Obscene Interiors by Justin Jorgensen Photography

Obscene Interiors is a collection of real online male personal ad photos and my critique of the decorating found within.

(No need to shield your timid eyes, the often-nude figures have been laboriously obscured.)

This is the online edition, Obscene Interiors is a book too with way more, and totally different pictures: Obscene Interiors: Hardcore Amateur Decor, with a foreword by Todd Oldham. Need 
Christmas gifts? It's only $12.

Dirty pillow talk: Justin Jorgensen's Obscene Interiors explores what's really disgusting about Web porn--people's furniture.


Justin Jorgensen has never dated, hooked up with, or even met any of the 56 men depicted in his new book, Obscene Interiors, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have feelings for them. "I ended up sort of falling in love with the guys," admits the Fargo, N.D., native, who works as a freelance designer for entertainment ventures in <Los Angeles. "I began to see men in general as this big group of bumbling fellows who just can't seem to ever get it fight."

By "it," Jorgensen means home decor, for Obscene Interiors is not about what men do in their bedrooms; it's about how they deck them out. The author pulled the book's images from male personal ads he found on the Web--some from gay sites, some not. Then, after Photoshop-ing away the subjects' identities, he would pen  affectionately biting commentary about their decorating to go with each picture, like "That couch would look totally great if it was on fire being thrown from a bridge" and "Something wicker this way comes."

"I didn't want it to just be negative and constantly say 'Oh, my God, look at how awful that is!'" says Jorgensen, who began posting the interiors on his Web site, JustinSpace.com, in 1999. "Please--my home doesn't look any better. It's a huge mess."

While Interiors--with its mix of  humor and voyeurism--could turn out to be the gag gift of the year, Jorgensen hopes that readers see there's more going on than just cheap shots at cheap furnishings. "I've spent a great deal of time thinking about what it means to decorate as a man," says the author, who's working to turn Interiors into a TV show. "What's so interesting to me is this constant conflict in men between what's masculine and how you decorate. How do you fill your room as a man and still be a man?"

Well, judging by the shots in Interiors, you keep your plants around even if they're dead. "What really  amazed me is seeing how different men from around the world would do the same ridiculous things," says Jorgensen with a laugh, "like putting their dying plants up on big pedestals or using cardboard boxes as end tables. Or they'd make everything symmetrical, thinking, If it's symmetrical, it looks prettier."

Speaking of pretty, some of the  presumably available gents featured look pretty hot, even in silhouette. "We made a conscious decision to not show any penis silhouettes, but people still think they see them," says Jorgensen. "They'll say, 'I saw your book with all the schlongs hanging out.' I'm like, 'There's no schlongs.'"

There are, however, a lot of men out there who have no problem telling the world that they use their stereo speakers as shelves. "I'm really conflicted about the speakers-as-shelves thing," he admits. "Can it really be that bad if everyone's doing it?"

Fresh flowers, even just one, make all the difference. But throw it out once they wilt. Don't be like those maudlin teens who decorate their rooms in Phantom of the Opera posters and drama awards and pin each dead rose around their vanity like it's the last one they'll ever get.

Speakers are not shelves or pedestals. They're just speakers. Let them be. Don't try softening them with garage sale arrangements.

FYI: If you fill your couches with too many pillows your guests will end up sitting on the floor.


See also Meetingplaces Amsterdam 1991 from Bart Sorgedrager ...

La Brea Ave Los Angeles California Street Art Photography & Hot Dogs Seizer Stephen Shore Pinks

Street Art by Seizer on La Brea Ave in Los Angeles Cali

Stephen Shore's La Brea - An Image That Changed Photography


Forty years ago Stephen Shore created the image below on the corner of Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. Almost immediatley this image along with dozens more from Shore's collection, began reshaping people's perception of the American landscape. It has been included in dozens of text books, lectures and surveys of photography.

Shore was a pioneer of color photography and along side William Eggleston, their work helped to legitimized color photography in the art world. When Shore was only 23, he became the first living photographer to have a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Artin New York City. Shore's images have been a major influence to many well known American photographers including Nan Goldin and Joel Sternfeld. His images, thanks to the help of Bernd and Hilla Becher, even influenced many German photographers includingThomas Struth and Andreas Gursky.
See also American Pioneers of Color Stephen Shore, Joel Meyerowitz, William Eggleston ...

