Milk, Razors, Scissors: Martine Gutierrez on Her Paris Photo Meltdown

Last November, the artist, actress, and photographer Martine Gutierrez was invited to give a lecture at the esteemed Paris Photo fair. No stranger to spectacle, Gutierrez opted instead for a performance which quickly turned into a scandal. The premise of LOTTERY was simple: the subject, Gutierrez, gifted each audience member an envelope. Those with winning tickets were then invited to take control of her camera, directing the artist to pose in whichever way they saw fit. Naturally, the stunts grew more and more promiscuous and, after 60 minutes of snapshots that left the artist milk-soaked, semi-eyebrow-less, and semi-nude, fair security draped a trench coat over her bare shoulders and escorted her off the stage. So how is she feeling about the work ahead of her forthcoming show at Ryan Lee Gallery? A little turned on, and perhaps a little emotionally burdened by the 700 images the audience captured. As she told Interview’s Mel Ottenberg last week over eggs, it was all about the thrill of losing control.

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MEL OTTENBERG: It’s so cold, Martine. What are you wearing today?

MARTINE GUTIERREZ: Ripped Margiela, ripped Versace, ripped—oh, we’re on the record.

OTTENBERG: Yeah. This sweater is insane.

GUTIERREZ: For our readers, you’re just grabbing your stomach. I don’t mind.

OTTENBERG: This is 50.

GUTIERREZ: And it looks great.

OTTENBERG: The problem is that I haven’t been working out.

GUTIERREZ: I saw a picture of you younger recently and I actually think you’re sexier now.

OTTENBERG: Thanks, babe. Appreciate that. You have a beautiful foot.

GUTIERREZ: Where’d you see that?

OTTENBERG: In the video that you sent me from the show in Paris. I think you have a sandal on. Am I wrong?

GUTIERREZ: It is quite, yeah, open. I need an open toe.

OTTENBERG: Do you think that women will catch onto the way that you’re dressing? 

GUTIERREZ: Old Hollywood? I personally just think it’s what works for me.

OTTENBERG: Yes. It’s daytime old Hollywood too.

GUTIERREZ: Right. It’s a little Hasidic. 

OTTENBERG: It’s like Hasidic femme fatale. So Martine, my fellow RISD graduate, when does your show open?

GUTIERREZ: What have you heard? You asked for pictures.

OTTENBERG: You showed me pictures. Can you explain the story? We want the monologue.

GUTIERREZ: But I want to know what you’ve heard because maybe there’s some records I need to set straight.

OTTENBERG: I’ve only heard—hey, are you having lunch? We should eat something. 

GUTIERREZ: Yes. I think I’m going to do the breakfast egg thing.

OTTENBERG: The omelet? Do you want to try my order? I think it’s really a good idea.

GUTIERREZ: Yes. Okay. 

SPEAKER 3: You guys are still deciding, right?

OTTENBERG: No, I know. She’s going to have an omelet with onions, peppers, and mushrooms. An English muffin, extra crispy, and a side of bacon and a side of avocado. No potatoes. And I am going to have…

GUTIERREZ: Figure it out.

OTTENBERG: I’m trying to think. I’m going to have…

GUTIERREZ: A stroke.

OTTENBERG: I’m going to have a literal stroke. I guess I’ll have the same thing because I can’t think of what I’m going to have. So we’ll just have two. Okay. So what I know about the show is that you did this thing at Paris Photo where the audience was involved and it was great, but then it got out of control and you had to be pulled away by security. 

GUTIERREZ: Do you like that movie Crash?

OTTENBERG: I do. I just rewatched it. I have the DVD. 

GUTIERREZ: So you have a thing for collisions—because that’s what it felt like. I was turned on. I was turned on by how out of control it was. I tend to find myself in chaotic spaces like at the club. It felt like being young at the club again and the black swan of it all, head rolling back, making out with someone that you don’t really want and then you’re like, “Oh, I don’t want this.” When you talked about security, it was that feeling. I was so—I don’t even know how to tell this story.

OTTENBERG: What was the premise of the performance?

GUTIERREZ: So Paris Photo is the biggest, most prestigious art fair for photography. And my gallery, Fraenkel Gallery, they always get this big gorgeous booth in the middle of the fair. This year they arranged for me to have a lecture and my lectures tend to be these performative, wild-card events. And so I made it very vague. “This is a once in a lifetime experience called Lottery.” I think it weeded out anyone that was not game and opened up the floor for some real freaks and fans. Some friends came, but it wouldn’t have happened the way it did if it happened in New York.

OTTENBERG: So the lottery was what?

GUTIERREZ: It was essentially a situation of me playing dominatrix and asserting this authority that I have in my practice onto the audience. Everyone who came in the door was given an envelope. I watch a lot of TV, so I think there was an amalgamation of Willy Wonka, Oprah, and America’s Next Top Model where I’m your host, like, “You get a car, you get a car, you get a car.” I was like, “Open your envelopes, in your envelope is a number. If that number is called, you will come down to the front and we are going to collaborate on a portrait of me.”

OTTENBERG: Okay. 

