I remember the first time I met Robert Heinecken, it was at a Photography dept party. I have already told that story. But the rememberance that I have today of that day is very distant and differs a lot from that story told, even though I had written it shortly after I had lived it. All I remember today is that the party was at someone's patio that was bordered by high buildings, the sun was behind them and their balconies were drawing funny shapes against the sun.

 

I remember that the first times I have worked for Robert, he was a bit confused that this was to help him with the move of his studio, he was very ashamed actually. I could not care less, and it was in fact rather enternaining as Robert was sitting in the middle of the studio telling me, you take that box here and you put it there, you take that box other there and you put it here, at the end fo the day everything had reached a place that had never varied for the year I have worked with him. I have thought again at that incredibly coherent organisation when years later Joyce, had told me that Robert was not doing well and that he would spend most of his days tyding and reorganising his work. It was really painful to think of this waste.

 

I remember the lunch break of that first day, Robert took me to a bar in Wabensia avenue, it was dark, he ordered a pastrami sandwich, I did the same, he ordered me a beer and asked for a sparkling water for himslef. He asked me a bit where I came from, and what had been my studies so far, those were opened questions, I could have not answered them if I did want to. He even asked me what I had wanted to do when I was a child. I had told him that like every other boy my age I had wanted to be a jet pilot on an aircraft carrier. He smiled and told me that that he had already done in the past. He explained to me that before he was an artist, he had been a pilot on an aircraft carreer, it seemed impossible to believe, but Robert had this way of simply telling things that made them impossible for denial. He had read my surprise on my face: as Robert was a rather short man, and he wore long hair in a poney tail that made it difficult to imagine him wearing one of those pilot outfits. He admitted that he was too short, an inch too short to reach the official height limit for Navy pilots, but there was little that could get in the way of such a man, so on the days when he was supposed to go under the measuring stick, he would cut hundreds of magazine pages to fit at the bottom of his shoes, until the next medical check up. I have only understood later the symbolic meaning of that story as magazine pages had always been, in fact, raw material to him.

 

I remember that the first real assistant job I had to do for Robert, was to sort hundreds of magazine pages, most of which were representing body parts, and for every body part there were different piles for scales. With this pages then, he was planning to do hybrid sculptures that were in fast very fragile contructions that would lead to all sorts of transportation issues. One day I offered Robert to try and build a crate that would have the exact required dimensions. I remember Robert's smile, when I came back in the evening with my friend Richards pick-up truck and the crate that would match excatly the dimensions of the creature that was in progress.

 

I remember that once Geoff, Robert's son, was paying a visit in Chicago, Robert proudly introduced me as his french assistant, he was not even kidding, and when I explained to Geoff that it required at least a parisian assistant to sort his father's magazine pages, Geoff smiled and told me that as child he was paid 25 cents an hour for the same job. I thought I was doing really well, being paid five dollars an hour: this was apparently typically the sort of irony that would please Heinecken Father and Son.

 

 

I remember one day Robert announcing me triomphally that he had gone through his annual book balancing throughout the week end, and that he had discovered that his hourly rate was half of mine. I was afraid that he would not be able to afford my salary so I offered him to be paid less, he smiled and refused explaining that his salary as a professor at UCLA was enough to pay those two days a week. But still I was a bit ashamed by the whole thing.

 

I remember that one day I had to sort Robert's slides, there was a whole classification system that I needed to follow and I had to make reports in a large binder, in which I nearly choked at the low prices of Robert's works (even I could have had paid for some work, and so stupid of me not to have done so)

 

I remember that Robert was not interested in the least by technical matters. He would enterely rely on me even for decisions I thought were central but, in fact they would have no importance to him what so ever. Sometimes, only to please me, he would point a yellow cast that in fact was a blue one, as soon as I would contradict him, he would give up and wave to me that I knew best.

 

I remember the lunchs with Robert and Joyce. Joyce was making a soup that would become richer as the week went by, as she would add to the soup the remains of the weeks diner. I was a fly on the wall, enjoying Joyce's warm humour and Robert's cold irony. For example Robert explained to me that in Los Angeles, their house was a bit below David Hockneys, and that everytime that Joyce would set her work on the patio as she would lack space in the studio, Robert would tell her that if she'd coninue to do so, she should not complain afterwards if Hockney would steal her best ideas.