Today, La Brea is the conceptual core behind the La Brea Matrix Project, hosted bySchaden.com, Cologne and The Lapis Press, Culver City. In responce to La Brea, LBMP hosted an artist-in-residence program here in Los Angeles in 2009 and 2010. A collection of six German art photographers were invited to "come search for photographic points of reference to this iconic picture". The end result, a limited eddition portfolio of the artists work created while in Los Angeles and later, an exhibition.

The La Brea Matrix photographers include: 

Jens Liebchen (Berlin, born in 1970)
Max Regenberg (Cologne, born in 1951)
Oliver Sieber (Düsseldorf, born in 1966)
Olaf Unverzart (Munich, born in 1972)
Robert Voit (Munich, born in 1969) and
Janko Woltersmann (Hanover, born in 1967).

FOTOBUCHTAGE 2010: Andrew Phelps Rob Hornstra Peter Bialobrzeski Photography

Open publication - Free publishing - More fanzine

Artists of "FOTOBUCHTAGE 2010": Andrew Phelps, Rob Hornstra, Andreas Mühe, Andreas Magdanz, Peter Bialobrzeski, Kolkata Heritage Photo Project, Volker Gerling, Esther Haase, Ulrich Mack, Michael Schnabel, Michael Wolf, Cécile Fontaine, Len Lye, Renate Aller, Kirill Golovchenko, Andreas Herzau, Jörg Koopmann, Susan Paufler, Alexander Gnädinger, Bernd Uhde. The GUDBERG magazine is a forum for artists all over the world and an art project that any fan of art and design would be well advised to collect. This printed stroll through the globe's most exciting art scenes is produced in cooperation with leading international galleries. The current issue is available for free - in a limited run of 2000 copies - in selected museums and shops. All editions can be ordered from the publisher online.

More info: http://www.verlaggudberg.de

Transformations Through Light Portraits by Helmar Lerski Photography

(Aus dem Werk) “From The Factory”, 1936

Transformations Through Light – Photos by Helmar Lerski

There’s an interesting reference resource for all you CGI modellers and lighting artists looking for new ways to build on the standard three lamps setup. Take some time to study an exhibition of eighty-eight photographs by Helmar Lerski (1871–1956) currently showing at the Ubu Gallery in New York and running until the 25th of June, 2010.

The show is called “Transformations Through Light”, and it demonstrates Lerski’s skill at moulding his model’s features into dramatic volumes; a skill he learned and practiced as a cinematographer in the avant-garde German cinema of the nineteen twenties and thirties.

His compositions lent an air of grandeur to all of his subjects, even though many of them were beggars, labourers, and people found in dole (welfare) queues.

Lerski was involved concurrently in the two major, emergent mediums of his time: film and photography. Born in Alsace in the then German city of Strausburg, he became involved in the theater and, in 1896, moved to New York to pursue a career in acting, eventually working at the Irving Place Theater and later the German Pabst Theater. It was in this setting that Lerski first became aware of the unique visual effects achievable with stage lighting. Drawing from his acting experience, he began investigating photography as an artistic medium after meeting his wife, also a photographer. While photographing their colleagues, Lerski experimented with a series of portraits that severely manipulated the lighting effects. The resulting images formed a base for his later success in both commercial and art photography.

(Verwandlungen des Lichts) “Untitled” 1936

(Yemenititischer Knabe) “Yemenite Boy” 1933.

(Hände eines Landarbeiters) “Farm labourer’s hands” 1944

(Die Hausangestellte) “The Housekeeper” 1929

This body of work upholds the artist’s declaration that “in every human being there is everything; the question is only what the light falls on.”

Among Lerski’s many models was a young Francis Bacon, who had a dramatic studio portrait taken by Helmar Lerski, “a Swiss photographer and cinematographer”. Bacon was later to tell Stephen Spender that he had been very impressed by the work of the photographer who had produced striking effects using mirrors and natural light filtered through screens, but that he could not remember the artist’s name.” (Surprise!)

Not all of Lerski’s subjects were portrayed in this stark dramatic style, he made some dreamy portraits of a fellow film maker Leni Riefenstahl, who incidentally lived to the ripe old age of 101.