GUTIERREZ: I set it up like, “Tonight we discover the next great photographer from Paris Photo.” This kind of folk prestige thing that I think everyone knew was satirical. And I had this kind of flirty, funny mistress vibe. I was trying to make the audience feel at ease about their surrender to me since they didn’t know what they were walking into. It was in an auditorium upstairs above the art fair. I just had my coat, my purse, and a glass of milk, and there was a giant LED wall behind me that was connected to my camera and a remote control. The camera was on a tripod, so anyone that came down that was a winner of the lottery was given the remote. And anything they wanted me to do, I promised I would do it. Then they chose when to hit that remote. I was thinking about access and control. I felt like I had hit a wall and that this idea of control was stifling creativity or some kind of advance into the next chapter of how I make stuff. 

OTTENBERG: Right.

GUTIERREZ: I don’t want to be beholden to a three sentence description of what my practice is for the rest of my life. I want to get out of my comfort zone. For example, I’ve only really acted in things with friends, where I know I have control because I’m either writing the role with them or I know them well enough that I can say, “I don’t want to do that.” But I feel like this performance was what every actor does, turned up to the max. You’re asked to have trust in this other person who’s behind the camera and they’re asking you to do this thing and you have to kind of give it your all. And it’s embarrassing and humiliating but I was so turned on by the humiliation.

OTTENBERG: Oh, wow.

GUTIERREZ: I was like, “Oh, wow. It took me being a dom to make everyone else play the dom so I could be the sub.”

OTTENBERG: Right.

GUTIERREZ: I was worried that it was going to be boring and that, because of who I am and the era that we’re in, everyone was going to be afraid of the Me Too of it all, of being canceled. 

OTTENBERG: What were they asking you to do?

GUTIERREZ: I thought it was going to give what we do with our friends. When we take pictures it’s like, “Your neck doesn’t look long enough.” I thought, “You’re a sexy animal on the farm,” was going to be the worst of it. Although I did put scissors in my purse.

OTTENBERG: In case of a haircut?

GUTIERREZ: Yeah. In my mind, I was like, “The worst thing that could happen is bangs.” I was willing to go full Girl, Interrupted.

OTTENBERG: I could see that. That could look great.

GUTIERREZ: It would look fierce. But then the first woman that came down said, “Spank yourself.” And we did that for five minutes.

OTTENBERG: To get the shot?

GUTIERREZ: I just was like, “Girl, anything else you want to try?”

OTTENBERG: Wow. Okay. There’s also a picture where you’re lying down and your tits are out.

GUTIERREZ: Yeah. That was good. It was a lot of, like, “Can you take off your bra slowly?”  And then someone had me do push-ups and then I got all sweaty and then they had me take my sweater off. Someone asked me to call my mom and tell her I was kidnapped.

OTTENBERG: Oh god. Did she pick up?

GUTIERREZ: Yes.

OTTENBERG: Your poor mother.

GUTIERREZ: I know, but I did warn her. I said, “Mommy, I’m doing a performance. I just want you to know I’m in total control. Everything is fine. Whatever you hear or read or see, I’m safe.” And she said, “Sweetie, just don’t bring any guns to Paris.”

OTTENBERG: You don’t have a gun?

GUTIERREZ: I have guns. I’m not an idiot. I didn’t bring any, but I did bring the scissors. I brought a razor. I brought lipstick.

OTTENBERG: Was the kidnapping picture good?

GUTIERREZ: I look really nervous. There are a few pictures where I’m really connecting with the camera through whoever’s behind it, but for the most part, it does really feel like it’s a fly on the wall or something. I’ve never been so unaware in front of a camera. There was too much to process.

OTTENBERG: How long did it last for before it got too rowdy?

GUTIERREZ: It lasted about 60 minutes, and then Paris Photo stepped in and said, “That’s your last one.” And then security took my coat, which is my mother’s, that cream trench, and they put it over me. My tits are out and I’m missing an eyebrow, someone had me shave it off, and then there’s makeup all over from the milk that someone had me pour on my head. It’s also probably also all over my chest because someone had me go down on the floor and lick it off… I think that’s one of the images in here. [She shows Mel her selects]

OTTENBERG: Oh, wow. That one’s great.

GUTIERREZ: But it’s interesting to see my composure go.

OTTENBERG: Sometimes you just want to create a different image, right? I think it’s fun to be a sub sometimes. 

GUTIERREZ: I hadn’t really experienced it before. I loved it, but everyone was so worried. 

OTTENBERG: The people?

GUTIERREZ: Yeah. The audience was very divided. A lot of people didn’t like it. The curators kept being like, “I did not feel comfortable. Are you okay?” I just kind of sat in the office and didn’t know what happened. There was a bit of PTSD, maybe.

OTTENBERG: Rough.

GUTIERREZ: I don’t know. I really don’t want to talk about my feelings. I feel like it’s not relevant. I think it’s much more interesting for a viewer to—

OTTENBERG: When you were sitting in the office, were you like, “Okay, at least I got these fucking pictures.”

GUTIERREZ: Oh no, I didn’t even want to have possession of them. I felt burdened by them. And even coming back to the States, I didn’t travel back with the camera or any hard drive or anything. I just sat on the plane and was like, “Should I shave off the other eyebrow?”

