Ronke Osinowo (pronounced ron-key) is a hip London dyke, but her latest works will speak to any fag who’s ever been stuck in a depressing rainy port town – literally or figuratively. I Bring You Tilbury Town is a collection of her poems, lists, and verbiage, with illustrations by Damilola Odusote, that conjure images of breaking free from societal and familial entrapments alike. Being born to Nigerian parents and raised by Romany gypsies, Ronke’s experience in this place may just be unique.

Joe Eardly: What did you do over the weekend?

Ronke Osinowo: I was supposed to get out of London and head down to Rye for the weekend, but it was pissing with rain. I didn’t fancy tussling with soaked old dears at the bric-a-brac shops so I had a clear out at home instead. Some shocking stuff came to light - judging by the clothes I threw out, I’m not as stylish as i’d like to think.

JE: Is anyone really? Where do you hang out in London, when you are stuck there?

RO: Well, I live quite close to Vauxhall but rarely hang out there. It’s queer heaven apparently, Fire, QN, Hoist, The Tavern, Chariots. I do like popping by Horse Meat Disco once in a while. Otherwise I’m over in the east-end since most of my friends live there. I was born in Hackney and it’s changed so much demographically. Being brought up in a council house, I see no charm living in the inner-city. Some VERY interesting people walking the streets though.

JE: Ah, our mates from Horse Meat were over here in the East Village recently. Always a good time! So where exactly is Tilbury? I imagine it’s one of those depressing minor towns where the drizzle only stops for one hour a year and everyone rushes away from their pint to have a picnic of cold roast beef sandwiches, only to find that when they arrive at the park it starts drizzling again.

RO: You’re right about depressing, for sure! It’s about 25 miles east of London and it’s a dock town. It had chronic unemployment in the ’70s and ’80s which fuelled petty and violent crime. As for being born in Hackney it was a case of out of the frying pan into the fire. There used to be huge cruiseliners docked at the port every couple of months - that’s about as close to glamor as it got. The trade sailors often got robbed and beaten by the skins whilst on shore leave and there was a safe house (knocking shop) called the Stella Maris where the sailors could stay. There were no gays in Tilbury - far too much machismo - but there were quite a few sailors and a fair share of working men’s clubs. You decide.

JE: I’m starting to understand where you got your inspiration! Did you start writing as a kid?

OR: I recently found some old letters and cards and stuff from school. Amongst the crap and the gold I found a short story I’d written about a boy who got his heart broken. It was just short of one page - I’d dated it September 1981 so I guess that’s when I started.

JE: Still into boys then, eh? How did you come about putting your book together?

OR: From the outset I always knew my family set-up was unusual but not necessarily in a good way. Growing up it was a massive hindrance because there was so much negativity thrown at you on a daily bases - whether through physical or verbal abuse, being singled out as trouble or less intelligent, being poor, being black in a white town, being black in a white town with Romany parents, not accepting what the overwhelming majority thought. It can lead you down a very rocky road and put you in a very vulnerable position.

When one of my foster brothers came up to London to study illustration I was really inspired by his work. I dug out some things I had written in Tilbury and wrote a few new things. I thought Dami’s illustrations would enhance the words I had written and give them a greater sense of atmosphere, so I showed him a few lines and he came back to me with what he thought I was trying to get across.

JE: It makes sense that the poems and illustrations were conceived and created together – they’re beautifully interwoven throughout the book. I especially like ‘Woodland’ – it’s something everyone can relate to, but especially growing up a poof!

RO: It’s true what they say: you can’t escape your past - but I’ve found this expression applies largely to people who have experienced something in their past that was particularly unpleasant – people with pasts they want to escape from. If your memories of the past are rosy, this kind of phrase wouldn’t necessarily be in your consciousness. My past haunts me because the things that happened shaped me, but they were not things that I would ever like to experience again. The thought of returning to that state has not been fully exorcised from my mind.

JE: What is your relationship like now with Tilbury Town? Do you visit there often? What is it like?

RO: My relationship with Tilbury stopped when my foster parents died in 2006. They did an amazing job with such little resource or support. Tilbury is unique and an Everytown at the same time. Seeing some pictures recently, it was difficult to distinguish when they were taken – it could have been the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s or ’90s – turned out they were taken just a few weeks prior. That pretty much sums up Tilbury for me – its insularity makes for slow progress. There are some pictures at damilolaa.com - you can see for yourself.

