Flowers, Fruits, And Chairs

These old works of mine (some are from a good fifteen years ago) are interrelated on more than one level.   The three series from which they're drawn are here presented in reverse order of their making.   The chairs as portraits of artists as failed celebrities are from the Max Fish show Max Schumann and I did in 2009.   One may recall my three themes employed were the Obama Inauguration, the Golden Globes, and Chairs.   Max painted Logos.   The first thing that connects all these pieces here is that they were purchased by,  or lately presented for purchase to, Michael Dennison.   There were some others that I also sold him, but neglected to photograph (which is a shame, since they are much the best of the lot.)   The relatively conventional pastel and charcoal drawings of fruit and flower arrangements were made for the show at Wessel & O'Connor, but were not shown there (if I recall correctly.)   That would make this their first and only public showing, however virtual that may be.   The textile pattern designs (the earliest pieces here) were made for a textile firm in Los Angeles, which rejected them.   Some of them were sold from a show called Giftland at Printed Matter the following December, so no harm done.   I'll leave it to the viewer to figure out how they're all related, assuming it's worth the effort.   There needs to be some small level of difficulty in viewing art, even when faced with paintings and drawings as simple as these.  

El Chico Con La Verga Expresiva

It's been a long while since I've added anything to this blog, not because I've had nothing to post, but because I've been busy with other matters and Blogger has changed its programs so that it is more difficult to present things as I would prefer without first changing the picture format.   All of these photos had to be switched from jpeg to bitmap or they would be uploaded sideways. 

Now on to more pleasant points of interest like this Peruvian lad's talking penis.  I've admired his many posts on one of my source sites for a few years now, despite, or perhaps precisely because of, the crude way he has of expressing himself.   He lets his dick do the talking for him and I find a good deal of wit in this visual convention he has established for himself.   I've seen a few pictures of his face without the sloppy digital scrawls he uses to mask his features and I can safely say it is not unpleasant.   Still he's no great classic beauty.   One doesn't have to possess such qualities of physical perfection in order to attract.   I like the space he inhabits in these photographs, the simple white curtain behind him in most of them, the quality of the light, the cheap furniture, the steel framed amber glass panels in the background, the sense of being comfortable at home, yet  able to express the need for companionship and the willingness to please.   I find him beautiful, whether he wants my appreciation or not. 

 

The Puppet On The Wall

I've been fooling around with these sorts of crude Figures made of Masks and empty Clothes since my very first consciously composed Photos.   The first Image I printed, when I took that Night School Introductory Photography Class after my Parents bought our first 35mm Pentax Camera, with the Automatic Setting (which was the First Thing I learned to turn off,) that conked out after Ten Years or so of Use, was a Black and White Picture of a Life Cast of my Face made of Latex coupled with a brown Summer Suit, purchased for my older Brother's Funeral, on a cheap metal Hanger in my Bedroom Window with the Late Afternoon Light creating mysterious Shadows and Highlights on the translucent Materials, seemingly bringing them to Life.  It was a kind of Puppet (which was my main Area of Study in College) and  its resultant Portrait proved very disturbing and charming to my Classmates.   I thus learned an important Lesson in grabbing the Attention of an Audience through the use of Lighting.

Oswaldo, Maduro Osito Desnudo Con Falo

The Handsome Fellow seen Above and Below, when he isn't using his Dick Head as a Mask, is doing something truly unusual for the Site where these Pictures were found: He is revealing his true Face (if from an Angle that is apt to distort it and somewhat lessen the Likelihood of his being recognized) in a way that confronts the Viewer with a Person, to whom this Outsized Phallus is once more reduced to the status of Apendage.    Such is the Magic of Photography.

 

Rehearsal For An Assassination

It has been a while since I last used my medium format Rolleicord, and the film I loaded was ridiculously out of date, and I'd forgotten how accurate or appropriate the settings derived from the light meter on my 35mm Pentax might be; so half of what I shot simply didn't come out in any useful way; but what did come out, the images before you now, turned out so much better than I had any reason to hope.   Obviously, they are related to the video feature I'm busy with of late, The Petrol Officer.   The section they were shot concurrently with is the seventh, which has the chapter title of An Instance of Saturnalia, though would perhaps more properly be called by the previous part's name: Rehearsal for an Assassination.