Here’s a life plan: Travel the world, get naked with your hot friends, set up photo shoots with them, have the time of your life, document it all. Lather, rinse, repeat. In between making a name for yourself as one of the most respected photographers of your genre and generation, fuck around and shoot some videos. No reason. And before you start to get pinned down as just a great photographer, produce some brilliant sculptures. And hell, take up painting. Keep them guessing, keep moving, and live life in a fantasyland of your own making. Such is the enviable life of Brandon Herman. Or so it seems - which is partly the point.

Weston Bingham: Your bio simply says where and when you were born. Care to elaborate?

Brandon Herman: Sure. I was born in a suburb of San Francisco.I have a brother and sister whom I adore. I hate people who wear their pajamas in public. I hate cats. I hate candy corn. I love burgers. I hate being bored. I love having sex. I hate Broadway musicals. I hate Starbucks. I’m lactose intolerant. I wear boxer shorts to bed but boxer briefs in the daytime. I think sirens are really annoying. I’m a pisces, but I don’t really believe in astrology. I think Kimora Lee Simmons is the biggest piece of shit to ever walk the Earth. I’d rather drink tequila than beer. Actually beer is annoying because I can’t get drunk off it. I love sleeping. I hate watching TV. I want a Porsche.

WB: You were just on the cover of Kaiserin, “a magazine for boys with problems”. What are your problems?

BH: I can’t sleep while spooning - I guess that points to intimacy issues. I drink to deal with social awkwardness. Wow, dumping your problems on a complete stranger can be so cathartic. I feel better already. Oh, I have a really bad memory. To be honest, I drink too much. I’m only attracted to people who seem like they could care less if I live or die. The moment someone shows interest in me, the magic is gone.

WB: Your website is brandonhermanland, your blog is brandonland. What goes on in Brandonhermanland?

BH: Brandonland refers to the idea of controlling one’s surroundings, creating a fabricated world for oneself. In Brandonland there is always a DJ handling the music, and you’re always doing something that makes other people go, “I wish I had thought of that.” Most people interact with a preexisting world, but I want to create one for myself and whoever else wants to join. It’s about making things interesting, making things fun. There are a lot of bizarre things about life and the world, and if you start to look for them and engage with them, then everyday becomes sort of like a game of figuring out how to live in a way that is continually new and exciting.

WB: A lot of of your peers are photographing themselves to a great degree through their subjects. You don’t necessarily seem to be. What attracts you to the people you shoot? How do you choose them?

BH: I cast people the way a director would, according to concepts that I have been working with long before they entered into the project. There’s no formula though. The notion that someone is right for the part is mere instinct. Or they’re hot.

WB: A lot of your work is very snapshotty, a lot looks more carefully planned. Do you value those approaches differently?

BH: All of the work is pretty elaborately fabricated. The snapshotty looking stuff sometimes more so. The difference is in the inspirational material. Every project starts with research - sometimes months worth. Once I have a concept I’m really into and start making work, I piece together whatever visual material I’ve found during my research period - be it film stills, porn, classical paintings, etc. - into the resulting work. A lot of the stuff I was making used to be heavily inspired by imagery that was taken from film, and I think that naturally gave it a more planned look.

More recently I have become increasingly interested in the internet and especially sites like YouTube and MySpace and the videos and photos people post of themselves. I’ll pick specific elements of their images that make them look snapshotty such as someone holding the camera at an awkward angle, or the flash being caught in a mirror behind, and I will use those deliberately, constructing images that are intentionally fabricated but because of the inspiration source may look more haphazard.

WB: Every photograph looks like a great time. Are you ever not having fun?

BH: Honestly I think I actually enjoy myself more than most people, but partly because I live my life in constant terror of being bored and will do whatever it takes to avoid it, like the plague! Even if that means saying really inappropriate things in front of my grandma, or breaking stuff, or doing impromptu personal scavenger hunts. The end justifies the means though, ya know? My assistants could tell you. I think they’re subjected to it the most.

WB: How do you get all of your friends to strip down, play around naked, and let you photograph it? Seriously?

BH: In the beginning they wouldn’t. When I was first taking pictures in college I had to beg people to be in them. By the time I was ready to graduate I pretty much had a waiting list, and people would also ask to come and watch shoots, so sometimes we would have like 20 people as an audience. It made it really fun - like we were doing a live show.

WB: What is it you look for in naked boys?
BH: I think that if I was able to communicate that clearly then I would be at the point where I wasn’t interested anymore, you know? Once I’ve figured something out I move on. Then the mystery is gone.

WB: What sort of cocks do you think are the most photogenic?

BH: Uncut definitely. Hands down. I think uncut cocks deserve to win some sort of competition

WB: What would the rules be for that competition? What would make a winner?

BH: [laughs] I don’t know, be uncut and you get a prize?

WB: What’s the story behind the title of your most recent show, “My Vacation With a Kidnapper”?
BH: When I was a little kid the thing that I was afraid of more than being eaten by a shark or crashing in a plane or anything else was being abducted out of my bedroom in the middle of the night by someone who came in through the window. Then when I was nine years old this girl named Polly Klaas was abducted in that exact way from a town not far from where I grew up, and I became obsessed with the story. I had never been in the habit of, or even interested in, reading the newspaper, but I read everything that was printed about Polly Klaas. She was eventually murdered before her abductor was caught. It was really sad.

Reflecting on it years later I realized that even though I would never wish harm on her or anyone else, I had gleaned a sort of pleasure from her story, a shot of adrenaline akin to the experience of watching a horror movie. The idea occurred to me of the possibility of something being simultaneously a fear and fantasy. I think this concept is really telling of the complicated nature of the way that the human psyche deals with its emotional reactions to the world, and that’s what the show is about.
WB: Do you have a larger agenda as an artist?

BH: I just kind of want to do crazy shit and have fun and make money from it and then die.

WB: How would you define the photography genre you are a part of?

BH: I don’t really consider myself to be a part of any genre necessarily. I usually get grouped with the likes of Larry Clark, Slava Mogutin, Marcelo Krasilcic, which is fine with me because they’re all friends of mine and I love what they do, but I never think about them when I’m making my own work. I also don’t really consider myself a photographer, per se. Most of what I’ve shown so far has been photography, but I think that will change. I spent most of last year working on a sculpture and right now I’m doing a large-scale painting.

WB: What’s the subject-matter of the painting?

BH: It’s three Laker girls dancing so that their skirts are flying up and they’re not wearing underwear.

WB: Speaking of sculptures, I love your cartoon cat head sculpture - what’s the story behind that?

BH: The cartoon cat head was part of the “Kidnapper” show. I’m really interested in the way that the memory sort of plucks things out of our daily lives, sometimes seemingly arbitrarily and decides that those will be the things that we keep and the rest it just forgets. The cat head is larger-than-life (six feet tall in person) so it’s a giant icon, the way that images can be in our minds sometimes, and it’s only the head because the rest didn’t make an impression for some reason. It also looks like a lot of cartoon cats but isn’t any specific cat, because the memory is unreliable and can get kind of fuzzy after a while, and even merge separate memories into one memory accidentally. I know it works because I have the cat’s face tattooed on my calf and every time I wear shorts someone will ask if its Felix or Heathcliff or whatever cat was the one they remember from their era. I also wonder what things might have become larger-than-life icons in Polly Klaas’ memory right before she died, or what the last cartoon she watched was.