JE: Are you reaching out to other kids in towns like Tilbury?

RO: I think some of the stuff is very personal yet at the same time very accessible to anyone who has felt like an outsider. I wrote the book to try and make sense of things that were going on in my life at the time and to prove that something creative can come from a rubbish situation. What I’ve been hearing from people who have read the book is that they can relate to what is being expressed even though their situations may be very far removed.

JE: I’d say that’s accurate – there is a real sense of trying to break free or escape throughout the book, and who hasn’t felt that when growing up? I got a kick out ‘Rules’ – it pretty much sums it all up.

RO: ‘Rules’ originated because I had to have some kind of mantra for surviving (that wasn’t drug or alcohol related). I tried to fit in (impossible), tried to be “good”, tried to be what I was told I should be and none of it worked. I was despairing and felt like I was being slowly crushed. We learned to fend for ourselves at a very early age and ultimately for me, things became easier to deal with when I followed rule 1.

JE: So speaking of all this escape, is there somewhere you would like to go?

RO: Space would be nice, but I’d prefer to be teleported than sit on a shuttle going stir crazy. That’s outer space by the way, not the club in Ibiza – though that would be a laugh as well. That was a random question!

JE: Are you a poet? Do you know it?

RO: I wouldn’t be so bold as to call myself a poet. Maybe one day. I’m more of an observer. I’m particularly fascinated by what motivates people. I always want to see behind the veil.

JE: Or through the glory hole?

RO: Well everybody loves cock, don’t they?

JE: What does cock culture mean to you?

RO: As far as cock culture goes, I think it’s in a period of transition. In my world, cocks are not synonymous with men, though I do have friends who would (and do) bend over backwards for it.

JE: For an East Village boy?

RO: Hot hot hot!

We received so many emails after our interview with Luis Venegas about his new Electric Youth! magazine (above), we’ve decided to carry it ourselves. Issue #2 is due out soon, but you can pick up the premiere “I Love Spain” issue in our store now. Hot hot hot Spanish boys on nearly every page. I’m just sayin…

We’ve also got a very few copies of Luis’ first-ever issue of Fanzine137, the “Anything Goes” issue, (below) from way back in September 2004, also in the EVB store.

By the way, if you’d like to hear about things like this before we make it public and sell out of everything, sign up on our mailing list.

Twink Life is a new zine by young London artists Simon Leahy and Richard John Jones, for twinks and the men that love them, shoved into my hands outside a late night gallery opening. I got in touch with Richard and found out a bit more - sort of.

Elias Redstone: What is Twink Life all about?

Richard John Jones: Twink power!

What is the true power and beauty of a twink?

When you’re a twink you can do anything, you’re the brightest jewel in the crown of gay life. Twink is kinda derogatory but it’s up to twinks to claim their sovereignty.

Why did you start the zine?

Babes, because being a twink is hard, all the time.

What’s so hard about it?

It’s a gift given by time, which often seems like a hard fuck up the ass, bad and good. It’s turbulent, and your hormones are totally fucked up, but you so frsh.

What’s in a typical twink’s life?

Partying, getting drunk, having fun, meeting people, passing the time and learning how to take hella cock.

Where did the term twink come from - do you know?

Hostess Twinkies, commonly regarded as the quintessential junk food - “little nutritional value, sweet to the taste and cream-filled.” A twink is memorable for his outer packaging, not his inner depth.

What’s the future for Twink Life?

The future is so awsome and beautiful. When I grow up I want to look back at my time as a twink as a time of discovery and power. Not as a time of confusion and objectification. We want Twink Life to grow all over the world, uniting twinks, forever, in this moment of time. Empowering them to realize the true power and beauty of twink.

So magazines are dead are they? Don’t tell that to Luis Venegas, founder, Editor and Creative Director of two of the most exciting and beautiful magazines to have emerged in the last few years. Coming out of Madrid, Fanzine137 and Electric Youth! clearly demonstrate that the art of the magazine, or magateen (in the case of EY) publishing is far from dead. If anything its getting hotter and cuter.

Anyhow, don’t take it from us let Luis explain.

Richard: Please describe yourself in 137 words.

