let`s party a little bit

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Omen Magazine
is a showcase for multi-medium International
creativity. It is a visual online magazine that is
a homage to Art and Fashion that may not be
necessarily mainstream. It will be a hybrid of
talent from up and coming to famous.The focus
is on the image, not the buzz.
Omen wants to explore and expose to the
cyber world, all the amazing work that is off
the commercial radar.
www.theomenmag.com
Cover:
Annya Ng
© 2010-2013 theOMENmag. All Rights Reserved.
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Mário Correia - Graphic editor
Marcus Leatherdale - Art Director / Art Editor
Pedro Matos - Photo editor
Jorge Serio - Fashion editor
+
Art Correspondents:
Alexandra C Anderson – NYC
Paul Bridgewater – NYC
Amabel Barraclough – London
Martin Belk – London
Dan Bazuin – Toronto
Patric Lehman – Toronto
Jennifer Leskiw –Antwerp
Anne McDonald – Prague
Muga Miyahara –Tokyo
Elizabeth Rogers – New Delhi
Hector Ramsay - Florence
Andrea Splisgar – Berlin
Jorge Soccaras – Barcelona / NYC
Arturo Toulanov - NYC
Jose Maria Bustos - Singapore
+
Fashion Correspondents:
Michael Schmidt – Los Angeles
Rebecca Weinberg – NYC
Zuleika Ponsen - Paris
+
Literary Correspondent:
Christina Oxenberg
GREG GORMAN
LOS ANGELES
“My Advice, Follow your heart”
It was the early 80’s and I was beginning my career shooting motion picture campaigns for
such films as Tootsie, The Big Chill and Scarface. It was also around this time that I met Marcus
Leatherdale in New York City. The images he has chosen for this portfolio pretty much reflect
this time frame.
As my career was rapidly unfolding in front of my eyes, I was pretty blindsided by the number of
stars and motion picture projects that occupied every minute of my time between Los Angeles,
New York, and Europe as well. One day I found myself in NYC visiting my dear friend, fashion
illustrator Antonio Lopez. Antonio asked me what I had been doing, to which I quickly and
proudly replied that I had been shooting this celebrity and that motion picture campaign, hoping
to impress him. Antonio, being the much wiser, said to me, “Yes, that is great, but what are
you shooting for yourself?” That really stopped me cold in my tracks and made me realize that
I was just “a hired gun”. Antonio really was responsible for making me step back and realize
the importance of finding an outlet for my own personal creativity. That became the birth of my
personal figure study work and my nudes. As well, my more personal celebrity work outside
the commercial realm.
Today, at 63, my life has come pretty much full circle. My interest in terms of all that commercial
work has waned. The system as I knew it is pretty much gone. As with all industries, things
evolve. There have been great advances in photography that I truly embrace. However, in
the entertainment business the role and creativity of the photographer has become hindered
by the system. This led me to realize I needed a new venue for my productivity. Most of my
time these days is spent teaching and lecturing. I shoot more for myself on personal projects,
publishing books and holding exhibitions around the world. My focus has also turned to making
wine. I have been producing wine in the Napa Valley and the central coast of California since
2006.
My advice, follow your heart. Thank you Marcus for this opportunity.
Greg Gorman
ANNYSA
NG
HONG KONG – NYC
The intricate ink drawings of Elizabethan collars
are rendered in such a precise, obsessive way, that
one can feel its chokehold, yet the dots I use to form
the collar are extremely subtle and delicate. Clothed
in combinations of European and traditional Chinese
costumes, the flat, featureless silhouetted female
faces devoid of emotion and character are reference
the identity and history of Hong Kong. The work does
not merely illustrate a combination of cultures take place
in Hong Kong, but specifies the paradox of constructing
void identity.
Annysa Ng
GIO BLACK PETER
NYC
Gio Black Peter ( Giovanni Andrade Paolo Guevara, born 1979 in Guatemala) is a New Yorkbased performance artist as well as an ardent visual artist. He examines text and subject, truth
and fakery, rebellion and authority. His subversive work has quickly earned him a name in
the downtown New York scene of young emerging artists who participate in today’s dialogue
about the deconstruction of high profile, white box presentation and the desire to raise art
awareness. At the core of Black Peter’s thinking is the idea that the life of art depends on the
viewr’s willingness to suspend his or her rational thoughts and play into the believability of lies
and realistic falsehoods. Familiarity and a seductive aesthetic draw the viewer back to Black
Peter’s art- a visceral exploration of vulnerability and self-reflection.