 

I remember that I had to reshoot the polaroids from magazine pages for the series Lessons in posing and to understand finally how these series had been made. I could not believe that Robert had been doing this work so carelessly, shooting from as near as possible with the SX-70 these magazine pages merely tacked on the wall, and, in return, Robert was bewildered by the care I would take to set the lightning. It took me a long time to understand that such considerations were foreign to Robert, but I was understanding his talent at forging these images, making them very plausible lies eventhough part of the forgery was purposely left visible. After that I have not been able to look at a photograph, by anyone, without suspecting its lies.

 

I remember afternoons when I was pasting polaroids on sheets on which the text had been silkscreened, I had to follow registration marks, as best as I could. Robert was rather happy with my pace, so I nogociated with him that I would replace the radio he was listening from morning to evening with some of my jazz tapes, so long as I was busy with the mundane task of pasting those polaroids. He agreed, but I don't think he liked my jazz better than I liked his radio as he switched back to the radio as soon as I was about te leave the studio and putting on the several layers of clothing required to endure Chicago's weather outside.

 

I remember Robert following angrily the broadcast of the Pointdexter trial, when Reagan was called to testify, and that at every question he would reply that he did not recall or remember: I have learned all the swear words and insults that I know in English on that day, listening to Robert cursing at his worst ennemy, Ronald Reagan.

 

I remember a note that Robert had left in the studio for me. It read: "have the windows cleaned". And there was a telephone number. I assumed that this was Robert's phone number for the day if the need be. I had obviously misunderstood the note and started to clean the windows in the studio and in the appartement above. I spent most of the morning doing so when Joyce came back for lunch and she wondered what the Hell I was doing hanging out the third floor's windows and cleaning them. I told her that Robert had asked me to do so. She was mad and called Robert, and was really yelling at him, telling him that he should never ask Phil to do such things, that I was an assistant, not a janitor. Robert had a terrible time trying to explain to Joyce that he had left me a note, and that I was supposed to call a number to have someone coming over and clean the windows. After that I had a terrible time myself explaining to Joyce that in France it was not unusual that a photographer's assistant had to use the broom and mop the floor. Anyway I don't think that Robert thought too highly of his french assistant on that day.

 

I remember that I did not always understood what Robert was telling me and that Robert always had trouble understanding what I meant, but generally speaking we would get along well.

 

I remember telling Robert this story of my mother recognizing herself as a child in an old Robert Frank picture, Robert thought that is was extraordinary, and assured me that he was going to call Robert Frank to tell him and even to see if it was not possible to get a print for me. The following week, Robert was ever so disappointed that Robert Frank had only shrugged his shoulders, and as I was showing signs of dispappointment as well Joyce explained to me that it had become Robert Frank's reactions to almost everything. I understood later that what had disappointed Robert the most was that he had missed an opportunity to please me.

 

I remember the broadcasts of the Pointdexter trial that made Robert so angry listening to. Later I learned that Ronad Reagan had Alzheimer and I was very happy the day he died. Motherfucker. Tonight I am terribly saddened to have learned that Robert has passed away. And how unfair I find that Robert has suffered from Alzheimer. Reagan loosing his head was hardly a waste, quite the contrary, it could only be an improvement, but the thought of Robert classifying and reclassifying his old work in the studio, as Joyce had told me, that was ever so sad to me. What a disaster!

 

I remember receiving a letter from Robert in the south of France (he had asked me for an adress where he could reach me in the summer). In that letter Robert was giving some news about the series of images that he had started when I was over there. I kept this letter for a very long time, as a remarkable souvenir, I liked Robert's irony in it, mocking himself struggling to finish the series without the help of his french assistant. I have lost this letter in the flooding two weeks ago.

 

I have been Robert's assistant for a little less than a year. I have seen him a couple times after that on different occasions. I could never say that I knew him well. Quite the contrary, we were so foreign to one another. But everyday that I have spent in his studio, I have felt like witnessing some miracles, most of them I would not understand on the spot but sometimes weeks later. Eventhough Joyce has invited me several times to show Robert my work, and thus benefiting from what he was doing so well as a professor at UCLA, I have never felt the need for it. To watch Robert working in the studio which was just as spectacular as watching a chess play in slow motion, was indeed a remarkable teaching experience.

Robert Heinecken died on May 19th 2006, he was 74.