Los Hombres De Las Revistas

These photos represent the results of a kind of excavation, which took place in a corner of my room about a year or so ago. I prepared them for a gallery on another site and found them promptly rejected as I did not provide proof of permission for their presentation. I felt that since I rephotographed each one and considerably altered their compositions and exposures through the use of various photo editing tools that they were now my images. Perhaps this is not the case (but tell that to Richard Prince and Sherrie Levine as well.) What all of these pictures have in common, other than their original purpose of arousal, is the ethnicity of those depicted. They are all so called Latin Americans: some are Mexicans, some Mexican Americans, one is a lone Colombian American, and one I'm not sure of. There can be no question that these models are all much different in person now from the ghosts of their youthful selves pictured here.








These next three photos are adaptations of a few of my favorite images by Bob Mizer, the savant behind Physique Pictorial and The Athletic Models Guild. The first is of "Ernie" and the other two are of the magnificent Rod Garetto. Note the treatment of the sky, mountains and trees in the backdrops, and the strategic use of astroturf and green naugahyde. It is all so beautifully fake.




More Rod here, but from a video (and a rather cheesy one at that) rather than a magazine, though I felt they belonged here. It's how I like to think of him, sometimes, perpetually bound for my pleasure.

The 2009 Book Fair

These initial pictures are of my humble little table at the fair. Apparently it was a little too humble. I was told that the next year I would be expected to do something a little more spectacular; which I did do (or so I believe.) Everything that follows is related to the 2009 International Artists' Book Fair at P.S.1 in Queens. A fun time was had by most of those present and depicted.





These next images are of a young woman in a platinum wig or a very artificial looking hair do. I thought she looked like she belonged there, or in a museum, or an avant garde mortuary.







This short sequence of shots shows an anonymous young woman discovering the beauty and wit of My Little Golden Book.




These are a couple of old friends: the art historian and dealer, Barbara Moore; and the critic and obsessive collector, Vince Aletti. Vince was doing a book signing for The Disco Files.





Among the things I enjoyed doing to pass the time between sales, was admiring the beauty of some of the young men in attendance. Here I managed to capture two within the same frame. The red head seemed to me a sexier version of a young Malcolm McLaren.







These are pictures from the opening party at Deitch Projects' new Queens exhibition space, which may have already closed (I'm not sure: these big new art spaces come and go so quickly.) In any case, it provided a lovely view of Manhattan from the Queens' shore of the East River. The woman banging away at the drums in the subsequent pictures is of course my friend , Lizzie.







Here's a drawing I made while sitting at my table at the fair. I suppose I revert to old themes when working in such public settings.

Manufacturing Desire

The themes of the last show Max and I did together at Max Fish Bar, some two years ago, were corporate logos, the inauguration and presidency of Barack Obama, Al Green, the Golden Globe Awards Show, and fallen stars of the 1980s symbolically represented as chairs.