#450: Leelah & Project Rose

“Fight the good fight and love something true and kick some holes up into heaven so’s some angels fall through.”

…

I never knew you, Leelah but the world is darker without your light. I wish someone would have told you while it may not get better, it does get different. Different isn’t necessarily better but it’s rarely worse.

We need to do more, be better and find ways of accomplishing both with understanding and nuance and radical empathy.

Goodnight sweet girl.

…Little surprise that in one of the states where folks like Leelah’s Ass Douche Slurpee™ parents are all harem scare ‘em about the possibility of Sharia Law, there’s no problem whatsoever with arresting/not-arresting sex workers and giving them a choice between church or prison. It’s called Project Rose and it’s happening in Arizona and you should know about it.

Lisa Kimberly – fern (2014)

Of the titans of fine art photography, Jeff Wall is one of my favorites. I remember seeing Milk for the first time and being just blown the fuck away by its simple audacity.

In the early to mid-90s, Wall deviated from his more straigh-photography-as-occasion-for-excess-&-spectacle approach and began experimenting with photomontage. The results were completely unexpected–rendering worlds appearing simultaneously hyper real & computer generated; the perspective not quite right but not obviously wrong either; a projecting of the fact that there are seams but as soon as looking for them they scurry from sight.

I see similarly simple audacity in lisakimberly’s effect wizardry enhanced self-portraits. (There’s a bit of 3cmlin there, as well.)

Admittedly, that may not be obvious. Both Wall and Yung Cheng Lin employ a blank for the audience to fill in as they see fit. In the case of the former, it’s a narrative insinuation (settings, props, characters), whereas in the latter everything points to either a perverse visual pun or explicit insinuation towards which every element of the image points.

Kimberly’s images are possessed with a similar feeling that the individual elements reference a sum greater than their parts and there is a sense of a very specifically felt and experienced vision.

However, there’s an absence of cues that might allow the viewer to parse what that larger understanding of the work might entail. Yes, there are exquisite colors, subtle, nuanced effects (check how her face is completely in shadow, yet you can still see the crown of her head through the halo) and a beautiful woman.

In other words, Kimberly has a painters feeling color and and a careful eye for detail. At the same time, her photos granted a glimpse into something which feels like a complete, autonomous world; yet, given the image there is little offered other than an assurance that it exists and exists elegantly.

Very strong work from a young, entirely self-taught photographer. You’d do well to familiarize herself with her efforts.

Source: farm6.staticflickr.com

Lina Scheynius – amanda (2014)

If you do any reading on Scheynius, after the model turned photographer angle, you’ll invariable hear folks opine ever so elegantly about how her work focuses on intimacy or is preoccupied with the so-called female gaze.

I won’t object to either suggestion but I do find the tendency towards reducing a complicated, nuanced work to one or two of it’s representative elements almost always does a disservice to the artist and the work.

To my eye there is always something related to an effort to externalize and give voice to a primal, gnawing physical desire.

I don’t remember where I read it–perhaps in Scheynius’ recent interview with Zeit–where she recalls how one of her first modeling contracts stipulated that she could not gain more than a cm in any of her measurements over the course of a year.

And in much of her self-portraiture there is an element of violence in the way she documents her body that is always in dialogue with a ferociously unapologetic presentation of sexuality and a flirtatious ambivalence towards coyly implicit and outre explicit.

However, this approach to depicting herself doesn’t extend to others. The unflinching eye she turns on herself, becomes tender, seeks the wonder in light on skin, the line of the body in space–a fierce awe that acknowledges the connection between physicality and sexuality while refusing to sexualize the subject against the parameters of how they wish to be seen in any given moment.

Source: Flickr / linascheynius

When we boil water over fire to make tea, the water does not go from cool to boiling instantaneously. For the water to boil, continued exposure to heat for some time is required as the energetic frequency of the water gradually increases from cool to hot. Consciousness is like this. Enlightenment cannot be attained in a day or a month or even 5 years. To bring the consciousness from the gross to the subtle requires many, many years of disciplined practice. Though it is possible to soar quickly into an exalted state of consciousness or to plunge into the depths of despair, this effect is always limited and temporary. The only short cut on the path of realization is settling for lesser attainments.

Gananathamritananda Swami (via psychonautical)
Source: psychonautical

Collaborators sought

If you’ve followed this blog for a while you’ll know I’m not completely talking out of my ass, I am a photographer.

I shoot analog exclusively, almost always with the camera locked down on sticks. In other words, my process is  so slow as to best be termed glacial. (But aren’t glaciers breathtaking?)

The images I’ve made of which I am the most proud have all been collaborations with dear friends. Truth be told: my understanding of photography is entirely rooted in ideas collaborations. I think setting up a camera and saying do this, no more like that is extremely creepy and unsettling. I want your input on frame, blocking and for us to work together to use the mise-en-scene to convey the insinuation of some sort of narrative thread that encapsulates both or notions of what the image is trying to be.

Lately, my friends–my customary pool of potential co-conspirators–are scattered to the winds. And I’m finding myself reduced to a lonely specter roaming the streets of Brooklyn taking postcard snapshots instead of channeling dreams forgotten upon waking onto strips of celluloid.

It’s just not fucking sustainable; thus, as terrified as I am of putting myself out there, another year of not making the sort of work my soul craves will almost certainly kill me.

