A close-up look at the work and technique of photographer G. Elliott Simpson, whose haunting portraits of men covered in black paint are known for their strikingly disturbing beauty. Shot in a mixture of high definition video, 16 mm and Super 8, the work looks beyond the gloss of the artist's stylized photography to explore the relationship that homophobia plays in shaping body image as well as the role of sex and art in transcending violence.
Nude men in rubber suits, close-ups of erections, objects shoved in the most intimate of places—these are photographs taken by Robert Mapplethorpe, known by many as the most controversial photographer of the twentieth century. Openly gay, Mapplethorpe took images of male sex, nudity, and fetish to extremes that resulted in his work still being labelled by some as pornography masquerading as art. But less talked about are the more serene, yet striking portraits of flowers, sculptures, and perfectly framed human forms that are equally pioneering and powerful.
