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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

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

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

All images by Reba Maybury

Six London artists will be interpreting their feelings and ideas into artwork after watching Werner Herzog’s latest documentary Into the Abyss. The documentary explores the death penalty in modern day America in a non biased and humanistic form.

The artwork will be showing from the 30th of March until the 3rd of April at the Protein gallery, Shoreditch, London.

More information here

From: XXXX XXXXXX
Subject: Hi Sang Bleu. From Apple.
Date: February 27, 2012 8:19:01 PM GMT+01:00
To: info@sangbleu.com

A few questions…
Wondering if you would be interested in participating as the moderator for the event.
Wondering if you have any artist recommendations for the event (we would be looking for 3-4 tattoo artists).


Looking very forward to hearing from you and gauging your interest.
Thanks so much.


XXXX XXXXXXX
Chicago Events Lead
Apple Store, North Michigan Avenue
Apple Store, Lincoln Park
rascione@apple.com
www.apple.com/northmichiganavenue
www.apple.com/lincolnpark

To this first email I answer that I am interested, asking more details about the event etc. Mentioning people I’d like to present, etc. after a couple more emails, I receive this:

From: XXXX XXXXXX
Subject: Re: Hi Sang Bleu. From Apple.
Date: February 28, 2012 6:31:14 PM GMT+01:00
To: maxime büchi / sang bleu


You are definitely welcome to be the moderator.
And if BJ is open and available to this opportunity, we’d love to him.

I need to be clear about one thing though, Apple does not compensate for these events.


In this case, are you still willing to participate?


XXXX XXXXXXX
Chicago Events Lead
Apple Store, North Michigan Avenue
Apple Store, Lincoln Park
rascione@apple.com
www.apple.com/northmichiganavenue
www.apple.com/lincolnpark

I wonder if at least they would arrange travel expenses etc.

From: XXXX XXXXXX
Subject: Re: Hi Sang Bleu. From Apple.
Date: February 28, 2012 10:20:33 PM GMT+01:00
To: maxime büchi / sang bleu


Hi Maxime.
Unfortunately, we cannot cover travel costs either.
If you are ever in Chicago though, we’d love to have you.


XXXX XXXXXXX
Chicago Events Lead
Apple Store, North Michigan Avenue
Apple Store, Lincoln Park
rascione@apple.com
www.apple.com/northmichiganavenue
www.apple.com/lincolnpark

To this I answer:

Dear XXXXX.


I am sorry, i will not be and to be honest i find it cheeky if not dishonest for a company such as Apple tu dare asking for such a promotion for free.


It is one among a series of things that have been putting me off that company lately and i will make sure I advise people to not accept such offers.


I hope you inderstand this is nothing personal but in such economical context, having one of the world’s richest company asking for favours is disgusting.


Kind regards.


Maxime

answer:

From: XXXX XXXXXX
Subject: Re: Hi Sang Bleu. From Apple.
Date: February 29, 2012 4:39:39 PM GMT+01:00
To: maxime büchi / sang bleu


I understand your concerns.
This portion is out of my control.
But I do understand your concerns.


XXXX XXXXXX
Chicago Events Lead
Apple Store, North Michigan Avenue
Apple Store, Lincoln Park
rascione@apple.com
www.apple.com/northmichiganavenue
www.apple.com/lincolnpark

I think it’s all pretty straight forward. I just wanna ask anybody in the tattoo industry, who might get approached by Apple to refuse to do anything for free. Apple is not a charity or non-profit humanitarian organization. It is one of the world’s larges corporation which is about NOTHING but profit. There is no reason to give away our culture, skills, network, inspiration to these people with no compensation.

Mexicali Rose is a community media center and gallery in the Mexican border city Mexicali. Artists Space will be will exhibiting the work of artists, journalists, activists and filmmakers on both sides of the border.

Founded by Mexicali-born filmmaker Marco Vera in 2007 as an audio-visual workshop for neighborhood kids in border-adjacent Pueblo Nuevo, the workshop quickly expanded to include craft and trade classes, a community gallery exhibiting the work of local and international artists, a cinema club that showcases the work of Mexican and foreign filmmakers, and a radio station formed to provide a free and uncensored platform for local youth.

The exhibition features a wide range of work from this innovative space, including experimental and documentary films produced by the workshop; photographs and collages by Mexicali-based, international artists Pablo Castaneda, Carlos Coronado and Julio Torres; photographs by documentarians Rafael Veytia and Odette Barajas and Zeta journalist Sergio Haro, and an original mural created by Fernando Corona.
Concurrent with the exhibition, Artists Space will present the symposium The City Machine and Its Streets – Anomalous Ecologies on March 31-April 1, featuring conversations between renowned Mexico City writer and journalist Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez, Los Angeles writer and journalist Ben Ehrenreich, Zeta journalist Sergio Haro and Marco Vera, hosted by writer Chris Kraus.