WB: What cartoons do you watch?

BH: None. I hate TV.

WB: Are you working on any other sculptures?

BH: Yeah, I’m in the mock-up stage for a six and a half foot tall Teen Wolf. Like when high school kids turn into werewolves in movies. It’ll look like that. It’s gonna be sweet.

WB: Any interest in doing commercial work?

BH: Yeah, I do some commercial work. I like big photoshoots sometimes. It’s crazy how many people will be standing around doing nothing but for some reason HAVE to be there. And I like working with other people. It reminds me of when I was in art school and we had to do group projects - and I always had the best idea! [laughs]

WB: You said you’re obsessed with early Corey Haim. You and me both! Now that hard living has taken it’s toll how do you feel about him?

BH: I think the tragedy of how his life has turned out is sort of my favorite thing about him. I think for him to have aged gracefully would have undermined how amazing he was as a kid. But to destroy his looks, his career and his life seems like going out in a beautiful blaze of glorious anti-glory.

WB: How was Corey Feldman ever considered even close to as hot as Corey Haim?

BH: Was he? I thought it was sort of a package deal. Haim was always my fave though.

WB: Let’s talk about your video work. What are you doing in video that’s different from your photography?

BH: I’m basically just fucking around. Right now video for me is more about the experience than the product. With my photographic work I definitely have a conceptual concern that I want to share, but every medium takes a while to get used to and I’m not really there with video yet. There are too many choices and I don’t have the discipline to make many of them yet. So the videos are more a good time than anything else, and that’s why I’ve only ever exhibited one. I doubt that I will have a video in any of my shows anytime soon.That being said, I like for there to be other levels to the work outside of what sits in the gallery, and that’s the reason for the blog, for doing interviews, for crank calling people and hiring people to start rumors about me. Video would fit in that realm right now too I guess.

WB: What’s your best crank call?

BH: Oh no, I’m not saying anything self-incriminating!

WB: You’re 24 years old, so presumably your work is still evolving. What has it been evolving towards recently?

BH: I think my concepts and they way that I communicate them has become increasingly complex. A few years ago the work was more illustrative. Now I think I spend more energy deciding which details I want to leave out instead of trying to make sure that every point is clear and easy to understand. Part of that is gaining more confidence in my audience and understanding the work as actually being viewed rather than just created in a vacuum.

WB: What do you wish you were working on?

BH: A feature film that would be a filmic interpretation of the entirety of Trent Reznor’s musical work, with every song he’s ever written as a continuous score playing in chronological order throughout the movie.
Brandon Herman is represented by Envoy. All images and artwork ©Brandon Herman

Big Scot has been keeping the riff raff out of our bars and clubs for the last 20 years [applause]. He is absolutely an East Village legend, and absolutely not to be fucked with. He’s also a gentle giant, a writer, and an artist and musician in the tradition of what made the East Village hot in the first place. He may even be a murderer, but probably not. His storytelling can best be described as stream-of-consciousness. At any rate, he’s been around, seen a lot, done more, and luckily is a great friend of EVB because he’s naming names.

Weston: Pot, Ketel One - ready to go?

Big Scot: Yeah.

How about a background track for the readers. Name your tune.

Slayer, “Seasons in the Abyss”.

I think I’ve seen you maybe once without a metal t-shirt. What’s the Holy Trinity of metal?

Blood, sweat, and love.

I meant the bands.

The best live, Slayer. Black Label Society (BLS), and Queens of the Stone Age.
[since publishing this article Scot has sobered up and wants to change his original answer to Slayer, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. What the hell was he thinking with Queens of the Stone Age?]

Surprised about that last one, but those are the three must-haves for EV boys that don’t know anything about metal?

Yeah.

Lets start with your public door-whore persona.

I am not a whore [laughs].

What doors have you whored before your current gig at Eastern Bloc, in the East Village (of course)?

What doors have I not whored should be your question. OK here we go. Limelight, Pyramid…

Limelight during the Michael Alig days?

This was before Michael Alig, but I used to sneak him in when he was, um, 19. I HELPED PROMOTE A MURDERER!

Did you help with the murder?

[pause]

OK, next question…

[laughs] No, I didn’t help with the murder, but I did know Angel.

Back to the doors.

Limelight, Pyramid, Boy Bar, The World, Mars, Sound Factory, Sound Factory Bar, Twilo, Barracuda [vomit noises, more vomit noises], The Cock.

I heard [redacted] waters down their drinks.

Yes, I believe they do. The first time I had a drink in there I was like this motherfucking Jack is fucking watered down you motherfucking bitch. I can’t stand those fucking assholes. One of them wanted to look at my paintings and I was like, “I would never sell you a painting, bitch. Even if you wanted the million dollar one” [laughs]. Can I finish my doors? OK, The Cock, The Park and now Eastern Bloc.

Speaking of Eastern Bloc, I’ve seen you turn away legions of hot boys. What the hell?

They didn’t have ID.

And? I have seen fake IDs handed to you. Not good enough?

[laughs] No.

Give us some dirt on the Eastern Bloc staff - but be nice it’s our favorite bar.

I don’t really have any dirt on any of them. They’re all friends of mine, we all get along and they’re great to work for. And all those clubs I listed - this is the first time I haven’t worked for a cokehead owner. The first one! I was like, wow, after 20 years of doing this, this is the first place with no cokehead owners.

We’re going to get sued.

No, I’m telling you the truth. They’re nice guys at Eastern Bloc and I really like everyone there. It’s small and it’s - oh we had one employee that was kind of funny - he used to do happy hour and used to play Tori Amos. You’d walk in and think “lets’s do some heroin and slit our wrists”. But he’s gone now.

Who was the last guy you threw out at Eastern Bloc?

Oh that was this guy last Friday. They called me in and the dancer comes over, “I need help, I need help, there are people on the stripper pole!” So I go over and I tell this one chick to get down, she gets down, and then there’s this big fucking guy, and he was screaming “HALLELUJAH JESUS! JESUS! AMERICA! AMERICA!”, and I said dude, you can’t be touching the pole while the go-go boy is trying to dance, so he looks at me, gives me this dirty look, and he takes his hand off the pole, and I go back to the door, and turn around, and his hand is back on the fucking pole, and I’m like dude, you can’t put your fucking hand on the pole, and he says “but I have to! If I don’t I’ll fall over!”, and I said I think its time for you to go and he gives me this look and says “try to throw me out”, and tries to stare me down, and he was a big fucker, and I was like ok bitch are you ready to go - I’m not in the mood, but then I suggested “you know, you’re fucked up, you need to get some air, lets go outside”. So we go outside and he’s like “thank you, I love you! Thank you for being so understanding” and waddled down the street home.

So when we hang out at the door with you, I love watching all the straight boys walk by all sly to check the place out, and then circle back and come in… or am I imagining things?

No, you’re not. Somehow my body odor attracts them. If you’re good looking, mental, and confused about your sexuality, then you’re in love with me. And I’m in love with you.

Um…

They come to ME! you’ve seen them, right?

I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it. They probably think you’re the guy from Harry Potter.

HAHAHA! Hagrid?

