Tokyo Diaries VIII

A mental travel preparation.

Kenji Sawada Water Skin (Parco View 6), 1980

Parco, the department store, liberated a country. With pubic hair and nudity dominating the campaigns and visual identity created by the likes of Eiko Ishioka and Harumi Yamaguchi. One should come prepared.
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2 Fathers, 1 Son

1. Norbert Bisky Salò II, 2010
2. Eric Fischl Dark Figure, 1989
3. Salomé Lodge Couple, 1983
4. Salomé In The Pond, 1986
5. Salomé Big Surf II, 1985
6. Norbert Bisky Bombenfischer, 2005
7. Salomé Im Seerosenteich, 1982
8. Eric Fischl Swimming Lovers, 1984
9. Eric Fischl The Day the Shah Ran By, 1982
10. Norbert Bisky First Cut, 2009
11. Salomé Nude, 1980

Gay parenthood is metaphorical and hyperbolical. Relationships are built without genetics; it is a chosen family. And just like 'Golden Girls', Salomé, Eric and Norbert build the visual triangle of a vacation at the sea. Postcards from a dysfunctional family.
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The Nude Portrait VI (Posing Without Pants)

category g.1) 'bottomless' with shirt



1. Willy Vanderperre Men Are From Mars, Man About Town 2011
2. Alasdair McLellan "Together That Summer We Raised Some Hell, Yeah!", 2013
3. Thomas Whiteside Piccadilly Palare, The Wild #5, 2014

category g.2) 'bottomless' with dress, lifted

4. Tyrone Lebon Pop Magazine Fall/Winter 2013

category g.3) doubles/couples

5. Wolfgang Tillmans John And Paula, Sitting Bottomless, 1994
6. Terry Richardson Terryworld, 2004

category g.4) dropping pants

7. Flint-Fuyt The Belgian Beat, 2013

category g.5) from underneath

8. Wolfgang Tillmans Dust I, 2004

category h.1) 'bottomless' as campaign and magazine cover

9. Sølve Sundsbø Yves Saint Laurent M7, 2002
10. Mathilde ter Heijne & Amy Patton Gentle Men, Rediviva #23, 2013
11. Will McBride DUST Magazine #5, 2013

'Bottomless' is the ambivalent term for male models wearing nothing but a top. Not quite nude photography yet, fashion editorials are currently exploring the opposite to and much lower focal point of 'topless'. Quintessentially, the images are not 'sexy' or 'provocative'. Instead they do carry the nonchalance of naturalism.

Thus, the Penis Revolution is not a sexual one. It is something in between: a study of exposure and privacy, of dressing and undressing, of the male form that is accepted and documented as what it is. The images evoke tension as loosing the trousers first contradicts the regular, everyday process of undressing. As a result, the unagitated depiction always contains a certain notion of staged-ness. Irritation lends these photographs their strength.

The picture that initiated this new-found ease of presenting male genitals in a high fashion context is the Yves Saint Laurent M7 fragrance campaign shot by Sølve Sundsbø. Directing the beholder's view diagonally from headline to product still to Samuel de Cubber's casually exposed crotch.

A revealing motif that is common within the performing arts, particularly men's ballet where nude tights and suspensory gear create the trompe l'œil illustion of lower nudity. Signs are we will encounter this visual effect more often.
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In The 7th Year...

Steven Klein Dieux DV Stade, 2008

This 2008 editorial has an almost nostalgic quality to it, reminding us of the very beginnings of this blog, founded six years ago in 2007. Since then, over 2.5000 posts have been published, producing a short history of popular culture on its own.
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Art Interiors II

Artworks Mamma Andersson

The rooms of Mamma Andersson are inside and outside at the same time. Walls are decorated with mirrors as paintings and inhabitants are random guests, outsiders, sometimes nudists. They eat, they read, they paint. But do they even exist? Everything is tasteful and decorated. Clothes haphazardly thrown onto 1950s industrial design and heritage pieces. The kitchen is burning. What is sur-reality?
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Parallel Genesis

1. Jean Cocteau Le Livre Blanc, 1930
2. Roy Lichtenstein Laocoon, 1988  

When I saw the Lichtenstein exhibition in London, I felt a moment of 'enlightment'. When an expressive brush stroke and a fine pencil line meet in mythological thunder and lightning, two genius' minds make love.
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A Photo Booth Biennale, Epilogue II

A second look at The Artwork Will Be Present, 2013.



1. Nobuyoshi Araki Colourscapes, 1991
2. Nobuyoshi Araki Untitled, 2010

It wasn't until a visit to Vienna that I had been fully introduced to the work of Nobuyoshi Araki. When sexual obsessions, fetishistic contemplation and the excuse to create 'art' disembogue into documents of ego and reach a high visual quality based on the 'low' human impulse.
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A Short History Of The Comic Strip In Popular Culture XI

1. Raf Simons Fall/Winter 2013
2. Thomas Bayrle Feuer Im Welzen (Fire In The Wheat), 1970
3. Unknown
4. Raf Simons Fall/Winter 2013
5. Thomas Bayrle Edition Jake Wie Hose (Naked Lunch), 1970
6. Thomas Bayrle Feuer Im Welzen (Fire In The Wheat), 1970
7. Raf Simons Fall/Winter 2013
8. Thomas Bayrle Edition Jake Wie Hose (Naked Lunch), 1970

Investigating on the motif of 'naive repetition' and the typology of 'pixel pin-ups'. Reviewing: the suppressed eroticism of Raf Simons' intarsia knits in dialogue with Thomas Bayrle's nonchalant erotica. A lesson in 'neutralized sex' by the means of oversimplification/denial.
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The Nude Portrait V

category b.1) back view, contrapposto


1. Jack Pierson Thursday Morning, Studio 7, 2013
2. Albert Edelfelt Male Nude 1, 1859

category b.2) sitting, in thoughts

3. Edouard Naudin Half-Nude Figure, 1840
4. Mustafa Sabbagh Untitled
5. Peter Churcher Untitled, 2012

category b.3) side view, dynamic



6. Herb Ritts 1997
7. Greg Vaughan Rodrigo, 2012
8. Danko Steiner 032c, Winter 2011/2012

category b.4) side view, relaxed

9. Mariano Vivanco Uomini, 2011
10. Mariano Vivanco Uomini, 2011
11. Mikel Marton Watercololored Past Lives, 2012

category b.5) lying down, back revealed



12. Matthias Vriens Feminine Touch, 2005
13. Bruce Weber Mi Tres Cabaña De Estudios Frente Al Mar, 2010
14. Jürgen Teller Paradis VII, 2009

The posterior view. Although the subject is completely naked, a reversed presentation creates an image that is rather physical (in terms of sculpture) than sexual (in terms of erotic photography). And yet, frontal depictions dominate fashion and art history. Reason enough for a celebration of the bubble butt.
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