Open publication - Free publishing - More photography

Open publication - Free publishing - More portraits

Transformations Through Light Portraits by Helmar Lerski Photography

(Aus dem Werk) “From The Factory”, 1936

Transformations Through Light – Photos by Helmar Lerski

There’s an interesting reference resource for all you CGI modellers and lighting artists looking for new ways to build on the standard three lamps setup. Take some time to study an exhibition of eighty-eight photographs by Helmar Lerski (1871–1956) currently showing at the Ubu Gallery in New York and running until the 25th of June, 2010.

The show is called “Transformations Through Light”, and it demonstrates Lerski’s skill at moulding his model’s features into dramatic volumes; a skill he learned and practiced as a cinematographer in the avant-garde German cinema of the nineteen twenties and thirties.

His compositions lent an air of grandeur to all of his subjects, even though many of them were beggars, labourers, and people found in dole (welfare) queues.

Lerski was involved concurrently in the two major, emergent mediums of his time: film and photography. Born in Alsace in the then German city of Strausburg, he became involved in the theater and, in 1896, moved to New York to pursue a career in acting, eventually working at the Irving Place Theater and later the German Pabst Theater. It was in this setting that Lerski first became aware of the unique visual effects achievable with stage lighting. Drawing from his acting experience, he began investigating photography as an artistic medium after meeting his wife, also a photographer. While photographing their colleagues, Lerski experimented with a series of portraits that severely manipulated the lighting effects. The resulting images formed a base for his later success in both commercial and art photography.

(Verwandlungen des Lichts) “Untitled” 1936

(Yemenititischer Knabe) “Yemenite Boy” 1933.

(Hände eines Landarbeiters) “Farm labourer’s hands” 1944

(Die Hausangestellte) “The Housekeeper” 1929

This body of work upholds the artist’s declaration that “in every human being there is everything; the question is only what the light falls on.”

Among Lerski’s many models was a young Francis Bacon, who had a dramatic studio portrait taken by Helmar Lerski, “a Swiss photographer and cinematographer”. Bacon was later to tell Stephen Spender that he had been very impressed by the work of the photographer who had produced striking effects using mirrors and natural light filtered through screens, but that he could not remember the artist’s name.” (Surprise!)

Not all of Lerski’s subjects were portrayed in this stark dramatic style, he made some dreamy portraits of a fellow film maker Leni Riefenstahl, who incidentally lived to the ripe old age of 101.

Open publication - Free publishing - More photography

Open publication - Free publishing - More portraits

New Commercials Ben Phone Company KesselsKramers Video Photography

DESIGNTALKS - Lecture - ERIK KESSELS, KESSELSKRAMER from SPD video on Vimeo.

Erik Kessels, cofounder and creative director of Kessels Kramer, presents the work of the Dutch advertising agency based in Amsterdam and London.


With its radical and often provocative approach, Kessels Kramer has already left a strong mark on contemporary advertising communication. 


During the lecture Erik presents the famous series of commercials for the Dutch mobile phone company Ben: short, witty, sometimes hilarious spots telling little stories in a very fresh and simple way. Among his favourite works, Kessels also introduces the award winning campaign for the Hans Brinker budget hotel: the Amsterdam hotel promoted itself with unconventional slogans like "Now even more dogshit in the main entrance!" thus attracting a huge number of visitors.


Erik Kessels is a photography collector and has curated photography books such as the series “In almost every picture” based on materials he found apparently by chance during his personal researches. 


The lecture ends with the presentation of the experimental, selfproduced project The Other Final: an event and award-winning documentary showing a football game between the world’s two lowest-ranked teams which was played on the same day as the 2002 World Cup Final.

Open publication - Free publishing - More reclame

Ben Statue tag on from KesselsKramer on Vimeo.


Ben Line Dance tag on from KesselsKramer on Vimeo.


Ben Khalid tag on from KesselsKramer on Vimeo.

New Commercials Ben Phone Company KesselsKramers Video Photography

DESIGNTALKS - Lecture - ERIK KESSELS, KESSELSKRAMER from SPD video on Vimeo.

Erik Kessels, cofounder and creative director of Kessels Kramer, presents the work of the Dutch advertising agency based in Amsterdam and London.


With its radical and often provocative approach, Kessels Kramer has already left a strong mark on contemporary advertising communication. 


During the lecture Erik presents the famous series of commercials for the Dutch mobile phone company Ben: short, witty, sometimes hilarious spots telling little stories in a very fresh and simple way. Among his favourite works, Kessels also introduces the award winning campaign for the Hans Brinker budget hotel: the Amsterdam hotel promoted itself with unconventional slogans like "Now even more dogshit in the main entrance!" thus attracting a huge number of visitors.


