Artist of the Week: Peter Berlin

This week’s artist is Peter Berlin, the notorious gay porn star of the early 1970s. He is best known for his groundbreaking porn films. What is less known is that the countless covers and photos layouts of Peter Berlin in gay magazines through the late 1980s were all taken by Berlin who is himself a professional photographer. His assignments routinely took him to Paris, Rome and London where he photographed celebrities including Sophia Loren, Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Brigitte Bardot, Alfred Hitchcock, Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Chevalier, Richard Widmark, and the clothes designers: Pierre Cardin, Karl Lagerfeld and Valentino. When Peter turned the camera on himself, he played each of two roles on different halves of the separately exposed negatives wearing his hallmark crotch grabbing costumes (all designed and executed by Berlin). Even less known, is that Peter Berlin is a gifted graphic artist. When the handling of black and white negatives in the darkroom occasionally resulted in prints that were slightly underexposed and grayish, he used his touch up pen and brush to darken the lines and increase the contrast. Soon he was using oils, acrylics and watercolors permitting him to enhance, embellish as well as colorize his black and white prints.The next step was the complete transformation or elimination of the backgrounds. He also started cutting up his photographs and creating collages with single or multiple self-images using different backgrounds from magazines including their covers and interior street and nature scenes. Berlin's talent as a graphic artist is perhaps best shown in his detailed pencil drawings which are well represented in this first exhibition of Peter Berlin's art.The body of Peter Berlin's creative work defies easy characterization. He challenges conventional notions of art and pornography and is perhaps alone with Tom of Finland in having created iconic images of masculine drag. For Peter Berlin's official website, go to www.peter-berlin.com.

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Artist of the Week: Pierre et Gilles

Pierre et Gilles, Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard are gay French artistic and romantic partners. They produce highly stylized photographs, building their own sets and costumes as well as retouching the photographs. Their work often features images from popular culture, gay culture including porn (especially James Bidgood), and religion. Pierre Commoy, the photographer, was born in 1949 in La Roche-sur-Yon. Gilles Blanchard, the painter, was born in 1953 in Le Havre. After art studies, they moved to Paris in 1973 where they met in 1976, and began to work together. People photographed by Pierre et Gilles include: musicians Marie France, Marc Almond, Marilyn Manson, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Erasure, Nina Hagen; and model Naomi Campbell, actress Catherine Deneuve, actor Layke Anderson and designer Jean-Paul Gaultier. Personally I don't like all of their work, but I find the mix of reality and fantasy interesting. They are very unique and masters in what they do, even if some images lack a bit substance. Here is a selection of images I find beautiful, enhanting, provoking and interesting.

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Artist of the Week: Pierre-Yves Monnerville

This week's artist is a friend of mine, photographer Pierre-Yves Monnerville. He's originally from Martinique, French Caribbian but he was born in Paris. I got to know him in the 90's. We wrote a bunch of letters (which I still have). Back then it was still fashionable to write letters instead of sending email, haha! Pierre-Yves has worked for model agencies in Paris and London and nowadays he lives in Brighton, UK. I had a bit of difficulties to select the images, so I ended up presenting almost double amount of what I usually present in this section. I really like Pierre-Yves' work, I think all images are beautiful. He really knows how to capture the moment. If you want to see full sets and/or other works, go to my links list and check them out at his website! Enjoy! Here's a link to Pierre-Yves' interview:

http://studioguyzmag.blogspot.com/2007/01/photographer-pierre-yves-monnerville_14.html

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(Pierre-Yves Monnerville, selfportrait)

Order and Chaos

Fucking the System

Artist of the Week: Photographer Steven Klein

Steven Klein has become the fashion world’s current superstar by understanding how to be transgressive and commercial at the same time. Beyond multitasking with Pitt and Madonna, Klein is, arguably, the most influential (and busy) fashion photographer in the world right now, even while his career seems to be all about flouting the rules of fashion photography.

A Steven Klein image is typically a place with a dark, foreboding aura. Sometimes the mood of his photographs is so emotionally isolating that it can seem like he conducts all his shoots in airtight bunkers buried under a desert floor somewhere. The paradox of Klein’s status as a superstar photographer of superstars—he’s created risqué, iconic images of not just Pitt and Madonna but Justin Timberlake, Ethan Hawke, Naomi Campbell, and others—is that he’s successfully selling a darker version of celebrity at a particularly idiotic, giddy juncture in pop culture, just as US Weekly is flying off newsstands and the American Idol is topping the ratings.

Here is some images I found that I personally like. He’s shoot Madonna many times and every time the result is beautiful. I also liked his version of The Valley of the Dolls as well as the Men’s Vogue issue with magnificent images of Brad Pitt.