Marat Safin – Казань (2018)

Safin should be mentioned alongside Ren Hang and Akif Hakan Celebi–each possess a visual style you can spot across a crowded, a similar tendency toward profusion of content as well as quantity as a form of quality (or, if you prefer a surfeit of style as substance).

He’s not half as consistent as the other two, however. (Honestly, I don’t have the first clue what possesses him to release some of the thoroughly half-baked images he makes.)

But when he’s on, his work is innovative and sometimes even thrilling.

I am super into this picture. Partly it’s the diffuse right to left lighting, partly, it’s that her pose is such that she appears to be playing it coy, carefully removing her underwear in a seductive fashion. Except: the framing excludes information as to whether or not she is unaware of the camera and therefore the viewer. The way she’s rolled the garment down her hips onto her thighs suggests she’s aware of the voyeuristic element. Yet, the erotic impetus of the image relates to her underwear–while she remains nude but hardly immodestly exposed; a tension which at least allows for the possibility that this is not some sort of orchestrated scene and is a privately sensual moment. (That possibility doesn’t stand up to any sort of close scrutiny even if it is an interesting consideration.)

I also like this because it’s a photo I wish had been of me. I was thinking about trying to tease out why from what I’ve already said–if you want to dig a bit it has to do with the dichotomy between bearing witness and voyeurism as well as the disjunction between sensuality and sexuality.

But honestly, that was all before a recent image of Safin’s started raising some hackles over on Flickr. (Trigger warning: graphic depictions of what I can only presume relates to an eating disorder.)

The image is captioned СПб, the Cyrillic letters corresponding to the Latin S, P and B–or Saint Petersburg. (Over the last several years, Safin has moved away from titling his images and instead merely mentioned where they are taken; the image above was made in Kazan, for example.)

It features a young woman who appears to be dangerously underweight–you can clear see her ribs, spine and shoulder bones. She appears to have stopped crawling along the forest floor long enough to rest with her forehead on the ground, perhaps in an effort to catch her breath.

It’s a striking tableau.

Predictably: the comments range from concern for the model, damning the image maker, defending the image maker under the auspices of artistic expression, comments on how someone else’s body is not an appropriate thing for anyone else to comment on and now things have degenerated to the point where commenters are decrying the overreach of politically correct pomposity. (”Politically correct” being code employed by folks who expect other people to be polite and decent to them but quickly start whinging when someone’s notion of what constitutes polite and decent differs even marginally from their own definition.)

I’m not entirely sure I believe there is any way the image is ethical. However, ethical or not it is strangely effective. The location (Saint Petersburg) and what it depicts (someone chosen because they appear convincingly malnourished) immediately made me think of the Siege of Leningrad–starvation was widespread and some resorted to cannibalism.

The image was made almost ¾ of a century after the siege ended. And unlike most nude in nature work–where the lack of clothing is meant to convey a sense of the work being out of time–this feels very modern to me, somehow.

As if for all the ways the world has ‘changed’ the metrics by which we eat or go hungry have less to do with warfare and more to do with the individual and society. There is still–of course–extremes between abundance and scarcity but scarcity in the face of abundance is still all to rife.

Lastly, I think it’s interesting that roughly a quarter of people think Safin is a woman. I’m fairly certain that isn’t the case. (Although it would be interesting if it were.)

[↖] Source unknown – Title unknown (201X); [↗] Lucas Entertainment – Wall Street feat. Ben Andrews & Rafael Alencar (2009); [↑] Cocky Boys – Dillon & Max Go Fishin’ {desaturated} (2012); [←] Source unknown – Title unknown (201X); [→] Source unknown – Title unknown (201X); [↓] Source unknown – Title unknown (201X); [<] Vixen.com – Bad Girl feat. Cadey Mercury & Xander Corvus {desaturated} (2017); [>] PornPros – Wet Toy Slut feat. Kelly Diamond (2014); [↙] Hustler – Casey Young and Tiffany Taylor (2008); [↘] Source unknown – Title unknown {desaturated} (201X)

Juxtaposition as commentary

Lionel Prince – Untitled (2017)

Back in February, when I juxtaposed an image of Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Teresa and Brassaï’s Le phénomène de l’extase, I had rather something else in mind when I started.

See the juxtaposition I suggested was not exactly insightful: someone else had connected Dali’s The Phenomenon of Ecstasy (which includes the woman’s face from Le phénomène de l’extase) with the face of St. Teresa in Bernini’s sculpture.