Luis Venegas: Wow! Love this question! I’ll try the best I can in my not-too-good English.

I’m a Spanish guy who lives in Madrid. Everybody tells me I look like a child when I shave, but I’m 32 years old. I’m not too tall, not too fat, not too thin. As many other gay guys in the world, I studied fashion. Later I became freelance Art Director, and in 2004 I started my own magazine, Fanzine137. Recently I’ve launched a new magateen called Electric Youth! I love magazines in general. I contribute with texts and photographs to some of my favorites around the world. I guess the things I like are the ones that better describe me: tv series, handsome boys, my family and friends, Christopher, singing, kissing, movies, New York City, laughing, Marvel comics, haute couture, Jake Gyllenhaal, biographies, orange juice. I would like to live with the guy I love.

R: When did you start Fanzine 137, what was your initial inspiration and how did you come up with the name?

LV: My endless love of magazines since I was a child. I’ve collected special magazines since I was twelve years old. From Vanity Fair to rare issues of Avant Garde, for example - so it was my dream to make my own special magazine, and hopefully earn money doing it! I’m almost obsessed with numbers, and 137 is a number that’s always brought me luck. I use it often everyday. I mean, for example, if I’m waiting for someone who’s delayed I think “I’ll count to 137 and if he doesn’t come I’ll leave”. I also love to look at the clock and see that is 1:37 - I take it as a good sign. Those kind of stupid things have become very important to me. So I thought it was nice to try to bring that extra luck to my magazine.

R: Editor, Creative Director and Publisher - it must be an extremely hectic life being Luis Venegas. What do you do to relax, unwind and escape?

LV: Well, lately my life is pretty busy, yes, but I enjoy what I do a lot, so I don’t ‘need’ to do anything specifically to relax. Anyway, I love to do the same things that everybody does to relax: watch tv, go out at night, dance, sex, travel, music…

R: So tell us what you did last Saturday night?

LV: I received the visit of a nice, handsome friend at home. After he left I watched episode 12 of Lost season 4 that I downloaded from the internet. I can’t wait to see episode 13 next week - the end of the season!

R: You have an amazing roll-call of contributors for the magazine - how do you select them, or do they pursue you?

LV: Usually I contact them. I show them copies of past issues and they usually like them. Most times that’s what convinces them to get involved.

R: You have published six issues. Which has been the most rewarding, personally?

LV: Always the next one. At this moment I’m finishing it. It will be called ‘Ladies & Gentlemen’ and it will be about people with long-time careers. I prefer to look forward, and rewind as little as possible. That’s why I always like the ‘next’ issue.

R: A little bird tells me you are a huge Barbra Streisand fan. What are your favorite Streisand tracks, and why are they so special to you?

LV: I love ‘Guilty’, ‘Putting it Together’ and ‘The Way We Were’. I love Barbra! I know it’s a cliché, being gay, but what can I say? I simply adore her, how great she makes me feel, all she does - but I really can’t explain why exactly. Love comes from the most unexpected places.

R: Do you have a dream?

LV: I have too many to tell you here. The good thing is, little by little all them are coming true. If you ask about an impossible dream, I would like to have Spiderman’s superpowers.

R: You have recently added a new super hot title to to house of Venegas - EY, Electric Youth! Tell us about it, and why you started it.

LV: Because I felt I needed to take a step forward, and do a magazine very different to Fanzine137. I wanted it to be lighter, even more funny and as sexy as possible. I love young guys and all the excitement around them, so I decided to put it all together.

R: You describe EY as the new cult magateen. Who or what is this cult celebrating?

LV: Maybe I’m not the most appropiate person to say, but if we agree youth is one of the greatest times of our lives, well, I guess that’s enough reason to celebrate, don’t you think?


R: Where did you find all the super cute boys?

LV: Most of them are friends of mine. I wanted “real” pretty boys, not the usual models. The ones that I didn’t know I found on MySpace.

R: EY is essentially about the YouTube generation. How do you think the internet is effecting what you do how we communicate and relate with one another?

LV: The internet is absolutely effecting all levels of communication. Luckily. I have no fear of this amazing change - it’s exciting. You and I are talking because of internet. I think in a 100 years someone will refer to the human story as pre-internet or post-internet.

R: I’d now like you to answer some of the questions you asked the 23 hot Spanish boys in the interviews you did for EY.

