ART DANIEL NICOLETTA Castro Street Fair, August 1976. Movable art piece by Violet Ray. DANIEL NICOLETTA’S SAN FRANCISCO In his book LGBT: San Francisco (Reel Art Press), photographer Daniel Nicoletta documents the history of San Francisco’s LGBT community over the course of four decades, with Castro Street as its main thoroughfare. From the heady days of gay liberation to the horror of the AIDS epidemic and the push for marriage equality, his photographs bear witness to culture being created, to people relating to each other in unprecedented ways and, eventually, to those same people fighting for their lives. We spoke to Daniel about his work, his memories and his hopes for the next generation. Divine at Trocadero Transfer dance club, October 29, 1978. TEXT BY TOM CAPELONGA PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL NICOLETTA 110 111 ART DANIEL NICOLETTA You moved from New York to California in 1974 when you were had something about Mama José in [his ABC miniseries] When 19. What attracted you to San Francisco? To be truthful, I was We Rise, which was great to see, but I think a fully fleshed-out actually pretty clueless about San Francisco versus, say, Oakland. narrative is long overdue. I did have a whole mythical construct around California that propelled me, but at the end of the day, I sort of tossed the coin What is your earliest memory of HIV and AIDS on Castro on colleges and ended up at California College for the Arts in Street? Oh god. My earliest memory, believe it or not, is when I Oakland. I started immediately going over the bridge to see movies was at a party. I had my little duffle bag packed and I was going at night, and I just fell in love with San Francisco right away. It had to the baths. That was my segue for the night. But I remember the feeling like, Oh, this is probably where I’ll end up living. someone at the party saying, “Oh my god, I don’t think I’m gonna go to the baths anymore,” and, “This is really scary, what’s You famously worked in Harvey Milk’s camera shop. What happening.” There was this palpable sense of fear. I think that was Harvey like as a boss? For me, Harvey was great. [Laughs] was one of the first markers for me, because my peers were I had a kind of autonomy, but he had a very fiery persona, as basically talking about changing their MO. I hadn’t yet. legend tells it. I learned early on not to pick fights with him because you would never win. And then I did just fine. We got I had a similar experience looking at your work as I did looking along pretty famously. at Tom Bianchi’s Fire Island Pines book — I couldn’t help but wonder how many of your subjects were lost in the epidemic. It’s fascinating to see stills from Gus Van Sant’s 2008 film Milk Is there anyone in particular you miss the most from that time? alongside your original photos in the book. What was it like Miss Kitty [performance artist Dan Jones] was kind of a vessel for you to relive those experiences and reinhabit that physical for a discourse in my body of work around the HIV epidemic. space? Well, it was 10 of the best weeks of my life being on that We became friends, I became his caregiver, and he was one of movie set because when I was a filmmaker at the age of 17, I the first people that gave me carte blanche to document his had my sights on Hollywood. So to be actually working on a film narrative as a gay man who was struggling with HIV. He didn’t was pretty exciting. And then it really didn’t hit me until just make the cut in terms of the protease inhibitors. He died just before the film premiered. I’m home alone at my computer and before that. I’m seeing scenes from the movie for the first time, and there was something about it that just opened the floodgates. I sat at I’m sorry. Yeah, but we did amazing work together and it helped, my desk just pouring tears that really had not come yet. It was you know? He found the work therapeutic, and I in turn got part of this weird permutation of mourning the guys for the first to have that conversation within my own body of work, where time. The depiction reached down into the core of my being and it’s always this delicate balance of discussing AIDS without wrecked my world in a way that I had not anticipated. succumbing to disaster porn. Having somebody invite me in and say, “No, I really want to do this.” There was just amazing The sexual culture of San Francisco in the 1970s has become synergy between us. the stuff of legend. How did it feel to come of age in such a liberated time and place? Was it as romantic as it comes off And of course I lost him. But right before he died, the New York in depictions of it? The way I like to describe San Francisco Public Library was buying some of my work, and I brokered and the Castro in the 1970s is that there was an impulse that a deal with Rodney Phillips, who was my liaison there. I said, was invested in co-creating communities and making the world “Look, there’s this amazing person and this amazing body of a place for LGBT people. The way it trickled down, everybody work of his drawings and my documentation of him. Why don’t was feeling that ebullience, so you literally couldn’t go out of we do a box and get it to the library so that his work can stand your front door to buy a loaf of bread without the street turning the test of time?” And Rodney was like, “Yeah, of course. into a big kissing and hugging fest. And the next thing you know, That’s a no-brainer.” So I got to go back to the hospice and say you’d be finding out where the next potluck was or what your to Dan — his nickname was Miss Kitty — “Honey, I made this film group was doing. It really was very charged like you’ve arrangement where your work can be in the New York Public imagined it to be. Some of us, we were slow starters in the sexual Library in perpetuity. Is that something you want?” He was revolution, but within a couple of years I was in the candy store really, really weak, and he just basically nodded his head — yes, just like everybody else and had lots and lots of fun. absolutely yes. He got to find that out before he passed on, so I thought that was pretty great. Chris March at San Francisco LGBT Pride, June 30, 1996. You’ve photographed so many amazing performers like Divine and Sylvester. Do you think any of your subjects should be more How do you think young queers today can better honor the widely celebrated today? One thing I’ve learned is that there memory of the generation lost in the epidemic? Oh gosh, that’s a are these ebbs and flows of capturing people’s imaginations. great question. Well, you know I’ve been chewing on a Grace Paley So I’m patient, but I’ve always felt that José Sarria was just quote, “The only recognizable feature of hope is action.” I just fell as important as Harvey Milk, if not more so. If you know his in love with it because it’s the next level of discourse after Harvey’s story at all, he was really on the ground floor for strategizing hope speech. Harvey talks about the importance of hope, but she how to turn around the entrapment of gay men in the 1960s. basically said, “Yes, that’s all very well and good, but it’s technically So there were things happening in San Francisco even before an abstraction.” The way to take us out of that abstraction — into Harvey Milk. José was one of the key players, and I feel like the streets, if you will — is to take action. To actually do something we’re going to be hearing more about him. Dustin Lance Black about your sense of hope. 112 113 ART DANIEL NICOLETTA Harvey Milk in front of his Castro Street camera store, circa 1977. Harmodius and Hoti, August 1975. Also Daniel’s favorite photo. Your photos show the importance of queer spaces. Is it troubling If you had to select one photo from the book to represent the to you that so many of these spaces in cities all over America, entirety of your work, which would you choose? Well, we put it especially in San Francisco, are in danger of closing or have already on the cover, of course. [See above.] closed? Yeah. I keep thinking of David Talbot’s book Season of the Witch and how he paints this picture of a metaphysically Oh, it’s so good. It’s such a fabulous image. I mean, that was me. charged place like San Francisco, where some of the good and That little 19-year-old, pimply faced, cockeyed optimist sent out the bad things were in this incredible stew of cultural thinking with three rolls of film by Harvey Milk, who said, “Look, you don’t and cultural ways of being.