February 2, 2001

Eye candy that would even make your dentist smile

by Kaizaad Kotwal

Our times, saturated by MTV and commercialism, have often been blamed for being obsessed with eye candy, from the never ending parade of celebrity fashion trends to the incessant use of sex and sensuality to sell us everything from cars and detergent to insurance and pet medication. We are perpetually being bombarded by things that are pleasing to our senses, particularly the eyes. And there's nothing inherently wrong with it. In fact, we should revel in beauty as much as we can. But this notion that ours is the age that invented eye candy is incorrect.

You've seen the excavated pottery of ancient Greece and Rome where taut, muscular youth, sometimes with full-blown erections, adorned wine pitchers, eating vessels and decorative urns. Or take the gold-leafed church murals from the Middle Ages where all that glittered was indeed gold. Even Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel and David are luxuriant examples of Renaissance eye candy. And then there's the lush nudes of Goya and Renoir where female nudity was exploited, exalted and intoxicating.

Thus, let it come as no surprise that we too, in all our jaded modernity and cynical post-modernism, still want to revel in basic, blatant and beautiful eye candy.

The male as the subject of this is also not a new invention, although there have been long periods historically where the male body was sent shamefully into hiding. This can be seen starting with the expulsion of Adam from the Garden of Eden and in the age of Puritanism where naked statues and paintings of men were covered up with fig leaves or destroyed outright. But the male nude is back with a vengeance, and a recent spate of photography books celebrates this decade-old revival in lush black and white and Technicolor glory.

Several recent books from Bruno

A photo from Fred Goudon's Bedtime Stories.

Gmunder

in Germany and FotoFactory Press in Los Angeles deserve a closer look. Both of these publishers have a long tradition of putting out the works of great artists and their production values are impeccable.

The first book from Gmunder is Absolute Makos by Christopher Makos, whose photographs have been exhibited all over the world from the Guggenheim in Bilboa, Spain to the Whitney Museum in New York. Makos's work is always intimate in that he often zooms in very close to his models, forcing us as close to them as possible without actually touching them. He homes in on

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various parts of the body, letting the lens fetishize through a private gaze. A single work often includes a composite of two or four images, documenting a model's various attributes or varying moods and feelings.

Makos doesn't use tricks or gimmicks in his work. He simply lets the lens capture the subjects simply and honestly. There is a presentational and aesthetic minimalism to his work, almost a documentary feel, that is refreshing. The book includes a nice interview with Makos done by another photographic luminary, Bruce Weber. Makos also has a cyber photo studio at www.makostudio.com which is worth a visit.

The revival of Miami and South Beach in Florida, mostly due to the burgeoning gay culture down there, has made the electorally confused state also one of the newest stomping grounds for the best of the best in eye candy. Emmy Award winning director and cinematographer Ron Williams has captured these visual fantasies in all their Technicolor and muscle-bound glory.

Williams has found a collection of stunningly buff and beautiful models who pose in the bright sun and under the azure skies of Miami. His work harks back to the physique pictorials of yesteryear, except that his models are more buff, more tanned and more depilated than anything you've seen before. Williams also compiles videos that emerge from his photographic sessions, and his work can be seen at www.vistavideo.com.

With the harshness of winter still lingering here, this is a perfect book to warm up with, thinking forward to the thaw of spring and the heat of the upcoming summer

French born photographer Fred Goudon has created an impressive collection of images in Bedtime Stories.

A fashion and commercial photographer, Goudon's series of images focuses on men in various stages of sleep, rest, awakening

and wakefulness. In many of the images one does feel like a fly on the wall, watching these men in some of their most introspective, intimate and innocent moments. The introduc tion to the book includes a letter Goudon wrote at 19 that sweetly and poignantly captures how he created a life for himself behind the lens.

Ed Freeman, who went to college in Ohio and southern France, has produced a very compelling collection of images in his book titled Work. Freeman, who was once a pop record producer and musician, took to producing images ten years ago and has developed an impressive body of work, much of it using computer manipulation to create images that are arresting in their colors and composition.

As the title of the book suggests, Freeman's images here often focus on men at work But there is always a playfulness and even sense of humor behind many of his photos. Freeman is a master of photographic chiaroscuro in which he plays heavily with shadows and light, modeling his subjects into statuesque perfection. These photos are arresting in their solidness and yet the movement and poses of the models also suggests a contradictory sense of kineticism, etherealness and surreality. Some of Freeman's works are faintly reminiscent of the paintings of the master of French surrealism, Rene Margritte.

This is a very compelling book of photography ranging from subtle and quiet black and whites to stellar constellations of hyper-saturated colors. Freeman also has a cyber studio at www.edfreeman.com.

For pure, pin-up, prurient and provocative eye candy there is Gmunder's collec-

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tion of Men of Kristen Bjorn. Bjorn, well known to connoisseurs of gay male erotica, has compiled a lush series of images of his star performers. Gmunder knows well the cache that both Bjorn and porn enjoy and they have capitalized with a book that unabashedly celebrates the beauty of Bjorn's models who are ethnically very diverse and come from the far corners of the globe.

Finally there is David Sprigle's book, Snap: Instant Photos published by FotoFactory Press. Sprigle's work is the most unique, most experimental and abstract of the lot and is the only book reviewed here that includes images of women. Spriggle uses toy cameras and Polaroid film to capture everyday people in everyday situations. These are not famous people or perfect models, but regular folk engaging in daily rituals from waking up to making love to sharing a cigarette.

Sprigle's images are extremely intimate and the dark lighting, the flaws and the blurred images of motion being captured, adds a multitude of dimension to his images. Sprigle's work cannot be glanced over like much of the eye candy around. Rather one has to stare long at these images and creep under the layers to get at the heart of these images. And rough as these photos seem, there is a luminescent beauty to them as they celebrate the daily minutia of living as part of the human species.

A photo from Ed Freeman's book Work.

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