GAYLETTER

When you make it two weeks back-to-back in the GAYLETTER newsletter you must be doing something right. The photographer Benjamin Fredrickson has an exhibition opening this Thursday, January 21 at The Bureau of General Services-Queer Division at the LGBT Center on 13st. organized by Daniel Cooney Fine Art. The photographs presented in this exhibition were created by the artist using paper negatives with an 8×10 field camera. Benjamin told me that he’s very excited for this new direction and process in his work, “I am exploring this alternative process of paper negatives which I feel bridges the gap between camera operator and artist.”

I’m feeling it, they feel very honest, I like the gritty quality and how rich the blacks are in these images.

Fredrickson also appears in some of his own images to continue with his autobiographical approach. As the gallery notes mention “he photographs other men but he never photographs “the other,” instead he is interested in revealing himself, his humanity and his vision of the world around him.” His images continue to be sexual and full of nudity. GAYLETTER loves that!

Check out a few images from the exhibition below:

FREE, 6:00PM, THE BUREAU OF GENERAL SERVICES QUEER DIVISION, 208 WEST 13th ST. NY, NY. …

Helias Doulis is a 23 year old photographer from Greece who currently lives and works in London. His most recent project is titled Parabyss: A Nurtured Nature and features images that explore “the way that homosexuals tend to isolate themselves in order to live freely and away from the threatening ‘public eye.’” This series was shot at Limanakia; a rocky and secluded corner of Greece where Helias felt he and his models could fully access melancholy. Photographs featuring naked men on a tragically beautiful private Grecian coast? I’m into it.

We decided to get to know Helias a little better and asked him some questions about this body of work.

Helias told us that Parabyss is “an earthly vagina, where a dystopian paradise shelters the frightened males, giving them the freedom to show intimacy with one another.” Helias elaborated further by telling us that the photos in this series “reflect the greed of human nature in a world that persecutes its creatures through discrimination, forcing them to resort (to the) creation of a habitat of free sexual expression.”

In regards to his inspiration and what his work is really about, “the main reason that I started taking photographs was to express my personal insecurities and inabilities to perform (in) my relationships and society, to find more insecure bodies and souls like mine to make all of us embrace the beauty of loneliness.” Helias selects his models to be members of his personal melancholy, and refers to them as his multiple “alter egos.” …

If you are young and don’t know who Ryan McGinley is, then I don’t know what to tell you. This man has been popular forever, I learned about his work years ago going to one of his exhibitions, waiting in line for hours to see photos of thin naked boys. The exhibition is closing this week and this is your last chance to check it out. Team (gallery. inc.) is showing in their New York gallery, and in the LA one simultaneously, two different shows. Both of the shows are closing on the same day (January 10th). The one in NYC, which is the one that I am gonna tell you more about, it’s titled Winter. The photography show exhibits nude subjects in frozen landscapes, “There is virtually no photographic or cinematic precedent for these works: to capture naked bodies in such extreme conditions took profound measures of precaution, audacity and sacrifice on the part of all involved. The artist and his team invented and improvised manifold contrivances, employing the likes of ice-fishing tents, propane tanks and rock-climbing gear, in order to enable the production of these images.” It’s really cool, you get the familiar natural nude subjects common in McGingley’s work but in this case they are nude in nature, it’s surreal and wonderful.

FREE, 10:00AM-6:00PM, TEAM GALLERY, 83 Grand Street, NY, NY. …

We are big fans of ClampArt Gallery, Brian Clamp (the director) has such great taste in art — I always wonder about his personal art collection. We are always excited when we hear there’s a new opening at the gallery. Brian reached out to tell us about the gallery’s first exhibition in 2016, “John Arsenault: Barmaid.” He told us that Arsenault worked as the bar-back at the Eagle LA for nearly two years, and his new body of work is a visual diary of his time there. It’s the artist’s fifth solo show at ClampArt and it coincides with the release of Arsenault’s first monograph which was published by Daylight Books. “He shot thousands of photographs — largely with his iPhone…The collection of images includes customer and employee portraits, interior shots of the bar itself, and a wide array of self portraits.”

I peaked at some of the photographs and they show an obvious connection between the photographer and his subjects — the images feel real, unpretentious and very honest.

