keyhole at a couple having sex: “When I am aware that someone else is watching me, I experience a transformation. I am no longer simply a being-in-the-world, freely exploring the environment; I am now a being-for-others. I feel myself pinned down by their gaze, transformed from subject to object, as though their perception of me has defined me.” I would extrapolate this for the present to say that we know we are always being watched and, in a culture that privileges images over experiences, we intuitively perform for the phantom camera.
In the second episode of Sex and the City, Carrie’s artist friend, Barkley takes the most pride not in his paintings but the nonconsensual videos he records of his sexual exploits with models. Carrie, and most people, find the practice horrifying, Samantha finds it thrilling and endeavors for the rest of the episode to sleep with him so that she might too be secretly recorded and thus validated as “as beautiful as any model.” She makes it into bed with Barkley, but when she remarks about the absence of a camera, he says he only tapes models, though eventually consents to make an exception. So as the little red light turns on, Samantha turns her attention to the camera and makes eye contact with us, the viewer.
Samantha’s performance—like my friend’s and, I would assume, that of most women—is not so much for men, but for herself. The men are there, yes, we need them to complete the fantasy, but ultimately we are most turned on by ourselves. The anticipation and desire for one’s own image encapsulated by this scene seems like the logical evolution of Lacan’s mirror stage, which asserts that around six months old a child can first recognize themselves as an object in a mirror as opposed to fragmented collection of experiences. The ensuing self-alienation unlocks a libidinal desire. It is, you could say, objects rather than subjects that turn us on. Samatha is most compelled by her own objectification, so is my friend, and, admittedly, so am I.
Bennett has explored a similar binary prior in a video titled Subjects and Objects (2022) wherein found footage chronicles a wide range of instances in which people have developed emotional attachments to objects: falling in love and, even, expressing a desire to make love to them. While he examines in particular the affective presence we project onto objects and their ensuing double ontology as both inanimate stuff and pseudo-sentient characters, when considered in conjunction with Lacan’s mirror stage and the fact that we must all confront our own objecthood, the emotional attachment to objects exhibited by the individuals in Bennett’s video becomes far less surprising or abnormal. In many ways their attachments are no different than our own—we all love objects.
If The Joy of Sex was once evidence of a sexual revolution, it seems almost fitting, whether intentional or not, that Bennett chose some of the most tame illustrations at his disposal. A reflection perhaps of our present, as author and former sex worker Charlotte Shane writes in a recent essay in ArtReview that "We may dwell in a pervert’s paradise," referring to the proliferation of content at our disposal: OnlyFans accounts, dating apps like Feeld and Grindr, endless free porn, "but no one invokes the specter of sexual revolution or utopia, not anymore. We venture few dreams for the future, erotic or otherwise." What was once explicit may now be banal, but that doesn't mean that we live in a more sexually liberated world: Shane chronicles the criminalization and curtailing of sexual and reproductive rights as well as the personal and activist responses to these trends that increasingly take the form of abstinence and, in the case of the 4B movement, swearing off men altogether.
My own sexual fantasies are politically incorrect. But while men might welcome this, women recoil, so I have become loath to share such thoughts openly and am by extension a participant in our collective self-censorship. Bennett's work may be further evidence of this inward turn: the sex we have is more often than not with ourselves and our reflections, whether that be in the blacks of your computer screen while on PornHub, or the mirror across from your bed. What he provides though, via his doubly ontological gambit—that reprises a device for introspection as one of public performance and consumption—is a prompt and maybe, even, an invitation.
Henry Whitford: Did both of you guys grow up in New Jersey?
Ben Krueger: We did. I grew up in South Orange.
Doug Krueger: I grew up in Union.
Doug, when did the photography thing begin for you? Was it something that started at the beginning of your life or did it come around later?
