THOMAS DELLERT
PORTRAITS IN THE LIGHT OF THE NIGHT
This is a series of portraits of my friend and artistic collaborator, Curtis Jones, in Paris; while we were rehearsing a Jazz gig, which we had later that week in St Germain.
Curtis Jones posed with the original 1950s microphone that once had belonged to Elvis Presley
and, of course, with his cigarette, dressed in a golden metal outfit he had designed for himself.
"My protection against death," he told me.
Curtis was as witty and Gay as Oscar Wild, as cool as Miles Davis, as depending on drugs as Jimi Hendrix, talented as few, a free spirit in the word's true meaning, and crazy enough to be a real artist. Curtis was a singer, a composer, a dancer, a designer, a rapper, an actor, and a spokesperson for free sex. Music and drugs were what kept him going, and that, together with Aids, killed him in the end.
"LIFE AND DEATH ARE BOTH ILLUSIONS." -THOMAS DELLERT