Here’s a preview of the show:

FREE, Opening Reception 6:00PM-8:00PM, ClampArt, 531 West 25th St. NY, NY. …

A new amazing exhibition of video and photography opens this Friday, December 18th at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in NYC and it runs through March 16th, 2016. This new show titled ‘Medium of Desire: An International Anthology of Photography and Video‘ focuses on the theme of “desire” and showcases the work of fourteen artists from nine countries. It includes some of our favorite artists such as the Chinese photographer Ren Hang (who we featured in issue 3 of our magazine), Dimitris Yeros, Anthony Gayton, Matthew Morrocco, Tomoko Kikuchi, Jessica Yatrofsky, Joseph Maida, Daniel M. Schmude and others.

This is what the press release says: “Using human beauty, desire, Eros, and sexuality, this new photography based exhibition reveals that cultural differences, whether defined by national borders, sexual orientation, or gender identification, can be simultaneously vast yet familiar. Regardless of one’s sexual orientation or country of origin, feelings of desire, when successfully represented, can serve to minimize our differences and bring us closer.” I had a chance to preview some of the work that are gonna be on display at the show — you are in for a treat. The work is great, there’s also some nudity which makes things more enjoyable for all of us.

Have a look at some images from the show ‘Medium of Desire’ below:

Anthony Gayton, The Collector, 2009, Archival ink on paper, 39.75″x59″. Courtesy of the artist and MiTO Contemporary Art, Barcelona. …

Before Robert Mapplethorpe there was George Platt Lynes. Born in East Orange, New Jersey Lynes quickly became recognized as one of the most revolutionary photographers of the early 20th century. Despite contributing to renown publications such as Vogue and Bazaar, he is primarily known for his photographs of male nudes.  Characterized by their homoerotic quality and formal beauty, these photographs are truly stunning and captivating.

Lucky for you the The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art will be hosting an event tonight, November 18, celebrating Lynes’ work. Allen Ellenzweig, author of The Homoerotic Photograph, will be leading a presentation about the incredible life and times of George Platt Lynes. You will get a chance to see several of the amazing photographs taken by the artist, including his images for the New York City Ballet and his Surrealism inspired images, while also listening to a brilliant commentary about the artist’s work as a whole.

FREE, 6:00PM-8:00PM, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, 26 Wooster St. NY, NY.

  …

The purpose of any medium is to provide agency for a larger idea. In this technologic age, video and sound are (maybe) the most popular agents to further illustrate an artist’s vision. FAKA is the brainchild of South African performance artists Thato Ramaisa (Fela Gucci) and Buyani Duma (Desire Marea). This week, they’ve shared a new music video titled From A Distance, which is an ode to Brenda Fassie’s fierce rendition of Bette Midler’s corny classic. Concentrating on the issues that surround the black queer body, FAKA says, “We wish to create a dialogue that transcends the bounds of queer activist rhetoric,” and in doing so, From A Distance serves as what they call a “Gqom-Gospel lamentation for dick,” and also what I am calling the next best thing.

“We regard this as an ongoing performance celebrating the third world aesthetics that often do not have the space to be validated on a large scale in contemporary creative culture. Even within the supposed progressive art world there is a classicism that excludes this demographic.”

The performance, which is presented on Youtube, is described as FAKA in their truest form. “Living our complex existence in ways that transcend all the artifacts we adorn, distancing with no restrain and no apology. We feel that there is an exclusion of a certain demographic of valid voices and expressions due to lack of resources, specifically Black/African voices who could strongly contribute to the progression of global culture.” …

I didn’t know much about Steven Arnold’s work before learning about this exhibition, that opens this Thursday, October 29 at Daniel Cooney Fine Art. One of the great things about doing this newsletter is that I get to learn about new things and people all the time. Here’s what I learned so far, Steven was based in LA in the 80s and early 90s, he was a protégé of Salvador Dali and was mainly known for his photography, but he was also interested in filmmaking, painting, illustration, set and costume design, and “assemblage” sculpture. “For several months he lived communally, taking LSD every day, experimenting with paints and costumes and taking up residence in caves. Arnold recalls: “This new drug [LSD] was so euphoric and visionary, so positive and mind expanding… I ascended to another dimension, one so beautiful and spiritual that I was never the same.” Now, his work makes more sense to me.

This is the first exhibition of Steven’s vintage prints. He created stunning and intriguing “tableaux vivants” surrealistic images photographed in black and white. “Arnold was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 at the height of his popularity and died in 1994.” Also, don’t miss a Visual AIDS sponsored conversation on Nov. 3 between Esther McGowan (Associate Director of Visual AIDS) and Vishnu Dass (Exec Director of Steven Arnold Archive).

Below is a preview from Steven Arnold’s exhibition:

FREE, 6:00PM-8:00PM, Daniel Cooney Fine Art, 508 – 526 West 26th Street. …