Initially, I wanted to present Bernini, Brassaï in tandem with something more modern and art porn-esque and to categorize it as a ‘follow the thread’ exercise.

At the time, I was unable to find a satisfactory third image. This would’ve been utterly perfect.

Compare this detail of Teresa’s face with the above:

image

Also, from the stand point of visual dynamics, I’m starting to believe that the bottom edge of the frame has an implicit correlation with the notion of the so-called fourth wall. Consider the above and how it’s #skinnyframebullshit orientation places the viewer in the POV surrogacy with the person belonging to the lower of the two penii. Note how landscape orienting the frame adds the impression of a voyeuristic fourth party:

image
Source: lionelprince

Eric and Chris Phillips – Porn Resistance | Berlin for Pornceptual (2016)

To photograph reality is to photograph nothing.
                   —Duane Michals

Nudity is an art.
Besides, art is only nudity. There’s no more art, only too much
civilization. Art is barbarious. Art is loneliness. Nothingness is
perfect nudity.
                   —Raúl Ruiz

Sex is the biggest nothing of all time.
                   —Andy Warhol

Ellen von Unwerth – Peaches, Rouilly le Bas (2002)

Generally, I think of Unwerth in terms similar to Miley Cyrus: I’m not a fan; I have a visceral distaste for both her and her work–but goddamn it if I don’t hear Wrecking Ball every other time I’m in a bodega or an airport bar and that effing hook comes on and becomes lodged in my brain for days afterward.

Double Trouble, New York (2002) is Unwerth’s Wrecking Ball–I don’t think it’s an especially great photograph but there’s something about it’s joyful immediacy that I find difficult to shake.

Peaches, Rouilly le Bas has me shook, tho.

There’s not much in the way of mid-tones–everything is either highlight, highlight with minimal detail, shadow with minimal detail, shadow. This functions as a diminution of the frilly femme frocks and makes it less fashion photography and something closer in aesthetic to mid-century reportage.

I can’t say I’m especially fond of the way the horizontals of the roof/gutter line in the background and the retaining wall upon which they are seated. Yet, it appears that the retaining wall was not perfectly parallel with the roof/gutter line. (And even if it were framing it symmetrically would have flattened the scene.

On second thought, ‘flattened’ may not be the best way to put it. It’s not as obvious as what’s happening with the models’ legs but note also how their posture changes from left to right: upright and leaning towards frame left, more slouchy and leaning (slightly) towards frame right and then leaning right to the point where the model’s head is sideways but her posture despite the slight right lean is close to upright. All this balanced again the frame’s cant and counter balanced against the poses which is then counter balanced against the roof/gutter line. That’s some masterful visual calculus, honestly.

I read up on Unwerth and turns out she’s a former fashion model who became a fashion photographer and is now mostly focused on concerns regarding the politics of visual depiction and femme eroticism. (Here’s a case where the term female gaze is probably not pretentious/preposterous in application.)

~ ~ ~

My initial reading of this was a variation on the see now evil, hear no evil, speak no evil trope. Except it’s more of a spectrum: modest and abstaining from eating the fruit to being coyly aware of being see but pretending not to notice while eating a peach to being ‘immodest’ while aware of being watched (and acknowledging the voyeurism by making eye contact with the viewer) while transforming peach eating into an undertaking shoot through with a nearly seductive impetus.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears is probably the better corollary, honestly. It’s not perfect—Goldilocks doesn’t move from one extreme to another, she tries both extremes and then settles on the inbetween option. (But I do feel that stumbling block just means that just right doesn’t have to be in between extremes, it can just exceed the customary boundaries of what is considered the usual furthest extremes of the spectrum.

Strangely, this got me thinking about the pattern of threes and fours in fairy tales. (I was reading something several months back that included several non-European fairy tales and I was surprised that events transpired in sets of fours. I made a mental note to look into threes vs fours–unfortunately I’m a stoner and I didn’t write it down, so, uh, yeah… it slipped my mind.)

But I looked into it and it seems that sets of threes are usually associated with predominantly Xtian cultures–the bible being full of threes: the trinity, days Jonah was in the belly of the Whale, # of times Peter denies Jesus and days Jesus lay in his tomb.

It seems that cultures favoring sets of four were much more in-line with paganism and their emphasis on fours may likely derive from notions of the four elements (earth, water, wind & fire), the seasons and/or the four cardinal directions.