Yeah, exactly! What’s it like working with Daniel Radcliffe anyway?

Who’s Daniel Radcliffe?

Um… so the East Village has changed a lot over the last twenty years. What was it like when you first started doing doors in the neighborhood?

When I used to work at Pyramid on Avenue A, I had a big red bong underneath my chair, and when my friends showed up we’d take bong hits. That’s how cool it was back in the day. People would bring me beer… people were afraid… Avenue A was “alright”, Avenue B was “Beware”, Avenue C was “crazy” and Avenue D was “dead”. Now you walk down Avenue B and there are people with baby strollers. I miss when it was bombed-out buildings and junkies - it was like zombie land. I lived on 8th Street between B and C at one point - because I was between beware and craziness.

What’s the craziest shit you’ve seen in the last 20 years. I want names.

Ok this one will be gossipy. One time, this gossip columnist from [redacted] - I was working at The World, and they had this one section in the middle of the place called the “It Club”, and the staff would always go in there because we knew the beer cases were open and we could go in there and get beer, so my buddy and I were in there drinking a beer, and we see [redacted] over in the corner with some young guy with his pants down, and he was trying to get the guy hard but he couldn’t get hard because he was so fucked up, but he’s still sucking on his dick [sucking sounds], so we crouched down and he hears us giggling, so he stops and looks around - and then [sucking sounds].

I don’t think we should print that.

You don’t have to say who it is, just say “gossip columnist”.

I have funny fuck story. This guy shows up at Boy Bar, and he’s like “can I come in?”, and the other doorman told him (more…)

Religious artwork has always been rife with homoerotic imagery - the inevitable byproduct of a general social and cultural repression, gay artists who’s homosexuality was conveniently overlooked in exchange for more devotees, cash and power, and of course altar-boy loving priests (let the hate mail begin) - so when we saw Italian artist Diego Tolomelli’s work, rendered in a language most commonly associated with religion, we knew this was something we had to get to the bottom of.

Weston: So Diego - Italian and working in stained glass. Religious?

Diego Tolomelli: Not in the slightest. Yes, I’m Italian and Rome is hardcore Catholic, but I’m queer.

W: Any chance you were an altar boy?

DT: Not even close. I went to sunday school to learn to play guitar but I got bored very quickly.

W: Stained glass works are made partly from mouth-blown glass. An appropriate production method, no?

DT: Mouth-blown, painted, stroked with a badger brush - it’s enough to bring a sweat to ones brow. It’s sensuous work.

W: OK, the big serious question. The dichotomy of Christianity and homoeroticism, the sacred and the profane. What exactly is the connection between the two for you?

DT: In the history of Italian art, a whole host of our most famous artists were gay: Caravaggio, Botticelli and of course Michelangelo, but their patrons forced them to follow strict rules. Take the Sistine Chapel – all of the cocks were covered. But if you really want to see pornography in Christian imagery, take a look at medieval representations of hell. Christianity and the erotic are old bedfellows.

W: Do you feel any connection with that long line of gay men that created artwork for the Church? What if the Vatican gave you a call?

DT: I doubt the Pope would commission an erotic panel, publically anyway. As you can imagine I don’t really market myself to the Church – but should they suddenly started knocking on my door I’d welcome doing a nice Saint Sebastian.

W: Christian art has always had more than a few homoerotic images. Do you see your erotic work as part of that history, or are you simply borrowing the technique?

DT: Christian art also includes paintings on canvas, but that medium has never been seen as a particularly Christian one. The connection of stained glass with Christianity or the Church comes from the fact that it was an important patron, as were the aristocracy and others with money. Consequently, there is a connection between the medium and the Church in peoples’ minds so I like to play with that.

W: You worked in the UK for a few years, but left because of the “British climate”. Do you mean the social climate?

DT: No, I really mean the weather! I never experienced any discrimination about my sexuality or nationality - unfortunately in Italy things are quite different. I loved England because I think it is a meritocratic society and this gave me opportunities to grow in my work - but I like blue sky and aperitifs in the street, so…

W: You’ve also worked on several ‘traditional’ projects like the UK’s House of Parliament and a cathedral in Nigeria.

DT: Those were two very different projects – I enjoyed being a part of them because I learned so much. The first taught me a lot about UK political history including purple potatoes and the Cat and Mouse Act. Nigeria was an amazing experience. I met some beautiful people and to this day I crave returning to Africa. Abuja is a city of contrasts. There are areas without electricity or sanitation, yet there’s an ongoing competition between mosques and cathedrals to outdo each other.

W: How do you think the people from the Nigerian cathedral would react to your ‘other’ work?

DT: It’s a country that doesn’t respect the human rights of gay people. They have a long way to go to catch up to Italy, yet we’re lagging behind the rest of Europe. I imagine their reaction would be very strong. When I was there I watched a Nigerian comedian make a joke about a man being arrested because he had been found in the company of gay men three times. I imagine in the eyes of his audience my crime would be much more serious.

W: Have you experienced any violent reactions to your work?

DT: Luckily not yet.

W: Presumably your work doesn’t hang in many church windows. How do people generally see your work?

DT: This is my first year on my own and producing erotic panels but I’ve organized two exhibitions in Rome - one in the headquarters of Rome’s LGBT association, Mario Mieli, and a second where I managed to bring stained glass onto the dancefloor of PhagOff – a very cool queer night. I’m into taking the art to people - I’d love to do this in other countries. People also get to see my work on MySpace and my website, and of course liberating publications such as your own.

W: I love that you include a lot of visual cues that place the work in a very contemporary context: cute underwear, fetish gear, tattoos, sneakers. What other contemporary content are you bringing to your very ancient craft?

DT: The influences I bring center around queer awareness. Artistically I really like Pierre et Gilles and Gilbert and George and I’m influenced by the internet and MySpace and all the artists I meet there.

W: What are you working on right now?

DT: I’m working on a homoerotic vampire stained glass panel for a commission by an author of erotic literature, William Maltese, for a forthcoming book jacket.

W: What is your ultimate fantasy project?

DT: As with most fantasies I am attracted by size, subject and location. The bigger the window the more adventurous and impressive it can be. The subject would focus on an exploration of gender and a blurring of gender boundaries. Of course the Louvre, or Metropolitan Museum of Art would be amazing locations, but I would be happy with the Ely Museum of Stained Glass in England and/or the Smith Museum of Stained Glass in America.

However, as I said earlier, I’m into bringing my art to the people and I am attracted by collaborations with other artists and craftsmen. So, a free-standing stained glass sculpture, with fleshy fantasies and erotic undertones installed smack bang in the middle of an urban public space would be heavenly.

All artwork by Diego Tolomelli and © the artist, unless otherwise indicated.

We first fell for New York-based designer Tim Hamilton at his presentation last February during New York fashion week. We’ve been trying to pin him down since then, and somewhere in between visiting his factories in Japan and Italy, moving his home, selling-out his first UNIQLO collection, and getting nominated for a CFDA award for the second time in his two-year career, he squeezed us in. Personally, I think he’s destined to dress every East Village boy from here to Tokyo.

Weston: I understand the Tim Hamilton story starts in Iowa. How did that twist your early opinions about style?

