ashkan sahihi

We have seen the zeitgeist, and we need a Handi-Wipe. From the proliferation of bukkake websites to those priapic Svedka ads (it's vodka! it's ejaculate! it's vodka and ejaculate!) to Jenna Jameson looming over Times Square, pop culture is — if not exactly come-covered — perpetually almostthere. Ashkan Sahihi, a 40-year-old New York photographer, wittily twists this commercial ubiquity in his latest series. Male and female models are seated in front of a Sears portrait backdrop. Their expressions are ordinary; their faces are covered with what is apparently semen. Shock valuism, for sure, but what's interesting about these images is their banality: it's the faces, not the fluid, that you remember. Sahihi, who is married with two young children, spoke with Nerve about the mechanics of the shoot and his post-orgasmic guilt. Michael Martin

Nerve: What is the title of the series?
Saihihi: Cum Shots.

No ambiguity there.
Exactly. That's the idea.

Real semen?
Absolutely. It is absolutely real.

Who are the models, and who are the . . . donors?
I called friends and acquaintances and asked them to be in the shoot. During the conversation, I made it pretty clear that I wanted them to bring whoever their partner was.

Did you have trouble recruiting models?
At one point it seemed that we weren't making progress. We had twenty volunteers who?d responded to an ad a friend of mine posted in a gay chat. I put an ad on Craig's List and was amazed at the response. But it didn't work out with any of them. Some bailed, others couldn't convince their boyfriends to do it. So the images you see are mostly friends and friends of friends.

Wasn't it strange to see friends take a faceful of come?
Extremely strange, and so normal. A lot of people wanted to do it again when they were done. Afterwards, we would go have dinner and a drink. And I was thinking, that this is really how it is: you put somebody's genitals in your face, and then you go to work. You swallow somebody, and then you kiss someone else hello in the elevator of your building.

So, the idea: when did it hit you?
About a year and a half ago. I wanted to do a series on how I feel popular culture is getting more and more saturated with pornographic imagery whenever something needs to be sold — any product, any TV program. The pimp-and-whore look is everyday fashion. But as people get more and more sexed up, they don't necessarily have a happier or healthier sex life. They don't have a better relationship with their sexuality. My point was not to claim that pornography or sexual self-empowerment were "bad" or "immoral," just to say it's everywhere, and our acceptance of it is a pose. If you told some of the same people who wore pimp-and-ho clothing that you support gay marriages or gay adoption, they'd be up in arms.

So how does a load in the face communicate that?
Semen is a life force. But in pop culture, any sort of sexual activity leading up to ejaculation is portrayed without the life force. Semen really is the beginning of everything, but in most of the images we're given for sexual entertainment, it's the end of everything. Do you agree?

Sounds like a slightly Biblical objection. Like religious leaders telling you not to masturbate because it's wasting your seed.
I think that's a very good point. But the individual masturbating or having sex is in a situation they choose to be in. That's something I stand up for, whether it's gay, straight or my daughters. Once they're old enough to have one-night stands, I want them to have one-night stands. But I want it to be their choice. We're at the point where sex is being pushed as a substitute for sex, oddly enough, instead of having a relationship with your body and your semen. Nobody can tell me that because there are more people running around with their butt cracks hanging out — which is fine by me, I like looking at it — that they have better sex lives. They're just dictated by forces of the market.

What if I told you these images normalize facial cumshots? Shot in such a conservative way, the act seems less repulsive than in porn, more acceptable. So, in a roundabout way aren't you advancing the porn aesthetic and canceling out your message?
I would probably say that I don't think that is possible. If there was any way for you to prove that to me, I would be interested in seeing that.

You don't customarily see real people's faces and conservative clothing covered in come. That normalizes the facial.
To me, it's more of the classical wake-up call. My gallery has never had so many people reacting ? literally within minutes ? to an email invitation. I've had people say the series was disgusting, without having even seen the series. People have been very upset with me and the gallerist too.