Erik Kessels is a photography collector and has curated photography books such as the series “In almost every picture” based on materials he found apparently by chance during his personal researches. 


The lecture ends with the presentation of the experimental, selfproduced project The Other Final: an event and award-winning documentary showing a football game between the world’s two lowest-ranked teams which was played on the same day as the 2002 World Cup Final.

Open publication - Free publishing - More reclame

Ben Statue tag on from KesselsKramer on Vimeo.


Ben Line Dance tag on from KesselsKramer on Vimeo.


Ben Khalid tag on from KesselsKramer on Vimeo.

Dutch Artists of the 125 YouTube Videos Shortlisted for Guggenheim's YouTube Play

  

YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video Kiosk, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY. Photo: Kristopher McKay © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 2010.

By: Jake Coyle, AP Entertainment Writer
NEW YORK (AP).- Among the hundreds of thousands of videos uploaded daily to YouTube, surely a work of art is in there somewhere.

Such is the premise behind "YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video," the first curated search for videos of a higher brow on the popular Google Inc.-owned website. From among more than 23,000 submissions from 91 countries, 125 videos were shortlisted for the inaugural biennial.

A curatorial team from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York selected the videos, which will play at kiosks in Guggenheim museums in New York; Berlin; Bilbao, Spain, and Venice, Italy, beginning Monday.

A jury that includes filmmaker Darren Aronofsky and visual artist Takashi Murakami will whittle the results down further to about 20 videos. Those will be presented at the Guggenheim in New York on Oct. 21.

"It's become increasingly obvious that this kind of creative video is completely core to YouTube," said Anna Bateson, director of marketing for YouTube. "It's a fundamental part of what the site is doing, and yet it wasn't really being celebrated."

The chosen videos vary wildly, from well-known YouTube hits to little-seen works by students and amateurs.

More familiar selections include the OK Go music video "This Too Shall Pass," which features a Rube Goldberg apparatus, a complicated machine designed to perform a simple task, and the "Human Mirror" video, in which a subway car is lined by apparent twins mimicking each other's movements, by the comedy troupe Improv Everywhere.

Others are less heralded, like a jogging video by multimedia performer Jillian Mayer, in which rural video is projected against the urban landscape along her path.

Many videos utilize various forms of animation, particularly stop-motion animation. Joe Penna, known to most as MysteryGuitarMan, pieces together a classical guitar piece one shot — and one note — at a time.

Joan Young, associated curator of contemporary art at the Guggenheim, said the selected videos show the breadth of the materials on YouTube.

"We focused on works that really were conceived from the start for an online medium, so not necessarily works that were to be projected in a museum space or works that simply documented a performance," she said. "The idea really is working with the medium."

The videos are assembled at http://www.youtube.com/play. 

Noteboek by Evelien Lohbeck (evelienlohbeck)

Freelance artist Evelien Lohbeck’s paper notebook works like a laptop computer. And on the screen you see her YouTube films, and discover that the notebook is also a toaster and a make-up mirror.

Walter, a dialogue with the imagination by Niels Hoebers (hoepla1001)

Walter is an animated puppet who appears in stop-motion films. His maker wants to make him understand he has no power over his own existence.

Cardboard by Sjors Vervoort (svervoor)

Cardboard creatures turn up all over the city. The insects are the creation of character designer and animator Sjors Vervoort.

Revenge by Lernert Engelberts (lernertE)

And egg waits for a champagne cork to pop. The film by writer and director Lernert Engelberts (1977) is called 'Revenge'. The pop means the end for both the champagne and the egg.

Pasfilm 2000 by Harry De Dood (harry8571)

The result of 40 years of consistently taking passport photos, by Harry de Dood’ 1960-2002. The baby Harry changes into a toddler, a little boy, and so on. One photo flows into another. In less than three minutes, we see more than 30 years of life flash by.

Why Do Things Get in a Muddle by Jean-Baptiste Maitre (jeanbaptistem)

The French photographer Jean-Baptiste Maitre (1978) made ‘Why do things get in a muddle’. This question gradually unfolds on the screen in letters made up of fluorescent tubes. Maitre trained in France and the Netherlands and is currently a resident artist at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.