Soon after witnessing that wasteful gesture, I decided to tackle in writing the question of why – contrary to conventional economic expectations – owners might choose to waste their own property and, more interesting, why these actions have such eerie resonance. Why should destruction and loss be so thrilling? My suspicion that I’d stumbled across some unnamed taboo was confirmed when, after I asked a prominent property professor to supervise a paper I wanted to write on the topic, I was told not to bother because “People don’t deliberately waste their own possessions.” Oh yes, they do.

I did write that law paper, and even went on to write a bad novel that played with the same ideas, but I was dissatisfied with both. Neither the academic nor the fictional framework allowed me to convey the power and mystery of these actions.

Several years later, in New York City, Dana and I crossed paths. We’d known each other since college, but I hadn’t seen her for some time. At this point, Dana had become a well-established artist, and I found her photographs tremendously potent and provocative. Energized by visiting her studio – and seeing pieces like Monies and Bikini Brawl – I hoped we could find some project on which to collaborate.

Then, over coffee one morning, after Dana had read my essay on profane waste, we realized that this was a subject that we wanted to grapple with together.

My writings had frustrated me because even when I felt I’d captured my concept of profane waste, mere words couldn’t manage to shock, to dazzle the reader in a single moment. The density and immediacy of Dana’s photographs, however, could capture the explosiveness of profane waste as words alone could not. Working together, we could present a vivid account of this rich, strange phenomenon. And so we undertook Profane Waste.

One thing we discovered during our collaboration was that we embody both sides of the waste taboo. Dana loves profane waste gestures – in her shooting, she was exhilarated by the burning of a hundred-dollar bill (an actual hundred-dollar bill, not a fake) and by the ruin of a thousand-dollar outfit she’d given to a messy young painter to wear in the studio and by the spectacle of me ironing her photograph Uptown Downtown. She loves the power that comes from deliberately and violently editing her own images. I, on the other hand, feel the taboo so strongly that I recoil from profane waste gestures, though I’m mesmerized by them – obviously – at the same time.

I’m pleased that Dana used me as a subject, in photographs such as Dewar’s Mother and Storage. Playing this role gave me insight into how she works and thinks, and how the notion of profane waste could be revealed in an entirely different way.

In the end, our goal for Profane Waste was to force into view a category of action that hasn’t been properly recognized and understood. Profane waste gestures may seem irrational, and their uncanny significance inexplicable, but with this project, Dana and I hope to lay bare intentions that stand outside conventional goals of acquisition and accumulation.

Dana Hoey
I met Gretchen through her college roommate, Megan Matson, who is the Pregnant Smoker. I remember a foggy moment (my own), pierced by Gretchen’s voice, speaking crisply and brilliantly about group dynamics. I immediately wanted to pit people against one another to reveal social dynamics – a practice that has defined my photography.

Later, we spoke about the vagaries of power money fame & sex for her book of the same name. I was included in Gretchen’s book as an example of a “power couple” – which, like a name tattooed on the butt, proved to be unlucky for that marriage. On my way out of that life, I read her elegant essay, “Profane Waste.” It came at a critical time, offering a way out of a cul de sac I’d arrived at in my work. (I saw group dynamics; they saw group sex; what the hell.)

I made photographs that reacted to the text right away, photos of people literally performing the act of profane waste. For example, although I was quite broke, a friend and I burnt a hundred-dollar bill for the photograph Profane Waste. I could have used Photoshop to change George to Benjamin (and saved ninety-nine dollars). But it was a supernatural, slightly demented thrill to actually enact the ritual.

Photographers have insisted that their images are not just realistic “illustrations” – they stand on their own as art. My work has dwelt on the wall, making an argument for itself painting style. But I’d hit a wall regarding the politico-aesthetic power of such art photography. Each time I produced an image of an aggressive female, capable of acting in the world, the image was flattened and reduced to its tissue-thin cultural essence: sexual viability. Therefore, the photograph’s status on the wall, and as its own object, needed to be actively called into question. I loved throwing away the “art” photograph by enforcing a “minor” status in relation to text. This was a way to shift the power balance in my work away from pictorial readings, to the photograph as residue of performance. The images will derive their power not from a macho position on the wall but from being attached to the spine of Gretchen’s thoughts.

Breaking the taboo against waste was fun and scary. For Empty Fountain, my friend Adrienne and I threw fifty dollars into a fountain, which was incredibly stupid and wasteful. There was a smiling man watching us. I fought the urge to pick up at least the quarters but let it go. Later, we checked, and all but the pennies were gone. Whoever picked up the change was just too good for the pennies. Dana S. destroying my fancy suit, dumping dollar bills into pig shit – all these actions were cathartic and liberating. The one thing I absolutely could not throw away was a juicy rack of barbecued ribs.

Perhaps it was destructive superstition to have used only women, and often pregnant women, in these photographs, in hopes of giving them power outside their peculiar, often debased images in the world. I trust the voodoo of profane waste.