Tim: I don’t want to sound cynical about my midwest roots, but if anything it made want to stand out in style, so I separated from anything that had any Iowa-style connection. I hated growing up in Iowa as child. As a kid I was always looking at fashion publications for guidance about what was going on in London or New York. I was rebellious in my own way with everything midwest.

W: So did Iowa have any influence on your style at all?

T: Iowa? No. I think to a degree my father influenced me my first few seasons. We battled constantly growing up, but I definitely appreciated his style. He was very much a blue-collar World War II vet kind of guy, but he definitely had this sort of chic-ness about him - the way he wore his workwear with sport coats and he made it sort of refined. I just hoped I could dress like that when I got older. But Iowa itself, no. If anything maybe it made my personality a little more laid back.

Also, I’m half-Lebanese, and we were constantly around my cousins, and my mother was well travelled and deep into things outside of the box. She was always reading these amazing novels, and she would make us read them out loud. She taught ballroom dancing and she was big into the the Hollywood starlets and things like that.

We grew up really poor so there was always this thing of not looking poor. We’d get pretty amazing hand-me-downs from our cousins, and with our last dollar we could buy a certain label and mix it up or go thrift store shopping. We really wanted to make an effort to look good - my whole family. We didn’t necessarily want to fit in, but we wanted to step out in style. I think that early on, how I put myself together, really defined how I looked at style.

W: Halston was from Iowa - did you feel like he was looking over your shoulder? Did you feel the debauchery of his Studio 54 days luring you to New York?

T: Before my time! Dif gen, thank you! [laughs]. Of course I knew he was from Des Moines and I do have a fascination with the ’70s in New York. I wished I was old enough to have been in New York in the ’70s and ’80s. I think one season I’ll do a tribute to that era. When the time is right.

W: Tell us about the infamous Iowa farmboys. Any adventures?

T: Ha. No I wish I could make something up. I couldn’t wait to depart from Iowa and no dalliance was left behind!

W: So you got the hell out.

T: Yeah, I used to call all these famous photographers when I was in Iowa - Steven Meisel, Herb Ritts, Francesco Scavulo, Bruce Weber - everyone told me at the time South Beach was the place to be, and that I should come for a few months. So I had saved up $500, and finally left in ‘91.

I stayed in Miami for a year and traveled around Europe doing the 21-year-old backpack thing. Finally made my way to New York and got a job in sales at RRL. They thought I fit the image - that look. It was great to get a job, but my goal was to study acting.

I was working with the corporate office at Ralph to do the looks of the store - work the whole Ralph image - but I always tried to push things by the way I dressed. After a year they told me “you should work in design, you should work in design”, so they gave me an internship, hired me three months later, and payed for classes at Parsons. They sent me to Japan, Paris, London, constant travelling to LA and Seattle, buying vintage, and building big concepts. It was kind of crazy to think you could get paid for something like that, so I gave up the acting thing.

W: So you started at Ralph Lauren, which is really not sexy, but you’re clothes are. You’re obviously not trying to do Ralph Lauren, but what are you doing that makes your take on ‘American’ clothes so much sexier? What are you doing that they’re not?

T: Good point. I don’t know. At my first few jobs, I felt at the time there was no one doing menswear in New York that was taking attention away from Europe. I felt like all the designers would attempt to do different things but it all kind of ended up as this ‘American wardrobe’. Everyone was doing their version of it.

I design for my vision now. I guess I’m at the point where I feel that if you are designing in in the US the press tends to trap you as American designer. I’m very proud to be in New York but I don’t like to be categorized as an Americana style brand. I feel I need to make some extreme risks and take on some risky themes to break that title. It’s always 100% me and my evolution. Editors always say American style is more casual and relaxed and it’s so boring to keep hearing that. I wanted to be true to my vision and if comes off as sexy then fine I’ll take that.

W: It definitely comes off as sexy. Super sexy tight pants, sequins, fur, patent leather tuxedo shoes - kinda glammy, non-traditional territory for a preppy look. Explain yourself Mr. Hamilton.

T: I never called myself preppy! The press may have in the beginning because editors need to label you. I came from strong preppy Americana workplaces which I never molded myself into. I just worked there. I think this season I went further into taking risks with the line. I wanted it to be a more conceptual and capture more mood. I added tailoring and that was more evening. It may seem like it’s not in the ‘traditional’ box but you can look at each piece and know they are just reinterpretations of classic pieces.

W: Your last collection was so bright and light and pop. Maybe some residual Miami influence? But this season I described as “ivy league preppy gone bad seed - or maybe trade”. All the better - it got super sexy, and a little trashy - in a really good way of course.

T: I can one hundred percent honestly say the color was not inspired by my Miami days [laughs]. And the new collection is nothing IVY at all, but I can see how you may perceive it to be because of my Ivy sounding name and work history.

I always start with fabric in menswear. Last season was about uses of color and keeping more electric. Surely most of the pieces where based of classics, as all menswear should be, but I brought in a lot of lightweight fabrics and yarns and made the proportions really playful. It has boyish-meets-man charm to it.

I had been going to Japan and Paris and London a lot. And for some reason I was with these kids in their early 20s and I was inspired by their energy. They don’t really have the money to go out and buy expensive labels, but they’re making their looks from Top Man, or vintage. They come up with these great looks that sort of look like high-end designers. I was very motivated by color. I was in an electric mode of color, I was looking at all these books from the ’60s furniture books at that moment so I brought that into my collection.

This season has more of dark mood story of looks inspired by theater, turn of the century romance and a hint a ballet. I had this great intern who was reading a book on Nijinsky, and I was looking at the ballet images and thought about the old world theater. What’s that guy wearing and how can you put some old world romance back into a menswear collection. I didn’t want it to be too glammed up. I wanted to take active silhouettes, but tailor them. The fabrics, yarns, and leather all have movement and are super refined. You can see in the pics and in the presentation. You really want to reach out to touch the clothes and feel and caress them - and of course wear them.

W: Well speaking of caressing, it’s a little off topic but lets talk models. This year they were obscenely hot.

T: Douglas Perrett COACD casting baby! He has such a strong passion for what he does with casting and his understanding of the clothes and concept were right on.

[interlude with Douglas Perret while Tim changes his outfit]

W: You chose models from several agencies. Obviously you were looking for something specific - beyond hot and skinny, what was it?

Douglas: I work with all the agencies and weed out every board trying to find my cast. It’s like a puzzle - you take in the designer and the stylist’s direction, marinate on it, and start thinking of options and suggestions. I’m always looking for something fresh, something to make me go “oh I didn’t think of that”. I want people to walk into a show, take in the casting, and regret passing on that model. It is always an interesting, unpredictable experience which is what makes my job so fascinating.

W: Was there something specific about the vision of the collection that you were trying to capture in the model selection?

Douglas: Clients always mention references, inspiration, their muses, etc. For me that is just all fancy fashion adjectives. I know when a client wants a name model, is willing to take a risk, or wants me to go out on the street and physically search for that raw face. For Tim it was all about dandy ballerinas, but I was apprehensive to be too literal. A perfect combination of balance, great body, powerful legs and the definitive profile. We make a few compromises but I usually get my way. Then again, getting 35 models to stand for free tights and sweater vests is not that easy.

[back to Tim]

W: At your presentation you could get up close and personal with the clothes (and the models). It was up front exhibitionism combined with shameless voyeurism. I loved it. Was it just fashion or is there something more to it than that? Was as it your idea that they stare back at the photographers as they shoot?