LV: Cool! I’m enjoying this interview very much! You should do the questions for the US issue of EY!

R: It’s a deal. So, what do you like to drink when you go out at night?

LV: Rum with Coca-Cola.

R: Do you smoke?

LV: No, almost never.

R: What’s the farthest place you’ve ever traveled?

LV: I don’t know which is farthest from Spain. New York or Buenos Aires? I’ve been to both places.

R: Definitely Buenos Aires. According to you who is the world’s best dressed person?

LV: How difficult. I hate that all the celeb men and women these days have a stylist, so it’s difficult to find real taste or originals. I guess Diane Keaton is a true original, and I also like the black simplicity of Grace Coddington.

R: What’s the most incredible nightclub you have ever been to?

LV: In Versailles, for the celebration of Dior’s 60th Birthday. It wasn’t a nightclub exactly, I know, but the night was unforgettable.

R: In what music video would you want to live?

LV: Any of the videos that Bruce Weber has done for Pet Shop Boys: ‘Being Boring’, ‘Se a Vida é’ or ‘I Get Along’.

R: And finally, what is your tip for the future?

LV: To have as much fun as possible. To keep the joy.

We’re not usually in the habit of making event announcements, but here’s a few things we think you should check out.

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Stephen Petronio Company, April 1-6

Choreography: Stephen Petronio

Dancers: Michael Badger, Julian DeLeon, Elena Demyanenko, Davalois Fearon, Jonathan Jaffe, Mandy Kirschner, Shila Tirabassi, Amanda Wells

Music: Fischerspooner, Antony and the Johnsons, Lou Reed, Nico Muhly and Rufus Wainwright

Costumes: Ben Cho, Rachel Roy, Michael Angel, Tony Cohen, Tara Subkoff

The Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave, NYC

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Ari Marcopoulos, book signing for The Chance is Higher, Thursday April 3, 6-8 PM

Dashwood Books, 33 Bond St, NYC

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Ryan McGinley, “I Know Where the summer Goes”, opening reception Thursday April 3, 6 PM

named from the Belle & Sebastian song of the same name:

Team (Gallery, Inc), 83 Grand St, NYC

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.

Hailing from one of our favorite cities, the steamy and chaotic São Paulo multi-talented artist Rodrigo Novaes last week launched his new project, WLTF. For all two of you not familiar with online dating, the cheeky little acronym WLTF puts it STR8 out there. WLTF is a publication (currently online only), which brings together photographers from across the sexual, geographical and creative spectrum to express what they WLTF, or about what WLTF means to them. Its that simple.

Rodrigo Novaes moved from Sao Paulo in the 90’s to study visual arts in Gloucestershire, England before heading to London where he apprenticed for Sir Philip Sommervile, the world famous milliner. After graduating from The University of The Arts, London, in 2001 with an MA in Enterprise and Management for the Creative Arts he moved back to São Paulo. His work has been exhibited in Brazil, England, Spain and Greece.

We caught up with Rodrigo via IM!

Richard: What have I just interrupted?

Rodrigo Novaes: Oh c’mon, use your imagination… do I have to spell it out? lol ;)

R: WOW, you love your acronyms don’t you!!

RN: LOL I guess I do!

R: When did you come up with the idea of WLTF, you mention on your site it was a series of serendipitous events, what were they?

RN: It was a big mixture of lots of things, I worked as the Assistant Curator for a videoart festival here in São Paulo last year, called Videobrasil but at the same time I was making some homemade little books on my domestic printer using my own photographs as I had decided at the time that self-publishing was the future.
During the festival I went round handing out my books. Everyone seemed to like them! At the same time, my boyfriend, who is an internet kid, made me a profile on flickr.com where I started to post images without thinking too much about it. Then as the festival ended, I decided to learn some HTML and CSS on my own in order to make a little site to sell these little books online as artist’s books.

