The Taste Report™: Zackary Drucker
Exploring history as inspiration and queer aesthetics with the iconic artist, filmmaker, and friend.
Welcome to The Taste Report™, an interview series exploring and explaining taste from people who have supremely good taste.
If you like this story, don’t miss a free conversation on crafting queer narratives and translating identity into writing this Saturday at 10AM PST / 1PM EST / 7PM CEST with Rax Ishida Will. Learn more and RSVP here.
I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago, who was gushing about an incredible documentary they watched on the singer Amanda Lear and the speculation surrounding her gender, that she is trans. Enigma, the friend explained, was the title — and a big chime went off in my head: I knew the film. I hadn’t seen it yet, but I remembered reading about it as it premiered during Sundance earlier in the year — and it stuck out because a friend directed it: Zackary Drucker. I shared this with the friend, who was a bit shocked as such Hollywood connections sound quite bizarre thousands of miles from home, out of the context of Los Angeles. But it was true, and I didn’t realize that the film had come out, unsurprisingly getting international buzz (or at least it had bubbled up among a completely separate friend group).
Zackary and I first met in the early 2010s in Los Angeles when I was chronicling the LA art world via a blog I ran dedicated to the subject, created as a means to celebrate and elevate a scene that was constantly overshadowed by a certain towering east coast city. I knew of her work from various local shows and performances she was doing, struck by her playing in front of and behind the camera in her practice, blurring the space between observer and the observed. Her work capturing the life of — and her relationship to — the late drag queen and activist Flawless Sabrina cast the two as a queer parent-sibling duo. In Relationship, she and Rhys Ernst shared their time together, settling into life and into adulthood and into respective identities. The work went on to be featured not only in the inaugural Made in L.A. at the Hammer in 2012 but also the Whitney’s Biennial in 2014. Zackary worked on the now-era defining Transparent, eventually helming her own works like the mini-series The Lady and the Dale and the documentary The Stroll. We’d been in touch over the years, briefly connecting, and this friend sharing Zackary’s work seemed like a sign. Why not reach out and see if she’d like to chat, to be featured in The Taste Report™? She obliged and, after some schedule alignment, we had a cute lil chat.
But this conversation goes beyond something so simple: Zackary was one of the first artists I interviewed and one of the first stories I did as a (Journalism? Nonfiction?) writer that really stuck and struck, going beyond both of our respective worlds, serving as a key moment in shared history. The piece came out in April 2012, as her sun was just rising. It was the first time I really spent time with her, a few hours at her house talking and taking photographs, one image taken by Bobby Aaron Solomon going on to define a slim era of her work. I still stand by the story that was written, declaring her an “art star” which, more than a decade later, seems to be a truism given the circumstances of our reconnection: she is a star, one that I’m very lucky to not only follow but to have in my orbit. This was why talking to her felt like something pressing, a public check-in more than a decade after that initial interview.
In mid-October, we caught up for a touch over an hour, filling in details on each other’s lives that go beyond what is glimpsed online and sharing in plans and projects that percolating for the two of us. As you’ll see, I was reminded of just how someone like Zackary is connected to worlds beyond this one, that she is deeply tethered to the spiritual, which sucks you in, gives you hope, making you feel like you too can be found. She speaks about ideas that are based in the present but hold universal truths, a reminder to always zoom out. She — like I — is a Taurus, something we shared in as we chatted and checked in on our astrological journeys.
On this last day of Transgender Awareness Week — a complete happenstance as far as scheduling — pull up a seat and spend some time with Zackary and I, to soak in a lil queer love as we explore how history can be an aesthetic tool, making works about icons, and the importance of shared points of view.
KRF: How would you define your taste? Describe it to me. What does it look like? What is the “aesthetic,” if that’s easier?
ZD: Aesthetics are very important, and so is tranquility. In my everyday life, I am meticulously clean and I have a hard time functioning in complicated spaces. Style is innate. It’s a matter of discernment, of exposure, of seeing many things and having curiosity. I am a keen observer of life and human behavior and environment, and I feel blessed to have seen different, well curated spaces. I come from a modest family and background but, in particular, my mother is very good with interiors, and she decorates with bright colors. Her sister is into animal prints, Hollywood Regency, sleek colors, black marble. More eighties, more nineties. Their eldest sister was all about antiques and the early twentieth century. Between the three of them — and two lived in different places as well — it was a lesson in curation and understanding: you can express yourself in your environment and in your style, with what you wear, with all the elements. It should be a la carte. It should be totally unique.
KRF: I was gonna say — and to jump ahead a little bit, as it speaks exactly to what you said: one thing I am struck by in your work both as a visual artist and in film and documentary is your ability to carry history with you, whether overt as in documentary or working with people who have informed your life in your visual works. You wear that information quite openly. I think that’s such an important input for you. Has history always been a driving force? Or has that been something that sort of has developed over the years?
ZD: It’s a great question. I was at the Rose Bowl flea market yesterday, which I’m sure you miss —
KRF: Oh, yes. Believe me: I do. There aren’t good flea markets here, sadly for me.
ZD: Objects have their own lives and that’s something that you invite into your space. You acquire a new piece. I much prefer vintage. Occasionally I’ll buy something new, if I absolutely have to buy something that doesn’t exist from the twentieth century. I like to offer a new history, but I also like to imagine the histories that I’ll never know, cultivating objects. There is so much that we will never know about our own selves, about our predecessors, about our ancestors. Being somewhat in touch with the spirit realm, I’ve caught glimpses of those past lives of things, and it was inspired by my own interfacing with the elders in my life, who had deep histories. My great grandmother lived to be 98 years old. She was born in 1896 and passed when I was 10. She was this magical time traveler to me. English was her fifth or sixth language. I was captivated by this person who grew up in a shtetl in the wilderness of southern Poland, who moved to New York City in 1914 and liked to crossdress with her friends. There are tons of photos of her cross dressing! The idea that I could also live a very long life and have adventures and be a part of history — to witness history — I feel like we chose to be here, or like our souls chose to be here now. That gives me a certain measure of comfort. The fascination with history is innate. It gives me meaning, and it offers answers to the riddles of modern life. We don’t always have the answers but, if we can empty ourselves of ego and be the best soul to receive, the answers will find us.
