Fast Confession – Robert Vano: I have never wanted to own anything, it is my work that has brought me happiness

Robert, you recently had your 70th birthday, how did you celebrate it?

I have not yet celebrated because I haven't been at home yet. I celebrate every morning that I have gotten up, that I can be here and do what I enjoy. I don't need to go out anywhere, plus I don't drink alcohol...

My friends called to go out for dinner, but I was not here, and when I come home from work after the whole day, I need to rest. I see my friends every day. I don't go anywhere in the evening anymore. I need to revitalize for the next day.

How do you feel in this new phase of life?

I feel good, nothing has changed. It's not like I've been a carnivore all my life and suddenly I'm a vegetarian. Everything goes on but it's reaching the finale. I'm not fifteen, I have nothing in front of me, I have everything behind me.

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I'm constantly doing something -– I'm finishing a new book, there is an exhibition in Vienna, Budapest, the Leica gallery...I keep doing the same thing, I'm not planning anything new. I have always wanted to be a photographer, which I managed. I never wanted to have what others wanted – family, kids, a plane, a Ferrari, a house in Monaco, a studio, a cottage, a princess...I'm a simple person. I go to this café every morning when I'm in Prague, then I do what I like and in the evening when I go to sleep I have nothing to deal with or think about.

That means you are a very happy person.

I am. I have never had a loan or mortgage, I have no car, I have nothing. If you have nothing, you have no problem. That's what the Dalai Lama said. If you want to have a problem, buy something, it starts there.

But you've been very successful globally. You ought to be a millionaire and have all these things...

But I don't. I have friends who have all the things they wanted. We all got what we desired. I never wanted to own anything. My work has led me to happiness. I have worked in the desert, on the beach, in the snow. Every day I am somewhere new. I can't have anything or anyone to care for. If you refuse work, then you are not working.

Robert, your life is an incredible story. Is there any experience, any decision in your life that you recall and you say to yourself that it was really a great one?

I don't think about it that way. Everything I do is great, or at least I think it is. I did not plan anything in advance. It all just happened. Now it was great to photograph the calendar for salty women. These are girls who are born with a bacterium that eats their lungs and they suffocate. I'm glad when I can help somebody with my work. There is always something. I've just shot something for Elle again. I'm glad they still want me. That's how I see it, and it's good.

Of all those jobs and projects – is there any one that you know was simply top and doesn't happen to a lot of people?

My beginnings were, I think, important, because I was in the right place at the right time. If they had sent me during emigration to a refugee camp in Johannesburg, it would probably have been different. But I was lucky to have gone to New York. I started where everyone ends up. There is nothing bigger than New York. Perhaps only Hollywood.

I was very lucky to have started there. If I had stayed in Prague, I would have likely photographed for Žena a život, and Karel Gott and Eva Pilarová. But since I ended up in New York, I photographed Jacqueline Bisset and I did it for Vogue.

Maybe it would have been different if I had planned. When a man plans and it works out, he is happy. If it does not, he hangs himself. Because I did not plan anything, it went how it went and I was happy about it.

Well, you came to the big world of show business from a small town. A lot of people would have been intimidated by those celebrities...you weren't. How did you manage to stay grounded and sane?

Maybe it was thanks to those people I had around me. You get into the company of people that give you advice. The elders, who at that time were the age that I am today. They told me, for example, that if I want to be a successful photographer, the recipe is simple. The first fifty percent of your success is that you have to be born in Paris, which wasn't my case. The other fifty percent? You have to be on time. Try to be at least half-successful in your life. Or they told me that I must not sell my soul to the devil. I listened to this advice. I listened even as a child I and did not take my own road.

Which of the big stars you've been photographed are you closest to? Who did you become friends with?

I was never really friends with anyone at work. What would I talk to them about? Fake eyelashes? If you do this from morning to evening, then you want to have other friends from other circles and talk about other things.

You do not know those people you photograph. They are such professionals that they know they have to work, smile quickly and stand is such a manner that the work is finished as fast as possible, so they can go home. So they always came in, we exchanged some polite phrases about how great we are, how we will put the hair up and that's it. Click, click and they go home. They need the photo just like I do for my portfolio.

But of course, they were all great. Mostly they were young people. We were the same age then, and I had no idea they would become so famous, for example Barbara Streissand, Michael Douglas...They were young. Today they are seventy and they are stars. Back then nobody had any idea...

It's the same today. We also do not know which of those SuperStar kids will be Eva Pilarová one day. We have to wait. I will never find out (laughter).

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Celebrities for me at that time were the Beatles or Marlene Dietrich when I did her make-up for the last concert in Philadelphia.

Why did you come back to the Czech Republic?

I had my mother here. They did not want to give me a visa for thirty years. I always wanted to go home. Meanwhile, my dad died, and my sister and brother emigrated. I did not think I was going to live here. Everyone came back just to have a look. But they founded the Elle magazine here, and they offered me the position of creative director, which was great. Besides, I had never lived in Prague, it looked like an enchanted Disneyland – all black, the plaster was falling, there were no lights...And I thought I could help here. It was the same for everyone. Someone came, opened a small restaurant and suddenly the salad appeared. Previously, salad equaled grated carrots. That's how it started, they opened the first McDonald, which was a change. There was something red here...

So you simply liked seeing the city change and being a part of that change?

Yes. I liked those sudden changes.

And have you not thought about returning to New York?

