Artists Space, in partnership with the queer film series Dirty Looks, presents a new translation overseen by Bruce Benderson of the 1979 experimental documentary Race d’Ep! (previously screened in New York in the early 1980s as The Homosexual Century).

Made by the “father of queer theory” Guy Hocquenghem, in collaboration with radical filmmaker Lionel Soukaz, Race d’Ep! traces the confluence between the development of photography in the 19th Century, and subsequent representations of homosexual desire. The film was originally accompanied by the publication Race d’Ep!: Un Siecle D’Images de l’Homosexualite by Hocquenghem, and moves from the nudes of Baron von Gloeden and early sexology, to gay sexual liberation and cruising on the streets of Paris in the 1970s. Influenced by the writings of Michel Foucault on the history of sexuality, and reflecting the revolutionary queer activism of the Parisian movement Front Homosexuel D’Action Révolutionnaire, Race d’Ep! explicitly charts the visibility and representation of gay culture.

The screening will be introduced by a conversation between filmmaker Lionel Soukaz, and author and essayist Bruce Benderson.

More information about this very exciting event is here

$5 Entrance Donation
Members Free
Limited capacity, entrance on a first come, first served basis

Kokoro: The Art of Horiyoshi III

Courtyard Rooms, South Wing, Somerset House, London

Horiyoshi III, the internationally renowned tattoo artist currently has his first exhibition in London at the esteemed Somerset House.

Horiyoshi belongs to a royal line of horishi tattoo artists: those specialising in the traditional full-body tattoo called Irezumi. This exhibition studies his paintings on silk as well as displaying tattoo instruments and paint brushes.

Kokoro means ‘heart‘ and ‘feeling‘ in Japanese and through the paintings exhibited Horiyoshi III preserves traditional Japanese culture and mythology through incredibly beautiful silk paintings. Each painting shows typical Japanese images such as dragons, koi’s and white phoenix’s, but each one is depicted is varying sensitivity, intricacy and harshness depending on the story told. The diverse nature of each painting gives the exhibition an eclectic feel considering that most of the paintings are all the same size and repetitively placed beside one another. The varying brush strokes and colours used also add to this fantastic effect.

Having “vowed to never be lazy until the day I die”, he still tattoos six days a week after thirty years of practice. You can see a video of Horiyoshi III at work here which The Guardian recently made.

After meeting Ed Hardy (the exhibition opens with a quote from Hardy about Horiyoshi’s pioneering impact on tattoo culture and history) and becoming close friends, Horiyoshi started to use the electric needle alongside using traditional techniques and pioneered a new form of Japanese tattooing.

The exhibition is free and runs from now until until the 1st of June, it is open every day from 10.00-18.00. More information can be found here

 

 

 

“Ever since I was young, my Fathers job involved a lot of travelling and when we moved to a new city, some were smaller but others were larger: I loved to wander around the town. I loved it…
When I have a project I’m working on, I’ll basically leave my place before noon and, like a stray Dog circling ( or a Cat- or sometimes like an insect) I’ll go from alley to alley, resurface, and then enter another alley. And I’d just wander…

Then, after nightfall I’ll come home and take a shower. And then, go out again. I’ll have a drink somewhere in Shinjuku and stroll around and take photos. I’ll hit another bar and have another drink…hit the streets again: thats my method.  The Red Light District is “sexual”; the women are “sexual”, but its not only women. The city itself is “sexual”.

I guess I want to say that photography for me, isnt the most charming, unbearably fun thing I could do, but at the same time I cant help but find it, a medium and a habit that is…quite seductive”

 

 

Daido Moriyama-  An Artist At Work

The period surrounding the late 16th and Early 17th century England gave birth to an era, referred to musically and socially as Elizabethan Melancholy. Melancholia as an area of creative inspiration, was a generally unexplored and new realm so it is little surprise that this new expression of deep sadness, lament and woe peaked in popularity at the time. There was something deeply romantic and profound about these many men, who spoke of their heartbreak and sorrow with romance and conviction. According to Lawrence Babb (The Elizabethan Malady) “Melancholy was very much in vogue in the England of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts, especially among the intellectuals and would-be intellectuals”.

One of the many renowned practitioners  to emerge at that time was elusive yet timeless Lutenist and Poet, John Dowland- who survives as one of the defining bard’s of the era. Although having a relatively shrouded historic past, his work and his contribution to both music and poetry have not lain unforgotten. The Dowland we know through his work, was a man who not only suffers deeply mentally, but dedicates his existence to trawling the darkest regions of his life and mind, for the sake of his art. He coined the motto: Semper Dowland, Semper Dolens: “Always Dowland, Always Doleful”.

 

Self punishment, heartbreak, love for darkness, death and the beauty of the night are all staple themes within Dowlands work. Everything from the complexities in his compositions; the diminishing between contrasting time signature & scalic melodies all help to convey a sense of instability, and progression of thought patterns. More importantly it demonstrates his desire to make beautiful, notions and feelings that which would normally be discarded or classed as lesser. His words are often understated and to the point, whilst his music is heavily ornamented and a demonstration of typical styles of that time. He, on a number of occasions welcomes sorrow (” Come Sorrow; come her eyes that sings…”) in a way that suggests “it” exists to him as this bittersweet, ruthless,  female entity which is not only his muse, but a presence which he cannot live without. What often suppresses criticisms of him being no more than a pathetic depressive, is his ability to blur the lines between narrative and thought, in a way that is painfully honest: gripping as well as shocking by his choice of dramatic speech and notions. Sympathy often merges with curiostity; we feel sorry for the man presented to us, but nevertheless feel compelled to hear more.

 

i.

Can she excuse my wrongs with virtue’s cloak?

shall I call her good when she proves unkind?

Are those clear fires which vanish into smoke?

must I praise the leaves where no fruit I find?

 

No, no: where shadows do for bodies stand,

thou may’st be abused if thy sight be dim.

Cold love is like to words written on sand,

or to bubbles which on the water swim.

 

Wilt thou be thus abused still,

seeing that she will right thee never?

if thou canst not overcome her will,

thy love will be thus fruitless ever.

 

ii.

Was I so base, that I might not aspire
Unto those high joys which she holds from me?
As they are high, so high is my desire:
If she this deny what can granted be?

 

If she will yield to that which reason is,
It is reasons will that love should be just.
Dear make me happy still by granting this,
Or cut off delays if that I die must.

 

Better a thousand times to die,
then for to live thus still tormented:
Dear but remember it was I
Who for thy sake did die contented.

 

Can She Excuse My Wrongs? – The First Book of Ayres

 

 

 

 

Remember, Remember, god is a paramedic ambulance, when the temperature is turning and the sweat is starting? God is a vertical video and a bulletproof cap. Now that we know those things keep going away, and keep coming back, remember, remember The Based God.


ON MONDAY NIGHT
IN ZUERICH, CH
Longstreet Bar

It’s only by invitation, so if you too want to be blinded by the mirror of smoke, the blue fish shark tower, the dilatante scum scraper, the ordained premadonna… CONTACT US ASAP: rm@sangbleu.com

Jan Saenenredam 1665-1607. Taken from the 7 Planetary Gods series.

 

Photos I took of some very beautiful folk tattoos on a recent trip to South West India.

All images by Reba Maybury