T: I wish there were a a whole creative choreographic story behind the set up but no, there isn’t. The stage wasn’t even finished! I wanted to do a pyramid stage but we ran out of time. The models had to jump on the platform when the paint was still wet. As for the models staring at you, maybe they just fancied you. [laughs - but I KNOW he meant it]. No for real they know how to work the camera and crowd and my heart goes out to them for getting pinned and fitted and hair and makeup done, then standing on the platform in the spotlight for an hour. They were all amazing!

W: What’s your soundtrack while you’re designing?

T: Oh boy it changes so much. I’m in a million different music moods in day. Nina Simone, LCD Soundsystem, Joy Division, old Gary Numan - it’s all there. I also have DJ friend who makes me a lot dub mixes from the late ’70s and early ’80s. I’ve also been listening to Sébastien Tellier, Hercules and Love Affair for my pop fix, and Brian Eno and MGMT a lot.

W: You were nominted for a CFDA award in 2006 (which we thought you should have won). Did that early recognition give you latitude to take more risks, or force you to join the establishment?

T: It made me see that you really have to be true to who you are and not confine yourself to the political fashion business hype. Why do it if your not true to yourself. I’m not doing it for money that’s for sure. Not saying I don’t need it but you know, I’m just saying…

I got to experiment and took more risks than ever with this season. I don’t want to do the same thing every season. I don’t want to be a Ralph Lauren. No offense to the Ralph world, and it obviously works for him, but if I can survive with what I do that’s how I want to live.

W: Well you got nominated again this year so you’re doing something right. I see Obama on your wall. One of your inspirations?

T: He’s definitely up there. I would love to dress Obama, but everyone wants it for free. People gotta spend money to wear my shite! But seriously, I think we are ready for a change and he is the man to do it.

W: What are you relieved I didn’t ask you?

T: About my days in Miami! Actually I’m, fine with being asked anything. I’m pretty open and laid back most of the time.

W: What do you wish I did?

T: How hung I am.

If you want some Tim Hamilton, go to Bergdorf’s, Jeffrey, and If.

OK, we’ve finally decided to clue you in about our favorite East Village rocker girls, Tall Black Girls. They’re totally East Village boys, except for the girl part, so lets call them our honorary East Village Boys of the month. At any rate, they’re all tougher than our twinky intern.

EVB: Describe your sound.
Julie Black: Totally metaclassifunkrocountrygospunk, but sexy.
Nurse Kelly Black: Dirty, sexy, trashy rock.
JenCharles Black: We are most certainly a sexy, dangerous good time. Loud, driving, unforgiving. Kinda like a really good fuck with a total stranger on a hot summer night… what are you doing later… oh wait, we should wait ’til summer. I don’t mind if you bring your boyfriend.
Kate von Black: Hmmm… getting busted on the walk of shame OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN by everybody you’ve ever had a threesome with, only to find out they’re all friends and man do you look like an asshole.

EVB: What’s your take on Cock Culture?
Julie Black: I take cock… and what the fuck is “Cock Culture”?
Nurse Kelly Black: Are you askin’ if I strap it on?
JenCharles Black: My take? Well, I’ll take it anytime! Yea boys!
Kate von Black: More the merrier, bigger the better.

EVB: If you really were a tall black girl, which tall black girl would you be?
Julie Black: Nurse Kelly… or… Joan Crawford. She’s TOTALLY a tall black girl!
Nurse Kelly Black: Tina Turner - she’s the epitome of sexy, soulful, leg rock! RuPaul is a close second, ohhh yeaahhh, stilettos!
JenCharles Black: First of all, I am, and second, I guess I would have to be Kelly if I had to choose. Cuz I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be that short.
Kate von Black: Grace Jones? Tyra Banks on poppers?

EVB: What happened to your keytar player?
Julie Black: GOD, nobody ever tells the drummer anything!
Nurse Kelly Black: A semi-sad story really, we were forced to sacrifice her to Shetar Goddess of Hellfire for some cool, refreshing tequila water.
JenCharles Black: Um, you guys should really proofread these questions before you send them out, because you misspelled guitar. How embarrassing.
Kate von Black: You mean Kelly? Wait, whats a keytar?

JenCharles Black: Hey Julie, why are you such an asshole?
Julie Black: Because you are so much better than me. Hey Kelly, why are you such an asshole?
Kelly Black: Cuz u ladiEs 4 r such bitches… call u after i get my laundry [verbatim via text-message]. Who said I was an asshole, asshole! Hey Kate, why are you such an asshole?
Kate von Black: Cause I can be.

Tall Black Girls is playing Saturday May 3 at Lit, in NYC.
93 Second Ave between 5th and 6th.
10pm. $6 (cheap, of course). C’mon, that’s cheaper than a drink.

24 year old Brooklyn-based Ryan Pfluger describes his work variously as “fabrications, idealized relationships, memories, re-creations, and relationships that may or may not have existed”. The work here is from three bodies of work. “Not Without My Father” a series of photographs of both new and recreated memories of his once estranged father. “About a Boy”, a series of self-portraits exploring and re-evaluating his issues as a gay suburban teenager, and “Men I’ve Met”, a series of portraits of friends, lovers or strangers.

Weston: I think we need a soundtrack. Pick your song.

Ryan: That’s a tough one, depends on my mood. But something like “Ceremony” by Joy Division, “Hounds of Love” by Kate Bush or “Free Money” by Patti Smith.

W: Joy Division it is.

Lets start a few short years ago with your teen years in suburbia. Give us a little background.

R: Childhood… childhood. Well, I had a very interesting childhood/teenage life. Without going too deep into specifics, I was a huge outcast. Not that it’s very unusual for any teenager, especially a gay one, but my family life made it more difficult at the time for sure. I took care of my mother for about nine years because she had breast cancer, and both my parents had serious drug and alcohol addictions. I was beat up a lot. I grew up in a very Italian neighborhood - pretty much if you weren’t a manly man who played football or soccer you were beat on. I, on the other hand, was the President of the musical and did the Olympics of Visual Arts… aka, big faggot.

W: Suburbia tends to engender a lot of… issues. How do these play out in your work?

R: Well, especially with my self-portraits, which is what I focus a lot of my energy on now, it’s a big part of the work. I revisit places and re-evaluate what my life was, what shaped me into who I am today and pay homage to that. Pretty much taking a negative and making it into a positive. Embracing my awkwardness and geek-like nature, such as the photograph of my X-Men comic books, which as a young kid I would fantasize about - being a superhero or rather, having sex with a superhero. Same goes with the photograph of me playing with my action figures. They were my real friends growing up.

W: One of the dominant qualities of your work is its insistence on visual honesty, but your subjects are “fabrications, idealized relationships, memories, re-creations, and relationships that may or may not have existed”. How does that dichotomy work for you?

R: I say it all the time in artist statements and whatnot… I am a very socially-awkward person. I think it’s interesting especially as a portrait photographer, to be that way. I use photography as my way of connecting to people. It’s a situation where you have to be at least in physical proximity - close to someone. My camera is kind of my safety net. A lot of people think I sleep with all the boys I photograph or things of that nature. I don’t, but it doesn’t mean I dont fantasize about it. I fall out of touch with a lot of people I photograph, and then am able to reconnect by photographing them again. It’s an interesting process for me.