Both The Bible and fairy tales (think Snow White) place an emphasis on sevens, as well. Conceptually, I think it’s interesting that theist traditions (predominantly 3s) and pantheist traditions (predominantly 4s), taken together allow for a balance hinged on the sum of 7 between them.

(I just realized while right this that most western music is based off divisions of 3 or divisions of 4. Oh the endless audacity of Pink Floyd’s Money.)

There’s also the wisdom that from the standpoint of visual composition, odd numbered sets of subjects are preferable to even ones. And three is kind of especially wonderful because as anyone with a fair amount of freckles knows… any three non-linear points when the three points are connected by one line, it forms a triangle.

It may seem that I’ve gone entirely off the rails with these conjectures but I’ve ended up here rather purposefully: by and large photographs and images all have frames consisting of four edges.

I’m not sure whether or not Unwerth was aware of any of these things that it’s possible to read into this photograph. Probably not. (I know from folks who have responded to my work that frequently the work conveys things I was wrestling with when I made it but didn’t necessarily see as relating to the work.) And I still think of her work as analogous with pop music. But not all pop music is intrinsically shabby because it’s popular. So I think I’m gonna start thinking of Unwerth less like Wrecking Ball and more like Fight Song–which I like enough to not even need to qualify it as a guilty pleasure.)

Source: visualobscurity

nymphoninjas:

We have been a huge fan of your blog for some time now, and never submitted. But as my time as a mother fills my days, I look fondly at how my body was during pregnancy, and it is a bittersweet feeling knowing this was the last time I will carry someone within me. My husband could not take enough photos, and I wanted to share some of them with you, and your wonderful community. 

Wow, thank you so much for sharing this incredible portrait. The colours of your tattoos look so nice in the sunlight, and you are radiant and beautiful. It’s amazing you have these photos to look back on and reflect about that time in your life. And I really appreciate you contributing to Submission Sunday for the very first time. 

“Mother is the word for God on the lips and hearts of all children.”

Source: nymphoninjas

#1750

Exploring the intersections of art and sexuality sounds–on paper–like a worthwhile undertaking; however, there’s an awful lot of privilege facilitating this project, e.g. a working computer, internet access, food, clothing and shelter–as well as gainful employment which allows me to pay my bills (more or less) and also allows enough scheduling flexibility that I am able to arrange my week in such a fashion where I can treat this blog as if it were a second part-time job.

The advantages that allow this work to be are not lost on me. And that’s why every fiftieth post I make a point to contextualize the relative frivolity of what I do here in the context of the desert of the real.

For this installment, I don’t even really know where to start. If you were at all familiar with Occupy Wall Street, you probably saw that kid with the SHIT IS FUCKED UP AND BULLSHIT sign. (Spoiler alert: that kid was and probably remains a colossal fucking asshat.)

I guess let’s start macro and head in the direction of micro.

Geopolitical Shit Show–

There seems to be tentative positive movements in the on-going morass of tension between North Korea.

The reality of this situation has little–if fuck all–to do with Dump’s ‘diplomacy: N. Korea’s subterranean nuclear test facility collapsed after the last detonation conducted there in September of 2017. At the time conservative estimates maintained that it would take 18 months minimum before any further testing could resume. A new report claims that the extent of the damage is far more extensive than originally suspected. 

As with anything else, facts and context mattered little to U.S. Republicans in the House of Representatives, who–looking for a desperately needed hash in the win column for their embattled commander and chief nominated Dump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

This is grossly ironic on something not unlike a quantum level. From Dump’s comments about Mexicans, his continued insistence that white supremacists and neo-Nazis include some ‘good people’ to a seemingly endless litany of concrete ways his rule has made the world a much more uncertain and less safe place, the fact that less than a week after this nomination, Dump announced that the U.S. will pull out of the Iran deal.

It’s literally impossible to sum up the complexities of this situation as well as why this decision will have lasting and vast consequences for the world in any format short of an extensively footnoted thesis. Last Week Tonight put together a none too shabby survey of the history of the situation that is actually worth the 21 minute run time.

Additional points that need greater attention than they are getting presently are as follows: Remember back in 2017 when reporting on Russian election meddling was heating up and Dump met with Russian officials in the White House? At the time: it was reported that Dump shared sensitive intelligence with these officials. Kevin Drum over at Mother Jones–whose politics infuriate me, but who does have a tendency of low key scooping inside information–was informed by a reader (who it must be noted shows no signs of being credible source) claiming that it was actually much worse than reported. According to the letter writer Dump gave up Israeli intelligence involving a listening device that was installed at great risk in a Daesh safehouse in Syria, this device was silenced within hours of this breach.