My idea was really just to get the work seen, nothing much beyond that. But I kept getting enquiries about the books, and friends said they wanted to get involved. This got me thinking and one day I had I guess what I would call an epiphany – why not use exactly the same format, images without words, but lots of other people’s work together and not just a vanity publishing project?! So I sat down and wrote the first editorial which became the “about” section on the WLTF site, which is a reflection on the nature of my own photography that is all about very intimate moments with lovers and friends and always very sexual, but quietly sexual, not in-yer-face sexual if you know what I mean. After this I made a very simple site with what I had already learned of HTML and put it online not expecting much from it. This was the first right move, because my friends started putting it about to their friends (the URL that is! -ed), and all of a sudden, the site started to get two to three thousand hits a week and the first images started coming in. This really surprised me and made me think more seriously about the project.

Following this positive interest, I started to further explore the Flickr network and found that there are some really good images out there, although one has to look hard! I created the WLTF group and went around Flickr inviting images into the group and members too. From that point WLTF started to grow and gather momentum. More images started to come in and I expanded the network.

R: How did you find and select the photographers?

RN: Well Flickr obiously was a great starting point. A kind soul, although I don’t know who, put the link to the site on a few Brazilian photography blogs and boom lots of work came in, and some good ones, for example Pedro David, who sent in those images of prostitutes from a very impoverished area of central Brazil. This kind of thing is what I call serendipity, it just happens, you can’t plan it.Some photographers I already knew and went looking for them to see if they would have any interest in taking part like Alex Rose and Stuart Sandford who were great and very responsive to the idea.The very first plan was to choose four or five photographers and start with a very small but perfectly formed project, in order to keep it cheap to print and to administer, but I was bitten on the head with that. So many good images came in that I couldn’t let it pass, I had to allow the project to take its own shape. The selection of the work came naturally, I work instinctively, I can’t say to you that I chose this or that image for any specific reason, it was organic, the images started to fall together naturally, that’s all I can say.

R: How come you’re currently only an online publication?

RN: The main problem is always the same one, money. The objective of the project is to exist in print, four times a year, and one needs cash to make that happen, So that is why I decided to make WLTF #0 an online edition, to show everyone how many people are already involved, how many good work there is out there, and what my concept of WLTF really is. Just talking about it wasn’t doing it anymore, it was time to show the goods and so far the feedback has been amazing. We’ve had 18k hits in just two days!

R: You mention that you ‘just want a bit of fun’ Which images excite you the most and how much is a ‘bit’ of fun?

RN: Well Sir, how long is a piece of string!? lol. I think I could safely say that all of the images excite me in some way, and I am not just saying this to be diplomatic, but if you’re asking me which ones excite me in the sense that it makes me hard, then… these are just a few, take a look and let me know what you think:

R: Future plans?

RN: If it all works out and we get to go to print and get the project properly funded etc etc, I’d like to have future editions of WLTF edited by guest editors. I think that would be a great way of involving even more interesting people and of expanding the WLTF vision, you know, to make it more exciting, that would be great.

R: Where do you hang out in São Paulo, any secret hottie spots we should know about?

RN: Oh I tend to hang out in places that area bit off the beaten track, where angels fear to tread… if you want I can write something for EVB about that.

R: We’d love for you to write something about being off the beaten track in São Paulo. Thanks, and we look forward to WLTF #1 and getting its physical manifestation in our hands.

Julian Frederick: Matthias, your new book Hotel V is one of a series in which you make photographs, largely of yourself, in hotel rooms around the world. What is it about hotels that attracts you to them?

Matthias Hermann: They are both public and private. Hardly any other space combines these two features as much as a hotel room. They have the stories of hundreds of people inscribed in their sheets (and mattresses!), but one does still feel that a room is truly theirs for a night. How many dramas have happened in each room before I enter it to add my mini-drama…. How much sex, love, and hate have those walls seen? There are layers and layers of history in each hotel room, like in history books. And every single layer is present in my photos, both as a backdrop and as the content of the photos.

JF: So you’re participating in an orgy with history: fondling the ghosts of guests gone by, then becoming one yourself. Text is also an important element of your work; it even occasionally serves as a lynchpin for the meaning of a photograph.