W: I think one of the most interesting things about your work is your choice of subjects. You and your models share the same physical presence, similar age, superficially the same sort of look, build, posture. Mostly gay I’m assuming. Even the underwear is very much the same. In multiple ways they are your peers. You are photographing your generation and your culture, no?

R: It’s so great that you brought that up. I was meeting with Hali Feldman, the photo editor at Details last Friday, and she said the same thing. I’m very very conscious of who I photograph, and seek them out - internet stalk even. I kind of look at them as different facets of myself - personality traits I’d like to have, different subtle physical traits. Almost as if it’s self-portraiture through different people. I think five or ten years from now, I’ll be photographing the same people, just older. Gay culture has so many different facets now, that I photograph what closely relates to me. Bears or musclemen just don’t do it for me. However, I am really into gay skins at the moment.

W: What do you see as your role or agenda as THAT photographer?

R: I’ll probably talk about this again, but I think I bring something different than other gay artists/photographers who are working now. I am very nostalgic and sensitive and I think that’s a driving force in my role as an artist. I don’t think, as a gay artist, I need to show sex or hard-ons to show how my sexuality affects my work. I want people to be able to look at my work for awhile and reflect about their own lives and relationships, whatever sexuality they may be.

W: Are you photographing yourself even when you’re not the model? What do you get from yourself as a model that you don’t get from your models, and vice versa?

R: Yes, 100%. I’ll leave it at that.

W: Would you date you?

R: If I had a gay twin who was attracted to me, I’d be the happiest person in the world. I think I only say that because I’m an only-child and don’t really know the whole brotherhood thing. But, in reality, no I wouldn’t date me. One of me is enough to handle.

W: You’ve said before that you’re playing with the idea that your subjects may or may not have been your lovers.

R: I mostly say that because when people see nudity, for the most part people automatically see intimacy. Intimacy leads to becoming lovers sometimes. I love the fact that I can photograph people I’m intimate with exactly the same as those I meet on the day of a shoot. Again, it’s all about the connection with the subject.

W: In a most of your work you can really sense a dialogue going on between you and the models.

R: The dialogue for the most part is silence, at least when I’m taking photographs. I’m very very quiet and don’t give any direction at all. I talk in between rolls, but I actually think the silence helps make the work what it is. It becomes almost a comfortable tension. There’s an oxymoron for you.

W: Would you describe your work as sentimental? Maybe nostalgic?

R: Yes, yes, yes. I cry looking at my photographs sometimes. But a good cry. I feel lucky to have known the people I’ve photographed, whether we had a relationship for just that day, or if I’ve known them for ten years. So yeah, very sentimental.

W: The expressions on your models - their eyes - almost sad or melancholy. Some of them look like they’re about to cry.

R: I know, and I love it. I’m obsessed with the gaze - have you noticed? It totally has to do with how my photographic sessions go. I think the silence, and the fact that it’s always just me and the subject leads to a real vulnerability. I rarely photograph couples or groups of people.

W: People always discuss the photographers gaze, but what I find striking is what you just mentioned - your subjects gaze.

R: Well, I always like my subjects to look at me. There is something that transpires through that interaction and onto the photograph.

W: What sort of response, rational or emotional, are you trying to elicit form your audience?

R: I just want people to think. That’s what makes art in any form such a beautiful thing. I don’t have expectations of my viewer, except to take time with the work. Society today is so much about instant gratification. I can look at a Peter Hujar photograph over and over again and still get something out of it. That’s what I want people to take away with my work.

W: Who do you want to photograph that you haven’t yet?

R: The list is very long actually. Mostly women, surprisingly. I have a real obsession with actresses - Naomi Watts (who I have a tattoo of), Toni Collette, Jennifer Jason Leigh - it goes on and on. BUT, at the top of the list is Gaspard Ulliel. I want to get him naked, photograph him, and then have my way with him.

W: What’s your next concert?

R: I don’t go as much as I used to. I was big into going to shows when I was younger. However, last night I saw The Gossip. I photographed them like two years ago, and they’re all such amazing people. Great show, and Nathan is looking hot these days.

W: What’s your next tattoo?

R: I’m actually getting two next week. An old-school Mom and Dad tattoo. One on each side of my neck.

all photos ©Ryan Pfluger. Ryan is represented by Envoy in NYC. Check out his great blog.

Through his portraits, Giovanni di Mola says he is revealing the vulnerability and the poetic, visual and spontaneous unspoken truths of his subjects. Despite abandoning the East Village for swimming holes and open fields (sounds crazy to me) 130 miles North (even crazier still), we still somehow love his work.

Weston: How’s life in the Hudson Valley?

Giovanni: A mixed bag. Great because of the convenience of being able to walk to most of my jobs and friends, not spending most of the day traveling back and forth from work, having time to focus on my art, living healthy, getting fresh fruits and vegetables, seeing nature on a regular basis. Bad because it can be a bit isolating - harder if you’re a single guy - you have to create most of your entertainment.

W: Why did you leave New York?

G: Needed change - and to simplify things… had lost inspiration… too many billboards and advertising on every crack and corner including the damn bathroom stall… bring things down to their core so I could restart… try to remember why I was in New York City… many years of drugging and clubbing fried me… I forgot who the fuck I was… felt more like a machine part - a cog in the wheel of industry… got a bit bitter… needed to be excited by life again.

W: How do you find your models up there?

G: It’s different up here I build up friendships over time and repeated introductions before I ever ask them to pose for me. I never ask anyone to pose nude. They feel comfortable enough to introduce the idea when they’re ready. It’s a smaller community so you eventually see the same people over time at friends places and outdoor gatherings. I meet many on nights that I throw my alt dance party. Some are just passing through living in Hudson until they figure out their next move.

W: An alt dance party in Hudson?

G: It’s a once a month bash that mixes up the Hudsonians, northern New Yorkers, the Berkshires, New York City weekenders, drag queens, trannies, homos and lesbians to party and dance together. Many times based on a theme. It was my way to cure my homesick and melancholic feelings about Boy Bar, Pyramid, The World, SqueezeBox, and that incredible mix of people from completely diverse backgrounds.

W: Your models are very unselfconscious. How do you get them comfortable in front of the camera.

G: The setting is very informal. I don’t use assistants, makeup, etc. I use available light and my camera. Maybe a tripod. It’s just me and them. Many of the models have a very strong sense of self-identity. A punk sort of attitude which I connect with since I was once the same - living and partying in the LES and the East Village in the late 80s and early 90s.

W: Were you a punk? What was your story back then?

G: I was a guido (not yet a fag) from Astoria Queens, that got to be a new waver/punk on the weekends in New York, which eventually became a part of who I am today. I used to see punk bands like Murphy’s Law, Kraut, Black Flag and early Beastie Boys (Cookie Puss) at CBGB, doing too much acid and waking up on the sidewalk - but psyched I woke up in New York instead of Queens. Places like Boy Bar, Pyramid, The World, Rock and Roll Fag Bar were where I got to figure out who I was - or wanted to be. You could be gay and love rock, you could be straight and dance to disco, you could be a business man and wear your best leather gear out and beeeee.

