A fine art, film, history and literature site oriented to, but not exclusively for, the gay community. Please be aware that there is mature content on this blog. Information on images and links to sources will be provided if known. Enjoy your visit and please subscribe.
Photographer Unknown, (One Man Seen Twice), Selfies
“The frame, the definition, is a type of context. And context, as we said before, determines the meaning of things. There is no such thing as the view from nowhere, or from everywhere for that matter. Our point of view biases our observation, consciously and unconsciously. You cannot understand the view without the point of view.”
― Noam Shpancer, The Good Psychologist
Igor Mitoraj was a Polish artist born in Oederan, Germany. Having previously worked with terra-cotta and bronze, a trip to Carrara, Italy, in 1979 turned Igor Mitoraj to using marble as his primary medium and in 1983 he set up a studio in Pietrasanta. In 2006, he created the new bronze doors and a statue of John the Baptist for the basilica of Santa Maria deli Angela in Rome.
Mitoraj’s sculptural style is rooted in the classical tradition with its focus on the well modelled torso. However, Mitoraj introduced a port-modern twist with ostentatiously truncated limbs, emphasising the damage sustained by most genuine classical sculptures. Often his works aim to address the questions of human body, its beauty and fragility as well as deeper aspects of human nature, which as a result of the passing of time undergo degeneration.
KJ Heath is a Chicago, Illinois, based photographer whose work covers many types of subjects. He specializes in people, fashion and fitness photography.
Parov Stelar, “Booty Swing” with Fred Astaire/ Ginger Rogers Film Clips
Marcus Fureder, better known by his stage name Parov Stelar, is an Austrian musician, composer, producer and DJ. His musical style is based on a combination of jazz, house, electro and breakbeat.
Parov Stelar was among the first who produced electronic swing music in Europe. With his album “Shine” the BBC named Parov Stelar as on of the most promising producers active in Europe. His specific approach to music production, combined with a proven sense of sound aesthetics, led to a reaction from audiences and colleagues all around the world, giving him a reputation as the founder of a new genre: Electro Swing.
Caravan Palace is a French electro swing band based in Paris. The band’s influences include Django Reinhardt, Vitalic, Lionel Hampton, and Daft Punk. The band released their debut studio album, Caravan Palace, on the Wagram label in October 2001.
The human mind is a fearful instrument of adaptation, and in nothing is this more clearly shown than in its mysterious powers of resilience, self-protection, and self-healing. Unless an event completely shatters the order of one’s life, the mind, if it has youth and health and time enough, accepts the inevitable and gets itself ready for the next happening like a grimly dutiful American tourist who, on arriving at a new town, looks around him, takes his bearings, and says, “Well, where do I go from here?
Paul Signac, “Blessing of the Tuna Fleet at Groix”, Oil on Canvas, 1923, Minneapolis Institute of Art
Neo- Impressionism flourished from 1886 to 1906. The term was coined by art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe the innovative work of the pioneers of this daring new vision.
Neo-Impressionism extended its reach beyond France to Belgium as well, where an avant-garde group known as Les Vingt (Les XX) embraced Seurat’s ideals following the 1887 exhibition in Brussels of his masterpiece “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte”. Théo van Rysselberghe was also a member of this highly visible Belgian circle. Even Henri Matisse briefly experimented with a Neo-Impressionist technique, prompted in part by the influence of Signac’s treatise “From Eugène Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism” and by the invitation to paint with Signac at his Saint-Tropez residence.
Neo-Impressionists rejected the random spontaneity of Impressionism. They sought to impose order on the visual experience of nature by way of codified, scientific principles. An optical theory known as “mélange optique” was formulated to describe the idea that separate, often contrasting colors would combine in the eye of the viewer to achieve the desired chromatic effect.
The separation of color through individual strokes of pigment came to be known as “Divisionism” while the application of precise dots of paint came to be called “Pointillism.” According to Neo-Impressionist theory, the application of paint in this fashion set up vibrations of colored light that produced an optical purity not achieved by the conventional mixing of pigments on canvas.
Agni in Sanskrit means fire and is the name of the Vedic fire god. Agni is also one of the guardian deities of direction, who is typically found in the southeast corners of Hindu temples. In classical cosmology, Agni as fire has been one of the five inert impermanent constituents, Dhatus, along with space: Akasa, water: Ap, air: Vayu, and earth: Prithvi. The five combine to form the empirically perceived material existence or Prakriti.
In the Vedic literature, Agni is a major and oft invoked god along with Indra and Soma. Agni is considered as the mouth of the gods and goddesses, and the medium that conveys offerings to them in a home or votive ritual. He is conceptualized in ancient Hindu texts to exist at three levels, on earth as fire, in atmosphere as lightning, and in the sky as sun. This triple presence connects him as the messenger between gods and human beings in the Vedic thought.
“He was a physical creature, a silver man, suspended in space, skin sheening as Tongue’s singing winds streamed past.”
― Rich Shapero, Rin, Tongue and Dorner