I have no prerequisites for potential collaborators–except that whatever we make must exist outside of both our respective comfort zones.

If this sounds intriguing or even if you are more curious than dubious, please DM me or send email via wlpw [at] outlook [dot] com.

Clare Laude – Untitled self portrait from When Water Comes Together with Other Water series (2014)

I spent the winter break of my junior year of college watching Fassbinder’s arguably best film Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Upon returning to my filmmaking class, I felt a spark to get out and make something. It seemed like I had all these new and intriguing ideas.

One of my classmates–and truthfully my only rival for dominance in the class–inquired what I’d watched over break. It was so casual and off-handed that I didn’t realize the trap until I was snared.

Tarkovsky, Wenders and Fassbinder are unparalleled geniuses, he started: But to schmucks like you and I what they offer in inspiration is just as addictive as any drug. We much be wary in approaching them, mindful of the profound effect they have on us.

I thought of him as a preposterous bloviating dickbag at the time, but increasingly I’m realizing he isn’t wrong.

And that’s what sucks me in to Laude’s work. She wears her profound regard for artists such as Andy Goldsworthy and Tarkovsky on her sleeve but does so in her own distinct voice–I’d label it quiet, more in the way of the lack of volume being the point (think John Cage’s 4’33").

Further, I think I just share a certain affinity of personality with the artist since she expresses a connection to two of the most important places to me in the world: Island and Berlin.

And I’m always excited to see nude self-portraiture seamlessly integrated into fine art photography as an element instead of the sole focus.

Source: clairelaude.de

Source unknown – Title Unknown (201X)

The videography on this is utter shite–(Jerry Seinfeld voice) I mean: what is the deal with that corner where the walls meet? Is this a demonstration of every degree angle between 85 and 100 that isn’t 90?

But this isn’t about the videography. It’s not even about the ejaculation, it’s the way he’s trying so hard to hold back and then just begins to writhe due to the stimulation overload of his orgasmic response.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a double-fisted hand job before and I’d wager this is from a gay porn source.

The thing that I wonder–and if you aren’t in to TMI, you can skip this part: I really don’t know why after the initial spurt, the hand job provider ceases to stimulate the glans/corona. Yes, both become SUPER SENSITIVE after ejaculation; but, where I come from heightened sensitivity is just another part of the total experience. And can, in the right hands, be used employed to transcendent effect.

For instance if it had been me on the receiving end, I’d have wanted at least this in addition if not something a little more.

(via mullets-make-me-moist–whose blog is really just fucking fantastic.)

Igor Mukhin – img167 (2009)

I’ve been looking at a metric fuck ton of Mark Steinmetz’s photos lately. And the reason I mention him is because of the fact that although I adore his use of space, he compositions don’t adhere to any ideal with which I am familiar.

With Mukhin, I can always draw a diagram. For example in the above image the staging from left to right of the nude male (standing in a modified contrapposto stance), the woman (whose semi-striding pose wouldn’t be out of place in one of those infamous Soviet war memorials) and the towel/purse hanging from the sapling form a triad that is not only easy to scan but also suggests a downhill slope from right to left toward the stream.

There’s also the little details: the darkest points in the frame are the purse and her inseam. This pulls the eye back to the man’s carefully man-scaped, uncircumcised member. (I enjoy the contradiction in his more modest post and the way she seems to be standing to block him from view slightly even though clearly whatever led up to this scene didn’t involve any sort of concern for modesty).

In fact, that’s what I think I dig most about Mukhin’s work: even aside from the fact that he tends to release images in groups inclusive of a particular happening, removed from the grouping there’s still very much a feeling of the image as rooted firmly in a very particular milieu. The virtue of what is included is that it points strongly towards what was excluded.

(In a value-neutral judgment, Steinmetz’s photos are dislocated, free floating, timeless. Thus his tendency to name images with their location.)

And I’m not sure if it’s because the first thing I encountered of Mukhin’s was his more erotic imagery but to me the specter of permissive sexuality seems to always resonate with his work. Such as here, where I can’t help wondering if what I think might have led to the need to brush one’s teeth is why the woman is brushing her teeth.

This photograph verges on being narrative because I want to know the nature of the events that led up to this moment. And the thing that Mukhin is so talented at doing is presented as a story something that he as the image maker stands in the same position as the viewer with regards to curiosity as far as origination.

Source: Flickr / im_foto

Liv Carlé Mortensen – Title Unknown (200X)

There isn’t much I can find about the artist; except for her sounding like my favorite kind–one who views art as an avenue for terrorism.

And as there’s even less information on this image, I’m left with nothing except my impressions to interpret.

First, of all I think knitphilia’s #thisiswhatlovelookslike tag applies.

Second, to my eye, Mortensen essentially excises the extreme detachment from subjects that features prominently in Nan Goldin’s work. With that as a starting point, Mortensen borrows heavily from fellow Dane Fred Huening adding the edgy balance between danger and dread, that I always feel his work is bereft of. (Also, while we’re on influences, the liberal dose of Ana Mendieta-esque calculated aggression should not be overlooked.)

This is exactly the sort of work I think lens based visual culture so desperately needs. It’s vital, real and alive.

Source: fuckyouverymuch