W: OK back to your work. Can you explain what you mean when you say your work is “revealing and subverting identity”?

G: I like playing with the lines that separate gender, sexuality, the sort of roles that we play without knowing it. The person or identity you bring to a portrait session. I like peeling away at those layers, showing what I see, and hopefully sharing it with everyone else. People always say “Huh, I look like that? I didn’t know I had that in me. Cool!”

W: How do you think that identity-play comes through in your work?

G: By whom I choose to photograph, and leaving the sitter/model in the room to do whatever they feel they want to on-camera. I project that freedom because I still am constantly challenged by inner battle of masculine versus feminine. Through them I get to work through some of that dialogue.

W: There’s not a lot of manufactured idealism about your work. The models, the setting, the lighting - all very raw and ‘as-is’, but at the same time nearly everyone is posing for the camera.

G: It’s that contradiction that I love so much. It’s sort of like catching a word in the middle of a conversation that sticks with you. That’s what my portraits are. Does that answer it or confuse it more? [laughs].

W: So, like a narrative fragment.

G: Yes, but without planning or setting up the image. Those narratives are played out through the natural personality and physicality of the sitter .

W: Seems like a stupid question, but most of your models are nude, or at least half-naked. Except for the women. Beyond the obvious, why?

G: I feel more like myself when I don’t have my clothing (AKA uniform) or layers on. It turns out that many of my models and friends feel the same way!

W: You’re black and white and Polaroid work have a very different approach. Simple backdrops, models vamping for the camera, fairly close-up, more controlled ‘traditional’ portraiture.

G: It’s my earlier work. My first attempts at portraiture. While studying photography at SVA by day, and photographing the club scene - dancers, drag queens, performers - by night. Michael Formika Jones, Miss Understood, Sherry Vine, SqueezeBox and Michael Schmidt all gave me the chance to explore and document while partaking in all of it!

W: Some of your photographs involve multiple exposures of different poses. Are you trying to show movement? Ambiguity? Neither? Both?

G: I love playing with movement and time. I enjoy working with dancers - the freakiness and beauty of their bodies and movement. Brian Brooks Moving Company is what got me started. I don’t shoot multiple exposures, but long exposures, so that after sitting still long enough something has to give.

W: You’ve said you are influenced by Caravaggio. In what way?

G: His light and subjects. The way he would paint with light. The purity and rawness. The contrasts between beauty, sacrilege, and undesirability. I found some of that light up here along the Hudson River, and my subjects - especially those passing through - carry many of the same circumstances that his models did.

W: The “same circumstances”, as in they’re hustlers?

G: Along the way some of them lived on the streets, some were drug dealers, addicts, petty criminals. I see real humanity and striking character in these people. They are beautiful to me in a way that fashion models and movie stars are to most people. Photographing them gives me a chance to place them on a virtual pedestal of sorts, which Caravaggio did with his religious paintings.

W: You’ve said lately you’ve starting to move more towards abstraction and ephemera. How do you go from very visually descriptive portraiture to that?

G: During the warmer seasons my outdoor portraits and landscapes get more of my attention. Hidden swimming holes, open fields in the middle of nowhere, reflections in streams, herbal supplements [laughs], etc. I do more self-portraits as well.

W: What are you working on now?

G: A portrait series of the people of Hudson, whether they were born here, passing through, or just starting to make a life for themselves. The ones I feel that really represent this place, and a bit of our future. They are all non-typical. Very individual. The lines of their gender and sexuality are blurred which I feel is much closer to many of our true natures - if we allow ourselves.

W: What’s next?

G: Late Summer early Fall I’ll be heading back to Israel to complete my project that I started working on in 2005 on Israel, specifically Tel Aviv and it’s people, and then ending the trip in India to start a new project. I’m also going to head back to New York. I’d like to re-explore it and the characters and cast that make it up now. There is a whole new generation of New Yorkers, especially in my second home the East Village, that I’d love to connect with and capture.

all photographs ©Giovanni di Mola

Montreal-based Mikel Marton has spent his short career exploring issues of mythology, religion, male sexuality and beauty, on both sides of the camera - a self-portrait is on the left. His photos are dreamlike constructions, all parts of larger narratives that range from the very real, to the very surreal. He’s a man on a mission to make ordinary men gods, and fantasy reality. Or maybe the other way around.

Weston: Hey Mikel. Let’s start at the start - give us a little history.

Mikel: My family is from Hungary. My mother from Budapest and my father from Soporon. I was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, but I’m still one-hundred percent Hungarian blood. I was raised in the small town (and band-namesake) ‘Chilliwack’. It smelled of animal feed, rotting crops of brussel sprouts and Christianity. It was very oppressive, so I moved to Vancouver as soon as I graduated, and spent a few years there until I found it too superficial and vapid for me. That’s when I left my loved ones, and family and moved to Montreal, which was a year and a half ago. I do visit Vancouver, yearly.

W: On to the present. What did you do today?

M: Well… my day has just started. I am a bit hungover this afternoon, as I drank too much shit beer at this karaoke place that I always get kicked out of for starting fights with the DJ. French/English bullshit.

W: Where does the name from your website “toxicboy” come from?

M: A character from a book of morbid nursery rhymes, by Tim Burton, whom I was fond of in grade 9. I haven’t been able to escape the name, since my work has become associated with it. How will my fans know where to look? It still sounds appropriate, as long as you don’t associate it with Britney Spears (which I definitely don’t).

W: Some of your idealized, homoerotic, mythological, fantastic subject matter, your constructed tableaux, and highly manipulated imagemaking process, immediately brings to mind the work of Pierre & Gilles and James Bidgood. What do you think you share with them?

M: Other than being delusional, sexually repressed, ass-obsessed nerds? I myself, definitely don’t work in reality, and I guess we all have a fixation with over-idolizing the beauty of the male body. All of our imagery seems to be inspired by the adulation of gods, saints and beasts in the Bible and mythology. I’ve been obsessed with mythology for as long as I could read. I guess you could say, I am into the act of deification because I fuse dreams into reality - I make men into gods. I guess I could have also answered, “I’m a pisces”.

W: What I find interesting about your body of work is that some of your images are highly stylized, controlled, and manipulated, while on the other hand, much of it is more naturalistic.

M: Like I said, I fuse dreams into reality. If you aren’t satisfied with reality, you always can invent it! I’m terribly impulsive and feel it is all the same approach really. I let my intuition tell me what is needed where. It’s quite challenging to play out your imagination through such a realistic medium, that’s what I enjoy so much. Oh yes, and the naked boys.

W: I think your work that exists somewhere in the middle, stylistically - much of the work we selected for the article - is the most interesting and the most powerful. It’s like a peek into a mythological world, without getting lost in it.

M: I like to create an image that’s sexually stimulating, but doesn’t overpower the other senses at play. I am creating a visual, emotional and sexual experience with my photographs. It’s like an experiment, if you took the loin cloth, or underwear, or tastefully placed hand away in your mind’s eye, what would you see? It fulfills many curiosities and then builds the hunger for more.

W: You sent us a sneak peak of a new series your working on - a reluctant looking clown with a balloon tied around his cock. Would you like to explain that?

M: Well, I think it certainly explains itself.

W: When does art become pornography for you?