OTTENBERG: Did you?

GUTIERREZ: No. It’s drawn on. You can’t really tell anymore. It was right before Christmas.

OTTENBERG: Do you have a favorite image from the series? And if so, what was the prompt?

GUTIERREZ: The last one. Because it feels like we were in the midst of something and then—

OTTENBERG: You were rudely interrupted.

GUTIERREZ: Yeah. But I didn’t have any kind of stopping point. I didn’t even think about how it would end. There was maybe no other way besides someone calling an ambulance or something. And then it makes me think of Marina [Abramović]—I think that’s why my mom said don’t bring a gun.

OTTENBERG: Right.

GUTIERREZ: I just thought we weren’t there anymore. I was like, that couldn’t happen. That was the seventies, it’s all different. And yet it all went down the same way. What does that say about humanity?

OTTENBERG: Humanity is not looking so good right now. Who was hating on you? Were they, like, hating on you for who you are?

GUTIERREZ: Who am I? Gorgeous, talented.

OTTENBERG: Gorgeous, talented—how’s your lunch?

GUTIERREZ: I love it. I’m just having trouble eating it because you keep talking to me.

OTTENBERG: I know. I love talking to you. So wait, how many pictures are you showing at your show?

GUTIERREZ: So at first I was going to do a flip book and show all of them, because you get the sense of her demise that way. I changed my mind.

OTTENBERG: You don’t want to show all of them?

GUTIERREZ: That’s a lot of labor, and I also wanted to continue the cuckold, especially for New York, my favorite city. I don’t want to give them everything. New Yorkers are too spoiled.

OTTENBERG: Yeah.

GUTIERREZ: So it’s staying in the vault. I’ve decided they’re going to see 16 images of 700 and something. And I’m going to show the last one, my favorite one, and I’m going to show something from the beginning, and then I’ve picked highlights in between, so you get the sense of how we got there.

OTTENBERG: Can you tell me about any particular people that issued prompts? Were they French?

GUTIERREZ: It was very global. There was something kind of UN about everything.

OTTENBERG: Okay.

GUTIERREZ: I know the first woman was from Mexico. There were a lot of French people.

OTTENBERG: Any fans?

GUTIERREZ: Yeah. There was some trade. The men all wanted me to be sexy.

OTTENBERG: Right.

GUTIERREZ: Of course. That’s that one where I’m on the ground. “Can you sing for me a little in French?”

OTTENBERG: Oh.

GUTIERREZ: So I tried to do that. I sing that song, “La Mer, do-do-do-do.” You know the one about the sea?

OTTENBERG: No.

GUTIERREZ: I don’t really either. I made up a lot of words. “Do-do-do-do-do-do.”

OTTENBERG: Is it Françoise Hardy?

GUTIERREZ: Yeah. It’s puss.

OTTENBERG: I was into the puss, Françoise vibes. She just died.

GUTIERREZ: Should I get bangs in her name?

OTTENBERG: I don’t know. I think her hair was boring.

GUTIERREZ: I’m just looking for any excuse, someone tell me to do it.

OTTENBERG: If you had gotten bangs at that moment, during the performance, it would’ve been amazing, but bangs aren’t as main character as you want them to be.

GUTIERREZ: They are very actress. You kind of have to have them if you’re an actress. Any red carpet, it’s like a gown with bangs.

OTTENBERG: Oh my god. You’re right.

GUTIERREZ: Maybe I’m ready to star in a movie. I’ve only really acted in things where I have control because I’m either writing the role with friends or I know them enough that I can say, “I don’t want to do that.” But I do feel like this show was what every actor does, turned up to the max. You’re asked to step in, you’re asked to have trust in this person behind the camera, and they’re asking you to give it your all. 

OTTENBERG: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

GUTIERREZ: Maybe it’s time for a big director. But all my favorites are dead now.

OTTENBERG: You’re like, “Antonioni, call me.”

GUTIERREZ: From the grave. Or we’re learning terrible stuff about them. They’re Nazis. They’re on the Epstein list.

OTTENBERG: I know if Woody Allen called tomorrow, I’d be like, “Unfortunately, no.” Wait, is this show opening in Venice?

GUTIERREZ: No, it’s opening here in New York.  It’s the last Thursday of the month.

OTTENBERG: I’m not here. I’m going to be working in London.

GUTIERREZ: Are you acting?

OTTENBERG: No. I’m styling Lily Allen’s tour.

GUTIERREZ: She’s gorgeous. 

OTTENBERG: Yeah, she’s fabulous. I’m very excited to do it. Anyway, I won’t be here, but I hope everybody comes.

GUTIERREZ: I just want a few close friends. And then I can cry, finally. Relinquish control and show vulnerability.

SPEAKER 3: Everything alright?

GUTIERREZ: Yeah, thank you.

OTTENBERG: I’m sorry this is so long, but it was just so fun to talk to you, Martine. Will you ever go by just one name?

GUTIERREZ: I think I should.

OTTENBERG: You should. You’re very Martine.