DK: My father would shoot while growing up, definitely more casually than anything else. The camera he would shoot on was a Canon A1 which would eventually end up in my hands at the age of 13 or 14 years old. My passion eventually started growing at the age of 21 when I picked up a Yashica T4 brand new from the store. I still have that camera. I still shoot that camera. Henry: Did you get this Camera in the city? Doug: Yeah I got that in New York City. I was working in New York City at the time and I dropped by at a local camera shop afterwork. Picked up the Yashica and the guy working behind the counter said to me, “Oh, you're going to love this camera”. From there, what really kicked me into high gear was when I took the camera on my honeymoon and I came back after going to Portugal and I was showing some of my photos to some family members, and they said, “Wow you really have something. You really have an eye.” From there, after getting some encouragement the photography took off, and then I was full force into it.
That's great. I'm always curious to hear about the story where someone's interest in photography begins. I have another question for Doug, when you were first shooting, were you doing the processing yourself?
DK: No, I was just going to the local labs at the time. For me, it was more about the shooting and that whole process of creativity on that side. Back at that point in my life I never had any interest in the processing side of photography. It was not until this journey of starting our own lab began when someone had moved us to go buy this machinery for processing did we start figuring this shit out.
And what was that learning curve like when you guys dove into the processing side of the film world?
DK: So what happened was in our naivety, We found a place, I guess, online that was selling machinery. And then, Ben and I were like, Oh, it'd be cool if we could just come home and start scanning our own photos and do our own process.
BK: We also wanted to archive all the negatives that Doug had shot over his lifetime. But, also I was really getting into analog about nine years ago. Once I was on the analog train again, then Doug got back on the analog train after being on the digital train for so long. But with wanting to scan negatives of photos taken of our family we wanted to get the best possible scans possible. Which pushed us even more to take on this challenge of doing it ourselves because the majority consumer options were average. Which brought us down the rabbit hole of trying to find out what is available that is lab grade and can get the job done.
DK: The rabbit hole was that we found a wholesaler where we bought our first Noritsu scanner, the 600. While we were at the same place we went into the back and saw all these machines for developing film. The seller was trying to get us to buy one of the developing machines but we decided to hold out to see how the scanning would work out.
DK: Then a couple of months pass by and we think to ourselves that it would be kind of cool to own a developing machine. We're like, we could probably get it down to the basement. We go back, we pick up the machine. The guy brings it to us. Unfortunately, the machine had to get down these very steep basement stairs from the outside of the house. It's a 200-pound plus object. It's awkward. You don't want to break it. You don't want to drop it. Well, needless to say, we got it down there. But, man, let me tell you something. It was really like sweat and bullets getting this thing down.
BK: It took three months to get the machine running. Three whole months to get the machine running. I think that really, looking back on this, it's a testament to just how difficult it is still. There's no college degree in starting a photo lab. There's a lot of the legacy people that were involved in that industry that either want nothing to do with it anymore or have since passed because that was another era. There's a lot of figuring it out for yourself. But then there's the real issue because you have to constantly run the machine. Which we weren't really made aware until the thing was operational that you got to run the machine. At that time with that machine, it was at least 10 rolls a day, which we weren't shooting that much between the two of us.
BK: What we resorted to was reaching out to friends and asking them if they need any development done. And that's how the ball started rolling. During this time I was being trained to create what's called a flat scan and something that you can work from the negative that you can tailor and edit to your liking. I was doing that, and we were dialing in our machines that way, and people started to take note of that when we were sharing our work on Instagram and when we were talking to friends. It was this moment where people were recognizing that there was something different going on here and we began operating as a pop up.
LEFT: Ben Krueger, RIGHT: Doug Krueger
How long were you guys operating from the basement?
BK: We started the summer of 2018 which is when we got the developing machine working. That's really where we consider the beginning of this because the scanner was the year before, but it wasn't really with any idea of creating a complete lab service. Then in December 2018 we started operating as a pop up. In short, we were in the basement from 2018 to February or January of 2020.
What was it like operating from the family’s basement?
