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

12 quick questions for Rodrigo Novaes,
Editor of WLTF (where these images came from).

What song would you like to accompany this interview?

“Holding out for a Hero” by ­ Bonnie Tyler.

What’s your story?

Born in Brazil in 1971, grew up in London, became an artist, moved back to Brazil, created WLTF, trying to make it work, and living life as well as possible. It’s funny when I think of it that way.

What’s your favorite city, and why?

London. Memories of growing up.

Who is your alter-ego?

His name is Roger Ego and he does most of what I would never dare. He was born from a misspelling of my name (Rodrigo) by a bewildered office clerk many years ago. From then on Roger has appeared from time to time to save the situation.

What was your most recent jerk-off fantasy?

Gorgeous black man at the back of the cinema. Amazing what we got up to, and nobody saw us!

Shave your balls, or free and wild?

It’s relative… depends on the mood one needs to achieve.

Street, bar, or internet cruising?

Parks!

Is your body a dumpster or a temple?

A dumpster turned temple, with kick-ass lighting.

What was the best thing you’ve ever stolen?

Someone’s boyfriend.

Describe “cock culture” in 5 words.

Small is better than nothing.

What’s your next big thing?

I can’t remember his name… but it’ll be next Tuesday.

Write your own obituary.

Today at 12am Roger Ego died quietly in his sleep. He fucked his way to glory, and he was the most glorious fucker, but now he’s dead, dead as dodo, and without a dildo.

Images, from top left, by Luizo Cavet, Leonash, Gowa, Aaron Krach. All images © the artists.

So I can’t lie (well not very well) - I’ve never been to Iceland, although I was supposed to go last November with Søren, the boy I was kinda dating but then he met Marcus, who I was also kinda dating, which of course changed everything. So, no Recyatrip for me and no more Marcus… or for that matter Søren!

So I now have to console myself with a bottle of Brennivín and this delightful video for Sigor Rós’s latest track ‘Gobbledigook’ shot by original EVB Ryan McGinley.

Ok, so I’m in Paris, and by the way I don’t know what’s going on but FUCK the boys here are hot. Long shaggy hair is in in in. Anyway, there’s a show that opens here tomorrow about my daily fantasy, Gael Garcia Bernal.

The show is called “Saint Gael” by Vincent Gagliostro, who was nice enough to give EVB a preview of the show, so check it out. Vincent, by the way, is originally from New York, was a founding member of ACT UP and the political art collective GRAN FURY. Gay politics, activism, and incredible art. AMAZING! So, if you’re in Paris check out the show in real life at Miss China Beauty Gallery, 3 Rue Francaise, near Etienne Marcel, 1er, May 15 - June 9. I’ll be there rocking my cum shot shirt so say hi.

Vincent’s coming to New York in June, so count on EVB catching up with him in person!

From the artist’s statement:
SAINT GAEL (RE-USED)
statement: 1. (with a predatory gleam in his eye): “heaven’s mouth” - I thought, tearing his image from the magazine. The most beautiful mouth I had ever seen - Gael Garcia Bernal - a new subject.

Further retrieving images from numerous official and unofficial websites, it seemed I was moving from my original focus on his beauty to an encounter with my surpressed voyeuristic nature. Predatory nature. Musical nature. Music, because what I seemed to be on to was a kind of “sampling” much like a DJ/record producer does when creating a work.

Studying his (GGB) film “Y Tu Mama Tambien“, I started re-sequencing the images, removing bits here, adding bits there. For example, in one sequence Gael is fucking the girl companion of the roadtrip. By cropping her out of the movement and re-using the images I could bring my subject closer to my world of sex, desire and politics–three ideas inseparable in my fag world. This project has led me to explore my nature and find perhaps a new willingness to turn the cameras on me and my culture, gay men.

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

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

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

Dutch photographer Joost Vandebrug has been popping up all over art and fashion exhibitions, books and magazines, and most recently just closed his show ‘New Faces’ at Amsterdam’s Foam (Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam). Joost’s documentary-like, emotional, atmospheric work features five guys, all recently scouted by modeling agencies, all shot specifically for the show. While we’ll probably be seeing a lot more of them in the next few years, we’re definitely going to see more of Joost.