MH: The role of the hotel room and of text is not so different: both add further, hidden layers to what we actually see in the photograph. The texts and the authors of the texts contaminate the photograph and the person depicted (and vice versa); their history is forced onto the body displayed, like an invisible tatoo. Most of the text I use is by “famous” people, like art stars, or hollywood stars, or pop stars (Madonna is a constant source). Much has been written about the queering of space (in this case the supposed privacy of the hotel room) which is quite an ephemeral idea. The question seems to be whether the space returns to its original, unblemished straightness once the queer element has physically left. Or does the queerness stay with the space like a stain? How does that apply to text? If you put a quote by George W. Bush in a photo of a faggot posing in a Tuscanian landscape with a raging hard-on, will that have any effect on the perception of Bush? Probably not, but I guess it’s worth a try. Especially as the invisible stands in such high regard with the Born Again Christians…

JF: Yes, your text is very aggressive socially and politically, but also sometimes very referential. For instance the note next to you in one photograph reads “I’m not a person today. I’m an object in an artwork. It’s about emptiness.” It’s like Magritte and David Letterman met Andrea Zittel in a dark alley and beat her senseless with a dildo. Sexuality, art history, and queer theory collide in a hilarious supernova.

MH: Yeah, it’s all about referentiality. That IS what makes art interesting to me. I don’t get your Andrea Zittel reference, but I could imagine a nice menage a trois of Letterman, Andrea Fraser, and William Burroughs in one of Zittel’s tents. After they went for a guided hike, those three could beat themselves up with their giant dildos. Oh, would they have fun. Burroughs would then use a flesh-colored butt plug instead of an apple and restage his William Tell shooting his wife with Fraser. Andrea would give her Kippenberger talk while waiting to be shot at. But I’d insist that Burroughs does hit the butt plug and not at Andrea in this case. No deaths this time.

JF: I was thinking Zittel because there’s so much interchange between her life and work, but you’re right, it’s not a great comparison; she makes a practice of living and you live your practice. In other words where she makes objects in which she lives, you externalize your private life to make objects. Have you ever gotten too personal? Put something out in the world that hit too close to home?

MH: In a solo show in Vienna in 1995 I showed a really beautiful asshole triptych. My dealer overheard the guy responsible for all federal Austrian arts funding comment with disgust: “that’s HIMSELF,” as if every other asshole were morally more acceptable. I reckon it was then that it became clear I can do whatever I wanted, and that nothing could possibly be too personal anymore. “Outing” myself as HIV positive was a further step, though. Strangely I never needed to out myself as being queer, even though somebody told me the other day that an elderly lady asked, after flipping through all my books, whether I might eventually be a homosexual…

Now that the information about my serostatus is out, I guess the next step will be me dying.

JF: Are you afraid of death? Do you think gay men in general have a different relationship to the inevitable than the public at large?

MH: I love my life, so I’ll be happy to go on for a while. Every now and then, especially when I feel low, I think of how lucky I am to be alive and be well, and that I need to be grateful for that and make the most out of it. I tend to not to be afraid of death, but of dying. It seems too big a procedure to imagine, especially premature death, when too many things have to be left open. On the other hand I had a burst appendix three years ago and was on the verge of dying and that wasn’t that bad. I was just slowly fading away, I didn’t realize then how sick I really was. If my partner hadn’t dragged me to the hospital, I would have just gone without much hassle. It seems to me that gay men today are more afraid of aging than of dying, which of course was different some time ago, before protease inhibitors….

JF: I personally feel that gay culture has lost something profound in the last thirty years, the fear of death notwithstanding. My generation missed the both the clandestine, back-alley culture pre-1950 and the explosion of “pride” and resulting bacchanalia post-Stonewall. What do you think of gays today?

MH: I just watched Queer as Folk on DVD and realized (again!) that I have absolutely nothing to do with what is portrayed there as contemporary urban gay life. Although it might be an exaggerated depiction, it seems to be true in its core. But my distance doesn’t mean that I despise it. Foucault once remarked in an interview shortly before his death that he missed the secrecy and camaraderie of gay life (and sex!) in the 50s. But let’s not forget that this life”style” was available only to a very small portion of homosexuals: those who were daring enough to submit to what could be a very dangerous and threatening zone. Not every gay man is a Genet. So I am grateful that gay lib opened up many different possibilities for following generations. That so many gays today seem more bourgeois than suburban middle class families might be sad, but who’s to throw stones here? Why should gays be any more interesting than anybody else: just because they fuck men?

All images courtesy and copyright Matthias Hermann, 2007.

“I for instance do not lust for scat but I have nothing against shitting in one’s mouth as long as one wants it, I just do not feel like kissing right after.” GERMANS! Basso in New York! All week. Go spend some time with them.