BK: We had two machines at that point down there. We had probably about four or even five people working at a time on rotation besides us being managing the operation. The mail would come through the backyard, in these big bags and we would do this handoff in the backyard. Like a drug deal. It was a great place to kick things off. But once the fishbowl got bigger, so to speak, we really grew into that very quickly, and that's when we moved.
After you guys left the basement where did you move to?
BK: We moved just the town over to Maplewood. We moved into this really great commercial office building. Within a year of moving in I would say our team doubled. Then that's really when we could start growing things properly and taking it really seriously.
I saw on your website that you have dropboxes for film around NYC and even in Savannah, Georgia. I was wondering if you could elaborate on how these dropboxes function?
DK: The idea of the Dropbox is that we want to have a presence in neighborhoods. We want people to be able to feel like they don't have to ship their creative process. We want to simplify the process as much as possible. Also a part of our other ethos is collaborations. For example, in New York City, we have a drop box in a store called Knickerbocker.
BK: With Knickerbocker it's very cool because it is more of a human interaction that occurs because you go up to the counter and talk to one of their team members, and they then provide you with the envelope to put your film in. In a similar fashion to the way people mail into us, all they do is they just place their order on our website ahead of time, and then they just fill the envelope, write their name and order number, and they can be on their way.
Is there anything that you guys do to keep your prices affordable for your customers?
BK: I think we constantly are evaluating not only our process, but we're very much on the page of quality first. Then I think that the benefit of having our headquarters in New Jersey is that we can have more space and more equipment and at a fraction of the price that it would cost to be building in New York. That also is a key factor here that we are a New Jersey-based lab that can service the whole country, and that you can live anywhere, you can mail to us, you can drop off at a box. But our headquarters being in New Jersey, I think allows us to keep prices affordable, which is important in a world where film is not a necessarily affordable medium.
DK: By having New Jersey function as the main headquarters for the lab, we have been able to maintain competitive prices and keep a very high quality product. A product that is in our minds, but also in our customers' minds, one of the best.
What would you guys say is your favorite part of being in this business?
BK: For me there are a few things, one is I do enjoy working with our team. Our team is very passionate, and very committed to photography. Which is important to us because there is a connection that you can make to the quality of work someone will contribute to the team and the work that they're making themselves. We try to foster a creative environment for our time so that they improve their work and continue to work on personal projects. We conduct critiques where we talk about our work, and we always are interested in the latest developments in the community and in the industry.
DK: I will add to that. I have just three points. One is being in business with my son, so that would be the first. Working together, going through the creative process together to work and to grow Gelatin. Two I would say is community involvement. What I really love is the whole community of photographers and the privilege it is to know a lot of these photographers, which to me is very wonderful and exciting. The third would just be, really, at the end of the day, building a business. That, by the way, is really the icing.
I also understand you take a lot of orders via the mail. What is that process like of shipping negatives to Gelatin?
BK: Yeah. I mean, 90 % of the orders that we fulfill are mailed to us. And we have customers in all 50 states. So that's been amazing. This business model really started during the pandemic where a lot of labs were closed, but we were operating out of our basement. A lot of the same clients that were using us then, still to this day, send us film. And we are continuously working on making that process as stress free as possible. We have even developed a serial number system that allows us to give our customer updates on every stage of the developing process.
With this business model of receiving film via the mail, do you ever find yourself excited about the fact that you have the privilege to see photos from all around the country?
DK: I love it. I'm amazed by the passion and by the fact that people are still picking up a freaking analog device and choosing to spend more money. I'm touched by the fact that we are able to function as a central hub of where all this stuff is coming in and going out, and we're able to process all of this.
BK: I think that there's inspiration from getting work from customers and the community that's working with Gelatin. There's inspiration there for us to keep going and keep building. I hope that what we're doing is inspiring people to go out and shoot, and that by them shooting and sending their film to us, we then in turn are inspired to make that process better for them. I see people growing their communities, following their art, being a part of shows in the city. I think that that loops back to us and we say, wow!
