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In 1994, over 10,000 people gathered in New York to celebrate GI Joe, the toy cowboy. His unofficial web pages amount to hundreds, according to the Village Voice, and new remake of the original Joe was just recently launched. Charlie Citron, one of the boys who used to play with the toy soldier back in the sixties, came across his old buddy when going through his closet. He took the toy along with him to Europe, and started to show him what the world was like. The cowboy in hand-made clothes travels to the South of United States, Israel, Scandinavia, the Baltics, Poland, Amsterdam, Morocco and is ready to discover other new territories with Charlie. He finds himself in various situations, attracting attention of passers-by. He stands still, sits on a horse, or is just leaning against a wall. Charlie makes a record of these situations on his camera using focus zoomed to human proportions. Joe is Charlie´s alter ego who likes traveling very far if possible, intervenes with the environment. His still smile is covering up his sense for absurdity. Joe is half voodoo, half zombie, a bit of Lemonade Joe, Old Shatterhand, Michael Jackson and Charlie Bronson. In any case, he is an object which always attracts attention and provides topic for a chat. This is probably the essence which stays out of the frame of the photographs and which matters to Citron the most - to strike up a conversation, to listen, to tell a story, to laugh and threaten at the same time. Kids get it first. Joe sits next to Charlie making expressionless faces.
(pages 14 through 15)
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