How did your wife feel about the series?
My wife is very supportive. She's helped me with my most outrageous series of photographs. She recruited people from her work. But I told her I'd respect her boundaries; I wouldn't do that to anybody.

You mean, come on someone else's face?
I won't go outside our marriage, even for the sake of art. I usually put myself into my shoots; that's always been a part of my series. There was a guy I really wanted to be in this series, and I thought, I'll have him blow me and I'll come in his face. But my wife put in the veto, and I let her. She said, "Please do not come on Mickey's face, no matter how good of friends you guys are."

How was each shoot conducted?
The shoots were kept quiet and intimate. I didn't even have an assistant. It would have been great to have one, because the sperm goes from opaque to clear extremely quickly. With the lights and the heat, you basically have about two minutes to shoot.

Any ? timing problems?
Nope, all I had to do was man the camera.

Did you give the models any special instructions?
Basically, the couples came into the space, we set up, we took a Polaroid before, and then I would leave, and they would do whatever they felt like doing. I asked them to call me as quickly as possible. We'd go straight to film. From the sounds I heard waiting outside, people had a blast.

Did everything land where you wanted it? Or was there a retouching process?
[solemnly] I promise I did not digitize anything. We did not pick up any Q-tips and move sperm around. We did not enhance colors.

Was any stunt semen used?
No, no stunt semen. The other thing I'll say about that is, look, it's men. You can't expect us to have good aim.

Did any of the models have performance anxiety?
Yes, one couple. The girl who was the most traumatized was the one whose boyfriend couldn't get it up. I really looked forward to putting her photograph in the series. But then I thought it didn't make sense, because this is a commentary on how sexuality has been made into a sales pitch, and within that framework, there's no "it's not working." It always works. She was very traumatized.

How's audience response going?
There are those who come in and decide they're going to be blas?, and then there are those who are really disgusted and disturbed. As an artist who needs to send his kids to school, the best reaction is, "Oh my God, these are so disturbing, these are so beautiful, I'm buying one."

When can we expect the female ejaculation gallery?
I'll have one when the fucking boyfriends have more balls to take it up the face. I had three females who ejaculate, ready to model. To see female ejaculation and how much it looks like sperm, how it flies like sperm ... but my friend's fuckin' wimp boyfriend wouldn't let me photograph him with her ejaculate on his face. And the two lesbian couples bailed out for reasons I was not able to get out of them, whether it was anxiety or fear of not being able to come. It was very hard for me not to have female ejaculation.

Would it be art if you shot come anywhere else - on a breast, an ear, an orifice?
For other artists, maybe. For me, no. It uses images of pornography; it provides something to get excited by and with. No artist is needed to do that. You can get it at much higher editions than mine and much lower prices than mine.

How has the critical response been?
Amazing. Extremely strong. The little pebble we threw into the lake didn't make ripples in the U.S., where the show was, but in Europe. The first response we got from Der Spiegel. They reviewed the show literally within half a day. That unleashed a thunderstorm.

A veritable blizzard?
Yes. The New Yorker is reviewing it.

Their perspective must have been interesting.
Yes, they had a very large article that I haven't read, probably because I'm too busy surfing porn sites.

Do you like porn?
I did visit sites. I have no problem in admitting that some of the things I saw ? not necessarily the bukkake I saw ? were extremely exciting.

What did you see that you liked?
One image really stuck with me in my head, but also in my lower chakras. And it was of somebody who I do not find very attractive. I came across an image of Paris Hilton getting out of her car, and you can see her very, very unattractive pussy. And that image ? the horniness we have toward celebrity culture ? gave me a mental hard-on. The picture pleased me as a photographer, too: everything was in there, from the little pack of Marlboros, to the question "Was she aware?" to the car she as driving, to the fact that I thought she had a really unattractive pussy. That image was one single boner for me.

Has this series affected your off-camera bedroom shots?
I've never been concerned about where it lands. n°

Cum Shots can be viewed at the Axel Raben Gallery,
526 W. 26th St., #304, NYC, until Dec. 31.