The Male Gaze

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Trunk (Jay Garvin) by James Bidgood (early 1960s).

The Male Gaze is an exhibition at the powerHouse Arena,
Brooklyn, NYC, from April 20th–May 27th, 2007.

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Untitled by Raymond Carrance (aka Czanara) (1960–70).

Sullen burger boys meet the effete cognoscenti in The Male Gaze: a group show including over 20 artists whose cultural explosions have rocked foundations across the world. With work spanning over 100 years of bloodless revolution, The Male Gaze features contemporary artists and their classic antecedents reinventing themselves, their world, and their media in savvy, bawdy, dreamy, and terrifyingly new ways. Artists include Stephen Andrews, Gio Black Peter, James Bidgood, AA Bronson, Raymond Carrance, Robert Filippini, Andrew Harwood, Christian Holstad, Scott Hug and Michael Magnan, Brian Kenny, Bruce LaBruce, Qing Liu, Ryan McGinley, Futoshi Miyagi, Slava Mogutin, J. Morrison, Will Munro, Joe Ovelman, Paul P., Jack Pierson, Ezra Rubin, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Lionel Smartly, and Wilhelm Von Gloeden.

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Two revisited portraits of John by Paul Mpagi Sepuya (2004).

• The NYT interviews some of the artists

powerHouse Arena
37 Main Street
Brooklyn
NY 11201

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Some YoYo Stuff

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Some YoYo Stuff: An observation of the observations
of Don Van Vliet by Anton Corbijn (1993).

Anton Corbijn’s sad and touching short about Captain Beefheart is at Ubuweb.
Includes a brief appearance by David Lynch.

Don van Vliet, alias “Captain Beefheart”, is one of the most influential, misunderstood, talked about, admired, copied, treasured, loved and quoted musicians and yet he is still an obscure and mysterious artist. His quite abrupt artistic transformation from working with a microphone to a paintbrush in 1982 and his consequent move from the desert to the ocean meant even less direct contact with the outside world than before. Subsequently there is very little information about Don from this time onwards and this short black-and-white film made in 1993 is an unique opportunity to see and hear this unique man. The film is approximately 13 minutes long, directed and photographed in black and white.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The genius of Captain Beefheart

Japrocksampler

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Julian Cope’s Krautrocksampler is one of my all-time favourite music books, an expert guide to the psychedelic jungle of German rock from 1968–1975. (And it seems to be out of print. Damn.) Now he’s written a follow-up.

Julian Cope, eccentric and visionary rock musician, hip archaeologist and one time frontman of Teardrop Explodes, follows the runaway underground success of Krautrocksampler, a cult deconstruction of German rock music, with Japrocksampler. Japrocksampler is a short history of Japanese youth culture in the post-war years. It explores the clash between traditional, conservative Japanese values and the wild rock and roll renegades of the 1960s and 70s, telling the tale of six seminal groups of artists in Japanese post-war culture, from itinerant art-house poets to violent refusenik rock groups with a penchant for plane hijacking. Cope tours regularly and has just brought out a new album, Dark Orgasm. His website, Head Heritage, is widely acknowledged as containing some of the most entertaining and insightful album reviews on the web. Julian’s fans (Copeheads) as well as the generally interested reader will lap up this take on the Jap Rock phenomenon.

Via Arthur.

See also:
• Les Rallizes Denudes
• Keiji Haino / Fushitsusha
• High Rise
• PSF Records
• Acid Mothers Temple Soul Collective | AMT concerts at the Internet Archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Chrome: Perfumed Metal
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer
• Metabolist: Goatmanauts, Drömm-heads and the Zuehl Axis
• The art of Shinro Ohtake
• Maximum heaviosity