Which is not to champion Israeli intelligence, remember that Netanyahu (remember that this is the man that Israeli police have recommended be arrested in connection with corruption charges), asserted that Iran is cheating on the deal. These claims were justifiable treated with skepticism in western media. It doesn’t matter so much whether they are true or not; or whether they influenced Dump’s decision because the reality of the situation is that no sooner did the U.S. jettison the Iran Deal than Israel allege that Iran fired missiles at them and retaliated.

Point is that the U.S. is signalling war with Iran. So buckle up for some bullshit, folks.

Oh, did you catch Dump’s suggestion about closing the U.S. borders? It was presented in the context of immigration–but that’s a boldly disconcerting way to phrase things.

I’m going to completely skip over the ongoing Dump corruption-Russian election meddling clusterfuck. The one thing that I am noticing is that conservative media is burying anything to do with Michael Cohen and is reporting on the Mueller probe as a ‘witch hunt’ and/or a deep state coup attempt. This is deeply disturbing.

As more mainstream, fact based media is edging towards referring to this as the ‘constitutional crisis’ this administration represents, I have to point out that although ‘constitutional crisis’ is the correct term–given where things are with the ongoing debate on gun violence in this country, there are those on the right who are going to term ‘constitutional crisis’ as they are going to take away all my guns.

If I hadn’t outgrown conspiracy theories, I’d be reasonably convinced that Russia is actually using the way things played out in Syria as a template to foment multi-faction civil war in the U.S. But I have noticed a splintering of the usual left-right dichotomy in this country. It’s my feeling that the old notion of socially progressive/economically liberal vs classically conservative is being scrambled. It feels as if increasingly the spectrum revolves around an emphasis on First Amendment (1A) vs Second Amendment (2A) freedoms. I’m noting a lot of folks who are pro-choice and LGBTQ allies adopting the modality of there’s no 1A without 2A. I am unsettled by this shift.

Personally, I loathe guns. And despite some of the utterly garbage aspects of the U.S. constitution (i.e. the 3/5ths compromise, women not being able to vote, prohibition, etc.), I’m inclined to think that it’s really not the best idea to go mucking around there. However, originalist interpretations of the constitution are increasingly cropping up do the the rapid advancement of technology in combination with culture lag. The meme about muskets vs assault rifles is valid. (And the people who argue on the terms of a well-regulated militia as a defense against tyranny are full of shit unless they are also actively trying to be able to purchase and own tanks and predator drones… those folks are out there but that they aren’t exactly mainstream shows that there are places that are too batshit for even the NRA to go). I’m of a mind that until purchasing a gun requires licensing on par with obtaining/maintaining a CDL, then I think our gun control laws are entirely too lax. An addenda to that is the caveat that I also really want some additional research on how procuring a personal arsenal seems to be something disproportionately pursued by bigoted white supremacists. And ultimately that’s how I see this issue as a an effort to make the sword mightier than the pen.

On a slightly different subject: this recent video featuring Reza Aslan discussing the reality that most white Evangelicals support Dump and how that squares with their alleged beliefs is must see TV.

Also, speaking of Xtians: there’s been a spate of anti-abortion legislation that I can’t even begin to summarize. We are very much headed in the direction of The Handmaid’s Tale. (I’m not the only one who thinks so. Consider Michelle Wolf’s White House Corresponent’s Dinner set where she compared Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Aunt Lydia. Additionally: the fact that there was any sort of backlash to Wolf’s performance is galling. That it was so widespread is utterly terrifying and speaks to exactly how bad things have gotten quickly.)

Oh and did you here about the white girl who called the Yale police on another black grad student napping in a dorm common area? Or how about Rakem Balogun, who has spent 5 months in jail held without bail or trail under the FBI’s new efforts to make Black Identity Extremism a thing?

Lastly, consider the Republican Governor of Missouri Eric Grietens’ response to being accused of non-consensual rough sex (”FAKE NEWS!!”) vs Eric Schneiderman’s resignation (after which he claimed that the activities were consensual–but that doesn’t seem to be hold up to any sort of scrutiny; also, I’m really disturbed about how this is being reported with regards to context with regard to the nature of negotiation and consent in BDSM scenes).