Daniel Wenger on Bob Mizer, who found the first gay magaze the U.S., Physique Pictorial, and specialized photographg buff young men.
Contents:
- NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE
- THE OBSSIVE PHOTOGRAPHER BEHD AMERI’S FIRST GAY MAGAZE
- PNEERG PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY LIFE THE 1960S
- MAN TO MAN: A HISTORY OF GAY PHOTOGRAPHY (MALE PHOTOGRAPHY) - HARDVER
NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE
Immediately after the Stonewall rts, 1969, photographer Anthony Friedk began documentg LGBT life his groundbreakg Gay Essay, now on exhib at the Young Mm. In the s sce, photographers have ntued to explore and expand the meang of queer inty. Works by the 12 artists this album illumate them om those turbulent years. * the history of gay photography *
“Lovg” featur around 300 photos that offer an timate look at gay relatnships between the 1850s and 1950s. It is not entirely happenstance that the foundg figure of the morn gay movement, Harvey Milk, was a photographer and the owner of a mera store.
At my current age of 55, I still remember the embarrassg stg of a film store’s refal to procs pictur of my 23rd (very gay) birthday party bee the prter emed the imag “cent. Anthony Friedk’s photographs -- pecially his Gay Essay (1969-1973), now on exhib at the Young Mm a show timed for the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall rts -- assume exactly such a sympathetic stance. In the years immediately after Stonewall, pictur of ordary gay people leadg ordary liv were nothg short of extraordary.
The onslght of AIDS the early 1980s shifted the parameters of gay male photographic possibily. The betiful male body, once a source of unabashed pri for gay photographers, was now tged wh sadns and even ma to a vector of fectn by those hostile to gay rights.
THE OBSSIVE PHOTOGRAPHER BEHD AMERI’S FIRST GAY MAGAZE
* the history of gay photography *
His gaze was, at the time, the most homoerotic to date mastream fashn and advertisg, yet the prospect of actual sex is excised.
In his more aggrsively homoerotic photos, we see an array of fac and bodi that are hardly mol betiful. In the years sce Friedk’s Gay Essay, the mere assertn of gay prence has been supersed by a photographic exploratn to what that prence actually means. Katz is the print and chief curator of the new Llie Lohman Mm of Gay and Lbian Art, New York Cy, and directs the doctoral program Visual Studi at the Universy at Buffalo.
PNEERG PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY LIFE THE 1960S
Anthony Friedk photographed gay culture California the 1960s * the history of gay photography *
His notn of gayns was rmed by a “Co of Behavr” that he rerd his high-school diary: “More mascule at all tim.
” Among his mols were the gay and the straight, profsnal bodybuilrs and profsnal beach bums, llege stunts and returne om the European ont. But there’s jt as much reason to nsir Mizer the gay Hugh Hefner—a tirels llector of physil specimens. In 1951, he found what is generally nsired the untry’s origal gay magaze, Physique Pictorial, and would ntue publishg for nearly four s**.
MAN TO MAN: A HISTORY OF GAY PHOTOGRAPHY (MALE PHOTOGRAPHY) - HARDVER
A look back at a major turng pot the stggle for gay rights * the history of gay photography *
** In the magaze’s early years he clud no explic referenc to gay inty, though he thored d edorials agast the hypocrisi of the straight world.
Man to Man: A History of Gay Photography (Male Photography) by Pierre Borhan - ISBN 10: 0865651868 - ISBN 13: 9780865651869 - Vendome Prs - 2007 - Hardver * the history of gay photography *
Although gays had long been si-eyeg the emblems of straight masculy, Mizer fed them wh new meang: the very men who had looked stoic and impassive the straight magaz seemed, unr Mizer’s directn, to be havg fun. When David Hurl, the gay pornographer and Mizer protégé, was a teen-ager Ccnati, he glimpsed Physique Pictorial_ _at a newsstand and felt, as he put to Taschen, “stantly clud, as if the men were beckong him to look.