The exhibition will run from the 31st of March until the 27th of May 2012

More information here

Can you tell me about the first tattoo you got, where you got it and how old you were?

I got my first tattoo when I was fifteen years old in a little house in Saint Leonard’s which is in the other end of Hastings in East Sussex. This place was in a tiny little room in the tattooers home, me and my friends would all go on a Saturday afternoon. His name was Derrick Dellar and he tattooed all of my tattoos from my younger days.

My first tattoo was of a shark, and it was about the size of a goldfish and that’s just above the back of my hand. This was roughly about 1968. I would go with my cousin, and he would get the same as me. The style of tattoos I was getting then were traditional flash style. It’s all I ever knew about so I didn’t have anything to compare them too.

Tell me about the tattoos your Father had.

He has something similar to me and my cousin which was a flying serpent. He had a couple of others but the one I remember the best was of a half naked woman tied up to a stump of a tree with her arms behind her, underneath it was written ‘Daphne’. None of us ever found out who Daphne was. She must have been a woman he met before my Mother. He got all of these tattoos while he was serving in the Navy during World War Two. Him and my uncle were in the Navy together and they both got the flying serpent there.

My mother in law, Marlene had tattoos I can remember that she had a rose. She also had a memorial tattoo for her brother with a cross on her arm which she would have got in the early 1950′s. She lived in Hull around that time so she would have got them there.

How many tattoos did you roughly get when you were younger?

About eight… I did tattoo myself once though. Myself, my brother, my cousin and friend one night bought some Indian ink and pins and scratched the word love into our knuckles and rubbed the ink in on our left hands. We were all sitting around the table doing it and by the end of the night out fingers looked like sausages. Most of it stayed in and you could make out what it said up to twenty years later. So I suppose I got nine tattoos then. I recently had that covered up with HOLD FAST though.

After that you stopped for thirty years or so. Then started again when your sons Jordan and Caleb started to get tattooed. What made you want to start getting tattooed again?

Since I stopped getting tattooed in the late 60′s tattooing has changed completely. There was a lot more detail within designs and there seemed to be a lot more variety in subjects. How it’s all changed is quite amazing really but I suppose those styles never really interested me.

The boys dared me to get a tattoo and when I said I would I think they were very surprised. So they took me off to London to get tattooed by Thomas Hooper. I got a pair of shaking hands on my forearm with ‘Pals Forever‘ written around it. My sons have the same piece on their elbow, its a lovely tattoo. After that its become addictive, that was five or six years ago.

What did you think when your sons started to get tattoos?

At first I was shocked at how many they were getting. But I could never deny how excellent they were, I mean Thomas Hooper has done them all! If you are going to get tattooed you are going to want to get good ones so I think Jordan and Caleb are very lucky in that respect.

Since you have started getting tattooed again can you tell me who has tattooed you?

I started going to Frith Street and the first person who tattooed me there was Thomas Hooper. I went from him to Emiliano Liberatori he did a few of tattoos on me. Valerie Vargas gave me Ben Corday’s Annie Oakley on my back as well as the snake around my neck and others. Tim Hendricks had a guest spot a Frith a put a diving woman down the inside of my arm. Since then my son Caleb graduated from art school and has been tattooing. So now I have the luxury of being tattooed at my own home and I absolutely love it.

Flash tattooing to me is ageless. It can’t go in or out of fashion, they all tell stories and have meanings. Although I admire and respect a lot of modern tattooing I couldn’t say it was timeless. Where traditional flash tattooing has proved the test of time and will continue to.

Is there any apparent reason behind the fact that sets of brothers in your family have matching tattoos?

My Dad and his brother had matching tattoos because of them serving in the war together. So it seemed natural for me and my brother to do the same as we were close friends. As for Jordan and Caleb how they have gone about it is far more extreme but it was never planned as that deliberate outcome. Since childhood they were all ways very close and I think they both just loved the tattoos that either of them got! I have my Grandfathers name tattooed on me and the boys have their Grandfathers name tattooed on them. I also have my sons name’s tattooed above my hands. As for my son’s they have the words ‘Mother’, ‘Father’ and ‘Sister‘ tattooed on them as well as their Grandmother’s initials.

Do you think you’ll keep on getting tattooed?

I’m going to cover up any space that I have left. I keep on spotting new spaces that can be filled. I find myself looking through my son’s tattoo books and putting aside ones that I want. I do love them and I really do feel privileged by the people who have tattooed me. As far as I’m concerned as long as I’m around I’m going to carry on getting tattooed. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Images by Reba Maybury

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Travelin’ Mick is a photographer and journalist, who has been relentlessly roaming the world in search of the last remaining tattoo cultures of this planet to record and thus conserve them for posterity.