Richard: Hey Joost, whats up? What did you do last night?

Joost: I’m ok, just a bit tired from shooting today, and a little sad because my best friend has moved to London this morning to work for a magazine. We have been working, living and partying together for almost two years (I met him in Melbourne). So last night was the last night of our time together in Amsterdam. We had some dinner and went to a party called Rauw.

R: Your ‘New Faces’ pictures are of young up-and-coming models - Were they all comfortable in front of the camera? Why did you choose these guys? Where did you find them?

J: My first plan was to shoot some guys in Holland, but after a while I discovered how dificult it was to get just the right ones. I had a certain look in mind and didn’t want to compromise. It was also important was that they were new at modelling. I wanted to be their first photoshoot - or as close as possible to it. In the end I widened my search from just Holland to the whole of Europe and found guys in London, Cologne and Amsterdam. I shot them at wherever they lived - their house, their city. And this was the best thing about the whole shoot - they talked about their city and their lives there and I just shot while walking around with them. It was great to hear their stories. I grew up in a tiny village in Friesland - which is a small province all the way in the north of Holland. Although I hated it then and it was a big struggle to get out of there, I do realize now how important my years were there. So it was just nice to hear theirs and to be part of it for a day.

R: How was the exhibition received?

J: Great! I got lots of press and I have been busy doing fun stuff ever since!

R: Your shots feel raw, unpolished and at times candid - why is this important to you?

J: When I create a story I want it to be about the moment, not the technique. With this story I shot on everything from disposable cameras to medium-format Hasselblad to Polaroids. I want the viewer to think he or she is looking at random photos that anyone could have shot. The connection should be the moment the photos where shot - like a certain look on the models face, movement or emotion. You won’t get that emotion with that stupid, pretentious, big and unnecessary equipment on the set.

R: You trained with the super talented Erwin Olaf, how was that and what was the most interesting thing you learned from him?

J: I was about 17 and I really had to move away - my life in Friesland was not working for me anymore. So when I had the possibility of interning trough my school I sent Erwin an email. He invited me over and the next Monday I was working there. Looking back I was a little young maybe, but the people were welcoming. I could sleep in the make-up room, the lunch was free and I had like 200 new friends all at once, so it was fine with me. What did I learn? Hmm… I learned that drugs are fun. I guess I also learned some lighting techniques and Photoshop.

R: You lived in Melbourne for a year working as a freelance fashion photographer - why Melbourne?

J: By the time I was ready to leave for Melbourne I was about 22 and found out that drugs weren’t always fun ;) I was also a bit sick of the city and felt like I was stuck (all over again) so I wanted a break. I felt like this break had to involve a lot of sun, beach and friendly people. Melbourne is the most livable city in the world so that made it easy. I also lived in Sydney for three months but that wasn’t very nice. I partied 24-hours a day (23 to be correct, they close the clubs from 6 to 7 am) and was a bit tired of it after a while. I never intended to shoot, but when I finally landed back on my feet in Melbourne I started shooting some stories which got published in a fashion magazine and I kept working for them from then on.

R: What about the surfers?

J: Yes, they are hot! I’ve lived on Bondi Beach though so I was over it after a while. I got more into the skaters.

R: You’ve been around - which city to you think has the hottest guys?

J: There is something about Swedish guys - not just their accent. So uh, Sweden?

R: You live in Amsterdam now - how is it? Where do you hang out?

J: It’s nice to be back, and I’ve made some amazing friends here since coming back. Fashion-wise its getting better and better. We have a very nice and energetic new generation coming up. I’m sure some of them will be known internationally as well. For fun I usually go to Studio80. It’s a gayish, dark, grungy dungeon were most of the fashion kids hang out.

R: What are you working on now?

J: I’m shooting almost everyday. It’s mostly editorials for international magazines. And mostly guys. I’m also going to London, Milan and Paris in the upcoming month. And next Month I’m starting to work on a new exhibition that I’m going to shoot my friends for, so I think that’s going to be fun!

R: Who would you like to work on next?

J: Cole Mohr. He is amazing, I would love to shoot him. He’s also on the cover of DANSK magazine at the moment.
all images ©Joost Vandebrug

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.