beefcake – Page 2 – { feuilleton }

The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima

This is another of those excellent television documentaries that I have imprisoned on a video tape somewhere so it was good to find on YouTube. The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima (1985) was directed by Michael MacIntyre for the BBC’s Arena arts strand. This was the year that Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters was released so the documentary had some topical value even though Schrader’s film isn’t mentioned at all (something that wouldn’t happen today). MacIntyre begins as Schrader does, however, with the events of the final day of Mishima’s life on November 25th, 1970, before rewinding to present a biographical portrait of the writer/actor/director. There’s more footage than I remembered of Mishima discussing his work (in English) while John Hurt reads from Mishima’s writings. Commentary is supplied by biographer Henry Scott Stokes, translator Donald Keene, photographer Eikoh Hosoe (creator of the famous Mishima beefcake poses), director Nagisa Oshima, and Mishima’s lover Akihiro Maruyama, an actor who the credits also describe as a “female impersonator”.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Tamotsu Yato’s men with katanas
• Forbidden Colours
• Mishima’s Rite of Love and Death

George Platt Lynes revisited

Untitled (reclining with bathing trunks), circa early 1950’s.

Photographs by George Platt Lynes have appeared here before, as have links to exhibitions at Wessel + O’Connor Fine Art. The latter are showing prints by the former in a new exhibition that opens today, and if I’m unlikely to visit their gallery any time soon I still enjoy passing on the news. Unlike many of the gallery press releases I receive, the ones from Wessel + O’Connor are always of interest, and their site is generous with its display of the work on offer. (They also sent me a card from their Czanara show which I was very pleased to receive.)

Buddy Stanley and Tex Smutney (1941).

Most of the prints on this occasion tend away from the artier side of Lynes’ work towards outright beefcake (for the artier side, see this post). Among the nudes there’s one of the famous photos from a session Lynes made with Yul Brynner in 1942, pre-fame and with hair but sans clothes. See that photo, and more, here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Balanchine, Lynes and Orpheus
• The recurrent pose 17
• George Platt Lynes

Querelle de Brest

Querelle de Brest (1947) by Jean Genet. Cover design by Jean Cocteau.

This weekend’s viewing was Fassbinder’s Querelle (1982) which is marvellous in its new Blu-ray transfer, and a great improvement on the muddy picture of the earlier DVD release. The film is still only the briefest sketch of Genet’s novel (although Genet biographer Edmund White enjoyed it) but I like the overheated atmosphere, the phallic set designs, Franco Nero (hey, it’s Django Gay!), and the film as a whole is a fitting memorial to Brad Davis, everyone’s favourite sweating matelot. So in honour of all that, here’s a small collection of Querellerie past and present.

Querelle de Brest was published in a limited edition of 525 copies illustrated throughout by Jean Cocteau who didn’t avoid the pornographic details. Even though copies were seized by the authorities, and the author fined, Cocteau’s involvement did little to harm his public reputation, something that’s impossible to imagine happening elsewhere. A few of the illustrations follow below, many more of the series can be found scattered across various websites.

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Tom of Finland redesigned

Tom of Smurfland by Alessio Slonimsky.

Rest assured this is about the only time anything Smurf-related will be allowed on these pages, the blue wretches having been partially redeemed for ~~artist~~ writer Dale Lazarov’s pin-up challenge for the month of May. Lazarov regularly proposes homoerotic redesign challenges on his Tumblr pages, something I wasn’t aware of until reading about this recent one. The challenge was to reimagine the artist’s beefcake clones in different comics or cartooning styles but some contributors took things a little further, as with the Wyeth and Beardsley pastiches below. This month there’s the Gay Propaganda Poster Pin-Up Challenge, entries for which have been posted here. I wouldn’t mind offering something to one of these challenges myself if I can find a spare moment.

Find out more about Dale Lazarov’s “smart, wholesome gay comics smut” at his website.

Wyeth of Finland by KnottyBits.

Twinks of Finland by Alexander.

Tom’s Man drawn in the style of Aubrey Beardsley by Choklit Daddy.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Tom of Finland postage stamps

May Wilson’s Snowflakes

Snowflake Series (Pink Netting) (1965).

Discovered yesterday whilst searching for May-related pictures, some pieces from the Snowflake collage series by American artist May Wilson (1905–1986). Wilson was a mail artist as well as a collagist whose Snowflake series draws attention for its deployment of photos from beefcake magazines of the 1960s. It’s a commonplace that women often enjoy seeing gay porn but this interest hasn’t been reflected so much in art made by women. Offhand I can only think of the aforementioned Sibylle Ruppert making use of photos made by men for men. May Wilson produced similar works using glamour photos of women so her interest wasn’t solely concerned with the male form.

Snowflake Collage (Male Nude in Woods) (1966).

Continue reading “May Wilson’s Snowflakes”