By visiting and documenting the last remaining traditional tattooing practices on all continents, he tries to preserve those cultures and show them to the world in images that express the beauty and pride of ethnic groups and traditional communities, who still bear the marks of their people.

Jeanne-Salomé Rochat: Where are you from?
Jack Donoghue: I am from Chicago.
Where is Salem from?
John and Heather met in high school up in Michigan, thats where they grew up. We all started making music together officially in Chicago.
How does your collective philosophy influence your practice?
We love each other, a lot of what SALEM is, is an expression of that love both fulfilled and unfulfilled.
And the other way around, what kind of impact does this entity have on your life?
Until recently SALEM had very little effect on my life… But now we are being flown all over, being set up in fancy situations and girls are skipping formalities.
What could break you?
Falling from a cliff on two hard rocks. Being rejected by something I truly give myself to… If I ever do that.
What’s the last thing you remember rejecting?
A kiss in NY a few nights ago.
What’s the last thing you gave? To whom?
A Givenchy shirt that was gifted to me, to a girl who it looked better on.
What car do you drive?
My dad’s old pick up truck but it just broke down on my way up to Michigan so I’ve been walking and taking the train.
You mentioned a matt e black Lamborghini.
Huh?
Yes. Or maybe I did.
I don’t know.
I don’t know either.
But it’s true that I do. In fact yes, I want a rich fan to buy me a 2011 matte black one with red tinted windows.
How does a fan lose its innocence?
Having expectations instead of unconditional love.
What does your workspace look like? How is it significant?
I was living in The Tokyo Hotel, downtown Chicago, but I kept having to travel and getting noise complaints so I moved my stuff back into the house I grew up in with my mom and her black Alsatian (Misha). My workspace when i am here is her dining room table with big monitors on it. I can work anywhere, but I like to have my room, and the places I spend time in set up in a way i like.
What would be served for breakfast at Hotel Salem?
Jello shots. Jello made with sparkling water. Lime green jello. Raw eggs.
If you had to invent the sexual position/act called “lime green jello”, what would it consist of?
The girl’s very jealous boyfriend watching while i bust her down.
What is your present screen saver?
A white pit bull. I love dogs.
How important is empty space?
Very.
What sets your music apart from others that produce similar material?
I never think about that. It’s not important.
Can you stand isolation?
Not really. I keep moving and try to stay busy and around other people because I don’t like being alone. I like swimming alone. I can be alone if I’m working on music, or walking… If I am moving, I can be alone.
How has solitude influenced your music? How does it clash with your culture?
John is really good at being alone, he is a much quieter person then me. He will push me to be still and I will push him to be more social and wild. Heather is in between and keeps it all together. I think those differences affect our music.
Would you like to move somewhere in particular?
I feel like living in a city on the ocean not in the 1st world.
Who would you like to do your voice over in the animated version of your life?
Naomi Watts’s mouth.
As a blonde or as a brunette?
BLONDE.
What is the last thing you bought?
Honestly DMT u_u… before that I guess a sexy air-freshener or Vitamin water.
What have you wanted to work on but couldn’t? What stopped you?
I would really like to work for Terrence Mallick, it just hasn’t happened yet.
What would Terrence Mallick listen to while watching you sleeping?
My rare heart beat.
Is car driving necessary for good music composing?
No but it is a good time for good music listening.
What have you buried lately?
We have been busy.
So what’s new?
John is going insane. He’s actually losing his mind.
When you decide to go insane too, what kind of intervention would it take to make you think twice about it?
Probably something about my mom or my friend Zulma.
What sense of yours do you wish was acute?
My ABs.
How do you like to dance?
Jamaican style.
How do you free things?
Let go.
Who influences you the most?
John.
What was the best garment you have received as a gift?
Givenchy Joker face shirt.
What is the lames t superpower ever?
Alex Mack, ROFL.
What virtual world would you have sex in?
I would be down to double team thousands of Hentai girls with Wolverine.
That’s old. What virtual world would you have sex in, in 2013?
Bratz da website.
Name a film that you wanted to like before you saw, but ended up not liking so much.
Forces of nature.
What do you wish could be found after you’re dead?
IDK IDC… I’ll be dead… Even bigger sharks? I would not want them to be found while i was still alive, sometimes I am scared of sharks : (
What else are you afraid of?
My birthday.
Is music deceptive?
I don’t think so.

Image: Cocktail Shaker, 1928 Enameled silver, ebony (Charter Company Wallingford, Connecticut, active c. 1930 – 1942 A division of International Silver Company)

image: Rare Gorham (again) Sterling silver art deco cocktail shaker set from 1925.