Jay Myself

Description: In 1966, with the $25,000 proceeds of a single assignment for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, Photographer Jay Maisel was able to make a down payment for a former bank building on Spring Street, in Manhattan’s Bowery district. For almost 50 years he used the six floor, 35,000 sq ft structure, as a home, studio and to amass a colossal collection of tchochke. In 2014, when he hears that Maisel is about to sell the building and move on, photographer Stephen Wilkes, who apprenticed for him in 1979, returns to make this adoring portrait of his mentor.

As we tour his collection of junk, Maisel describes the aesthetic qualities that he finds attractive in the objects: colour, shape or the way they refract or reflect light. He invites us to appreciate them in his still-life photographs. His candid shots, some of them facilitated by the use of a camera with an obscenely gargantuan, long focal length lens, reveal an unusual sensitivity to colour. He talks about his childhood, his earliest inspirations and the influence of his training with the painter Josef Albers. His daughter and wife comment on what it felt like to grow up and live with his peculiarities.

The annual heating and tax bills of $300,000 have made moving imperative as, undoubtedly, has the offer of $55m from real estate developers. The months-long preparations have to be co-ordinated with military precision. Maisel is traumatised by the realisation that even with 35 lorry loads, some things are going to be left behind. In one amusing sequence, he is seen instructing the bewildered movers on what he considers garbage and what should be packed, including a group of loosely arranged old VCR sleeves.

Merits: The overly effusive appreciations of Maisel by Wilkes and some of the acquaintances and artists he interviews at times detract from this otherwise endearing portrait of this eccentric hoarder. The cigar chomping photographer is unpretentious, plain-speaking, unafraid to pepper his speech with the occasional profanity and is gently self deprecating. And yes, Maisel urges us to look and in the process appreciate his talent.

Rating: Strong language (occasional F-word).

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