I thought about until the age of sixty. I thought I would go back, but in the meantime my friends returned, they live here, they opened Radost, another opened a restaurant, and suddenly I discovered that there was no one left there, that I have no one there. For me they are childhood friends. I cannot just go on Broadway today with a banner saying I'm looking for friends. (laughter)

Here it is good, I am happy and satisfied. I was always happy where I was at that given moment. When I was not happy, I left. I can do this, I have nothing. Just a passport and a camera, so I can leave at any time.

The apartment you live in here in Prague is yours, isn't it?

It is, but I could sell it.

What is the difference between work today and here compared to what was then in New York?

I think it's still the same in New York. There are agencies, everything is in tables, every minute is thirty dollars, and the situation here is like ACDC. (laughter)

What do you mean?

Everyone comes when they want. They say at nine, and then come at ten saying there was traffic. On so on... Trends are developing. But otherwise companies with the given product have not changed. The work of a photographer is still the same.

I mean, I know a lot of photographers, but they are not good. Nowadays, everyone calls themselves a photographer. We all have a camera on our phone today.

They are not good because they do not do things the right way. The way Leonardo da Vinci invented it in Italy. It's great that you all have iPhones with cameras. All the better for me. Taking a nice photo on the phone does not mean you're a photographer. No one will buy a photo that will disappear in three years. You can run down the street and photograph a report, but that's a lot of music for a little money. You walk out onto the street, you take a picture of two junkies and one homeless person and you have an exhibition, but try to photograph Claudia Schiffer in a Bentley in a Dior dress at Niagara Falls. It's expensive. And they only give you the money when you do it the way it should be done.

Your name is a brand. Are there people who approach you, ordinary people, who want you to take a photo of them for the feeling that it was you who photographed them?

Yes, such people approach me. Now we are doing a charity project for Krtek. It's about me photographing in public and anyone who wants can get their picture taken by me. The proceeds will be for children's oncology. People have to sign up, pay the money, and I'll photograph them. It will be sometime in the summer.

And what is it like when people tell you they want a photo from you because you are the best?

It's nice, but I feel normal about it.

You are very modest, I think you could be a bit more proud of yourself.

I am a little proud. But if I was one meter eighty and looked like Brad Pitt and could speak seven languages, maybe Iwouldn't even talk to you. (laughs) But I am what I am, so I'm modest. Then people say – he is not very attractive, but he's nice. Sometimes it pisses me off that I have to be nice. (laughter)

I noticed the scar on your hand, what happened?

A long time ago, when I was about eighteen, someone wanted to steal my backpack, they came at me with a razor from behind. They probably didn't want to cut me, but as I held it, and they wanted to cut it off, they ended up cutting my hand.

That's a big scar...

A taxi took me to the hospital where I was stitched up, but after a while it started to itch, so I pulled the stitches out with tweezers and it opened up again. It's not visible all year, but once I get tanned, it stands out because it stays white.

When you emigrated to America, you already knew you were gay. People didn't discuss it here, it was taboo, but there it was no problem, right?

Yes, it was normal. They even asked me when I was coming out, but I never did. I was always out or in, I didn't even know what it was. I think the people who had their coming out led a double life. Before and after. When I was young, I liked girls, too. Or, I don't know, it was simply the norm to date girls. But I liked boys and I thought the other boys felt the same. We didn't talk about sex at school or at home. We didn't even have anatomy, we only got as far as the frog. In addition, this was at a time when everyone in Southern Slovakia in the village was Christian in the 50s. We were even taught by a priest. The girl always had to be a virgin before the wedding.

Guys in puberty dated girls, but they could not have sex, it was a time when the boy had to woo for four years, then they married after graduation, the wedding was huge and sometimes lasted even a week. So while we were dating girls, all the boys masturbated at school, at home, in the field, in the hay, and anywhere else...And I was one of them. I thought that was how it was. It was not talked about. Then I left and in America it was just different. It was after the revolution, everyone had rights -– both blacks and gays. And I thought it had evolved in the same way back home. When I returned for a school reunion forty years later, I came alone, and there were those guys with whom we had masturbated when we were fifteen...They were there with wives, children and grandchildren, and the first thing I thought about was what we did together and whether they remembered it, too... (laughs)

When you grow up in an environment where nothing is talked about, you are confused. I never had to hide anything because I lived in an open society for a long time. Maybe if I had stayed here...

Do you live alone?

I always live alone.

Why?

I can't really stand anyone. I need to do my own things. I've always lived alone. I travel a lot and I think it would not be fair to leave the other person at home alone.

But have you ever been in love?

I'm always in love, including now, but he lives with his parents or wherever. We see each other, sometimes he sleeps over, sometimes he doesn't, but when I do my own things I have to concentrate. I cannot do it half-way and then go through Ikea stroking kitchen counters. It would not be fair of me. In the beginning, people always think they will change the other person, but no one will change me. I'm an old dog. In the beginning, I will always tell you everything. I don't go anywhere, not even to the theater, cinema or restaurants. I need to be alone for at least four hours during the whole day. At first everyone is okay with it, but then they lose patience and move on.

Let's finish off by inviting your fans to some of your exhibitions...

Everyone who wants to see my work can visit the Josef Liesler Gallery in Kadaň, where I have an exhibition called Memories from July 13th to August 12th, and then the exhibition Fotka nemusí být ostrá. From August 31st until the end of September, it's Memories again in Galerie 4 in Cheb.

Thank you very much for the interview.