Kern's Girl(s) of the Week - Susan and Anne

Every week Richard Kern invites us to his L.E.S. apartment where we go through a huge box of archival photographs from his long and checkered career. Today’s featured models are from a film he made in the 80s called The Evil Cameraman.

VICE: This is a bit different from the rest. When were you doing this?
Richard Kern: This was 1986 or ‘87, a really old shot. Her name is Susan. It was a still from this movie The Evil Cameraman. I shot the movie right before I got clean—back when I was a drug dealer and all that crap.

Here’s another.
This is a Japanese girl called Anne. It was the first time I had hung out with an Asian girl. Back then—I don’t know if this sounds racist or not—but there weren’t Asian people everywhere.

There were less Asian people around back then?
Yeah, especially Japanese in New York City. Now--and this sounds racist, it’s not racist though--there are a lot more interracial couples, let’s put it that way. It’s not such a big deal. But back then you never saw it. I mean, maybe a Vietnam vet would come back with his wife from Vietnam, but you didn’t really see—it wasn’t much like that. I hung out with her a lot, I did tons of drugs with her. I sent it to Canada one time, back when I used to distribute my own films. Customs seized it and they launched this secret investigation into me as a child pornographer. They thought she was a kid.

How did that pan out?
Well, I’m still around. [laughs]

How’d you find out about all of this?
I found out because a friend of mine in Sweden who did a magazine that I contributed to got picked up and questioned in Gothenburg. It’s like, "What? You guys are after me?" I was freaking out. That whole thing prompted me to get model releases and IDs from everybody I shoot.

Previously - Freckles