KRF: That offers a good transition, as I had a feeling your taste and history were very intertwined. How do you translate history into your work as a filmmaker and artist? Enigma feels like an encapsulation of everything you said in such a seamless way. Are there any connections that come to mind as far as the process? How does history manifest in ways people may or may not perceive as an expression of creative practice?
ZD: My creative practice is very much about channeling and being mutable, letting the story or the milieu tell you what it means, and to be agile, to zero in on details. The Lady and the Dale is a 70s world, for example. It’s always shifting, depending on the subject.
KRF: I was gonna say, knowing your work and its myriad modes of expression, there are so many moments where you take us down avenues that are unexplored, which takes a willingness and bravery and a gumption to do. Having done some production and conducting interviews, I know asking Amanda Lear the questions you did was nothing short of incredible.
ZD: I felt the presence of my audience. The bravery was catalyzed by the circumstances, right? Realizing this is important, these questions that people will always ask and always wonder. And…here’s this legend in front of me, and this is the record: this is what will be quoted one day. What’s between the lines and what’s just in our facial affect and expression tells you everything you need to know. It tells you everything about the trans experience! Amanda is emblematic of most of the women of her generation. She represents the majority.
KRF: Absolutely. Zooming out but also in, I’m curious what the trans aesthetic might be, at least for this moment. How would we define how transness expresses itself in culture, from arts and fashion and beyond? What do the fingerprints look like?
ZD: That’s so hard to quantify.
KRF: True.
ZD: It’s such a dispersed experience. The thing that unifies us is an internal feeling, as all the external factors are variable. Those differences in opinion, those nuances, are all present in the material we make. I identify with the heretics and the outsiders. Having a respectability politic — which is something I navigated personally during the Transparent years and that first wave of “post-trans tipping point” — is very helpful to create counterpoints. It’s all such important work and it will take all of us doing this work side-by-side for the rest of our lives to push forward, which won’t be without setbacks and opposition. While other folks in this game create heroic renderings of trans life and affirming renderings of trans life, it requires all these different pigments to create humanity and to humanize the experience of being out of sync with the world around you. What the majority of people have come to realize and recognize is that the trans experience is universal, that everyone is somehow out of sync with the world around them, that our internal spaces are often not entirely accommodated and matched by the family configurations we’re in, by the relationships we’re in. It’s really just a symbol, something that’s easily visualized, but it’s something that everybody relates to.
KRF: To me, in hearing this and thinking and reflecting on the work of trans artists now, there is this ability to hold up multiple things at the same time. The trans community — and many quote-unquote “non-normative” persons — has always carried this. Change and friction is difficult for most people but queer people are really formed by this. That’s how something like queer theory enters, questioning structures while creating parallel worlds and identities. These all go hand in hand.
ZD: Absolutely. Everything is always on a staggered timeline. Some people are adopting AI and are a little bit ahead of the curve and you have Luddites, people who resent modernization. You have people who adapt. You have people who see clear-eyed immediately, or who can even see around the corner. I think the best artists are able to see around the corner, to say, “Oh, this is next and we’re on to this thing.” Then there are those who can see something as timeless, universal, the thing that will always be true. I’m always looking for those four elements, for the things that are forever true — and then it has to be entertaining too.
KRF: I think you’ve woven those ideas together so well for as long as I’ve known you, which is a testament to your point of view and taste. I remember being able to see that when we first met —
ZD: I was still in my twenties! We both were.
KRF: We were babies…It all worked out.
ZD: It’s still amazing that you and Bobby are in it to win it.
KRF: We do what we can! [Laughs] In a way, that speaks to the final question, about the larger queer community “in these times”: why does a shared point of view matter? We all may be bound by shared lived experiences or similar interest in justice or literal history, but why is a shared point of view important? How does that create community or build bridges, if you will?
ZD: It’s hard to answer that question because of the fracturing and splintering of time, that the promise of the internet as “an interconnected space” is showing its faults, is showing its ruptures in terms of “the algorithm.” We’re all exposed to different things according to our belief systems and our own ethical priorities. It’s bifurcated in many ways, or it appears to be bifurcated: you have one group agreeing on empathy and another expunging it, taking empathy as weakness. You have a deconstruction of power and the promise of equality, then you have power and the courting and capitalization of power being the paradigm. It’s challenging to hold all of that complexity as it’s so multi-faceted.
I seek to be completely non-judgemental and I think that’s one of my superpowers. I would rather disagree or I would rather be transformed by a conversation, I would rather change how I think about something that’s more interesting to me. In documentary storytelling, that’s usually the goal. How do you change people’s minds? How do you present something and reveal that it’s not what we thought or expected? What are those curious change points in our own perception? That motivates me. When we have contradictory values, that’s usually because we’re being true to ourselves and we’re not just conforming to the party line. That’s very true with trans stuff. It’s wishful thinking that we would all agree.
KRF: That’s a very of-the-moment conversation.
ZD: We have a lot of healing to do, whether together or on our own.
For more on Zackary, be sure to follow her on Instagram. You can watch Enigma on HBO now.
And!! If you like this story, don’t miss a free conversation on crafting queer narratives and translating identity into writing this Saturday at 10AM PST / 1PM EST / 7PM CEST with Rax Will. Learn more and RSVP here.