M: Taste in porn is as subjective as taste in art. Porn makes sexuality look ugly without trying to be ironic. I do think of it as art, though: the gratuitous devices are very visual, and audible - it stimulates us, and draws us into a new reality - into the primitive perversions of our mind. I think the difference between art and pornography is all in the intention.

W: Why do the subjects in nearly all of your photographs confront the viewer so directly.

M: I’m sexually aggressive.

W: You also do a lot of self-portraits. Is it pure exhibitionism or are you giving yourself something that you can’t get from your models?

M: It’s a type of exhibitionism. I can’t express it any other way. It’s projected creativity and sexuality times 1000. It’s the third-dimension of my personality that I don’t flaunt in real life. It lets you look into the eye of the storm that is my creative sexuality.

W: You’re super hot, and totally hung. Does that make it easer to attract models?

M: Yes. Does that make me manipulative?

W: Maybe, but I doubt anyone minds. Do you build your stories around the models you find, or find models to fit the stories? What’s your process?

M: It really depends. I extract everything from my imagination and storyboard the concept before I photograph a model. I select models who actually GET my work, so once I’ve selected someone and can place them with the type of aesthetic I have probably previously dreamed up, then we are ready to shoot. Some people have such a strong aesthetic of their own that they inspire a series. If I’m confident about the chemistry between the model and myself, I like to freestyle to see what we can create.

W: You also have done a few stories about women. How do you approach female subject matter differently from male?

M: I like females more than I like males. Males just give me boners, and I can relate to male sexuality because I am a male. I like to photograph women vulnerable and powerful, displaying the things I find most beautiful about the female character.

W: Tell us about the new wave burlesque troupe you founded.

M: Bad Taste Burlesque is a burlesque troupe that pushes the ideas of what ‘burlesque’ is. Our motives are to shock, arouse, offend, please, titillate, and most of all, entertain! All in the spirit of bad taste, of course. We debuted our show Heavy Petting Zoo, I did one act, where I was an aggressive equestrian jockey boy, in my classic get-up: riding hat, crop, tights, boots, who had to teach the naughty pony boy a lesson. In turn he taught me a lesson when he ripped off my tights, and had me on my hands and knees as a show horse showing off my bare flank, then he rode me. In turn, I liked it, ripped off his saddle exposing his bare back, and rode my bare ass across his back, all the way to his face with a tongue-in-the-ass finale. We are planning a religious themed show this summer.

W: It seems natural for you to turn to video - any interest?

M: Very much. Please buy me video equipment, you won’t be sorry you did [laughs].

W: What’s your soundtrack while you’re working?

M: Lately, the old dudes: David Bowie, Gary Numan, Iggy Pop and Kate Bush (if she counts as an old dude).

W: I think she does. So, being an exhibitionist, where else do you like to showoff?

M: Well, when I am in Vancouver I practically live naked at Wreck Beach. It has to be the most beautiful beach in Canada, that you have to walk ten minutes through a breathtaking rain forest to get to. It isn’t perverse, and it’s always packed with the beautiful shapes of everyone’s nude forms. People walk around selling things from beer, to margaritas, to weed and exotic specialty foods. It’s pretty amazing, and it’s on the aquamarine Pacific Ocean.

I also like to swim naked anywhere, break into public pools, the beach, anywhere. Other then that, public sex and recording myself having sex are HUGE turn-ons. Ha, look at you finishing the interview with a dirty question…

all images ©Mikel Marton

The best book store devoted entirely to photography, ever, Dashwood Books (in the East Village of course), has just begun publishing their own books, starting with the absolutely beautiful The Chance is Higher by Ari Marcopoulos, the newest collection of images from the photographer and filmmaker of some of our favorite subjects - skaters, snowboarders, artists, musicians, and the scene and culture they create.

As the press release describes, “The Chance is Higher is a 72-page book featuring 40 black-and-white images by legendary Dutch Photographer Ari Marcopoulos, all of which were printed on a Xerox machine. For years Marcopoulos has worked with Xeroxes as sketches for books, zines, and exhibitions. In love with the simple direct beauty of this lo-fi technique, the artist turned to that medium to create this new body of work.”

The book itself is as essentialized as the photography. It’s almost minimalist in it’s exacting design, by Swiss designers Gavillet & Rust. With such a refined craft in the service of such raw, direct, of-the-moment content, it’s one of the best books I’ve seen recently to bring the ‘low’ visual language of zine culture to the ‘high’ craft of book design. Even the cover’s slightly haphazard placement of the high-contrast black image on silver canvas manages to capture the urgent DIY reproduction feel of Andy Warhol’s monochrome canvases from the 60s - think Jackie, Elvis, Electric Chairs. Marcopoulos actually printed photographs for Warhol in 1980, and photographed intimate rarely-seen Basquiat portraits around that same time, so perhaps the gesture was deliberate - or intuitive.

Anyway, the book is beautiful and the images are hot. It’s printed in a limited edition of 700 numbered copies ($85), and there’s also a deluxe slip-cased, signed and numbered version, printed on red paper with a folded poster dust jacket, in a limited edition of 50 copies ($350).

Ari Marcopoulos will be signing copies at Dashwood Books, 33 Bond St NYC, Thursday April 3, 6:00-8:00, so if you’re going to get one, get one then and there, meet Ari, and get it signed.

Maybe what makes amateur porn so much hotter than regular porn is the same thing that makes 70s porn so hot too. The boys always look like amateurs - like the guy you just passed on the sidewalk - but unlike amateur porn it’s actually shot by someone who knows what they’re doing, sort of. Raw Heat (Bel Rose), from sometime in the 70s (it doesn’t say when), by author and photographers Leo & Gem, has got to be one of the lost classics. I hate to say its lovingly-crafted but - it is.

Of course the boys are pretty, but what makes it so special is that they look like they’re honestly having fun. They’re not posing, they’re not trying to be sexy, they’re just a couple of guys fucking, sucking, laughing, and getting stoned (on “very strong Afghan shit”). Even the pacing of the photography is something more special than typical cheap-ass 70s porn - not to mention half of it is in rich warm technicolor. If Angelo (who was “raised in an orphanage” - of course he was) gets blown on the left-side page, then Tony gets blown on the right. So sweet. Or the spread with Angelos lips wrapped around a cock on the left, and then wrapped around a joint on the right. Perfect.

In the second story, Angelo meets up with, Fucka and Moosey (from Germany - are those German names? There’s something wrong with the Germans I tell ya), at a rock festival (of course). There’s a bunch of pictures of them chasing each other and ripping off each other’s clothes and laughing, with the big money shot at the end - a big kiss with a hand down the pants. Awwww.

The photos are sweet and honest, but for some reason the text is really not. Maybe it’s the translation from the German text, but it’s like the verbal equivalent of teenagers having sex for the first time. Maybe that’s what they were going for. It’s pretty explicit, and maybe it’s a 70s thing, but it seems like they they just didn’t have the good trashy words yet. “…probing Angelo’s bum hole…”, “…pushed on his anus muscle…”, “…his tongue cleaned softly under the flange…”, “…entering the tighter zones of his bowel…”, “cum sack”, “love hole”, “love juice”, “salty cummy sperm” and my favorite so unsexy line “…uncapped the tube of lubricating jelly…”. Classic.