Since 2007, Gio Black Peter has performed and exhibited work worldwide, including: New York,
Berlin, Madrid, Milan, Bergen, London, Antwerp, Tokyo, and Paris. He has also appeared as an
actor in James Bolton’s film “Eban and Charley” (2001) and Bruce LaBruce’s film “Otto; or, Up
with Dead People” (2008). He continues to grow and develop his range as an artist.
New Narrative Nonfiction
http://www.PrettyBrokenPunks.com
paperback: Dec 2012 • deluxe hardcover special edition: May 2013
Scheduled performances: Glasgow, UK Feb 2013; London, May 2013; Prague, CZ - June 2013
“I enjoyed the book a lot. Full of great memories, names, observations.
It brought it all back. Don’t change a word…”
—MICHAEL MUSTO, VILLAGE VOICE
intro
Don’t get me wrong: at its grand finale, our club was just as big a spectacle
as the day it opened. On the moist Friday night of April 15th 1994, my friend
Blair and I threw our leather MC jackets on stage beneath Misstress Formika’s
six-inch heels as she belted a rousing ‘You Gotta Fight, For Your Right, To Be
Queer’ to christen the joint. Just four months after Rudolf Giuliani raised his
iron fist to be sworn in as Mayor of New York City, SqueezeBox! raised itself
on Spring Street and would outlast Rudy’s reign over Manhattan.
Every Friday night for a decade the crowds came, and came, and kept
coming. They converged for a rock scene I took for granted as the only place
in the world to be. Black outfits at midnight, guitars screeching til’ dawn, glitter
in your breakfast cereal. Torrid affairs before, during, and after. Those of us
who worked there lived it, created it, and made love to it. Counter-culture
became our career. This was good for me, most of the time — I was used to
the back of the bus.
As a young twenty-something, if I’d not been running on the go–out–booze–
get–laid–booze–recover hamster wheel, I could have turned Squeezebox! into
a true empire — like Ian Shrager did with his loot from Studio 54. There was
even talk of SqueezeBox! Records — we certainly had enough bands to sign.
There were side gigs at colleges in New Jersey and Vermont. Private parties in
LA and Tokyo.
Since the big Debbie Harry internet show in January ‘96, she and Chris got
back onstage, reunited Blondie, and their new single Maria took over the
international airwaves. John Cameron Mitchell blew the roof off with Hedwig.
Patrick had Psychotica so sewn up, Marilyn Manson copied a lot of what he
created. It was all a sparkling, delicious mess. I was a mess. But maybe, that’s
exactly how the twentieth century was supposed to end.
By mid-’97 Clinton’s DNA was hardening on Monica’s blue dress, and the
Republicans would try for years to beat him from office. On the streets, America
followed the vibe. We either blew or beat each other. Over time, the cocaine,
drug vibe, infighting and troubles with other underground clubs began to wear
me out. People seemed to be shifting from going out to be fabulous — like we
did in the Big Apple to going out to get fucked-up — like they did in suburbia.
As homogenization trickled down, a lot of folks forgot they were living in the
center of the cultural universe.
Most of the so-called ‘gay’ community loathed SqueezeBox! from the start,
most likely because we were only queers. Just queers. None of us went to a
gym, owned lycra, or had any inclination to ‘assimilate.’ Local magazines
wouldn’t run our ads. Other so-called alternative clubs made it nearly
impossible for us to promote. Nobody played fair — not since the old EastVillage-Pyramid-Black-Lips-DeeLite-Blackbox-Channel-69-Boybar-Wigstock-atThompkins-Square-Park days. Not since the fame bugs began to bite.
Contributing to the atmosphere of beige, Giuliani’s quality of life troops
were hemorrhaging throughout the city. They’d harassed Coney Island High
almost out of business. Some chick from Boston stood up at a community board
meeting and whined because she couldn’t sleep in her newly renovated
apartment located just above the Coney dance floor - which had been there
twenty years. A bunch of yuppies and blue-hairs formed a group and named
it ‘Save Avenue A Association’ – although Avenue A didn’t need saving unless
you were a real estate developer. A really fun night during the week popped
up at a place called Cake on Avenue B, and, of course, the quality of lifers set
their sights square on it. ‘NO DANCING’ signs popped up all over the city.
Giuliani’s cronies found a 79 year-old cabaret law concocted to discriminate
against Harlem jazz clubs in the Twenties,’ and were now using it to
discriminate against Manhattan queers, trannies, hip-hoppers and ethnic parties
in the boroughs. The city Fire Marshals were taken from protecting people
against fires and put to harassing clubs with phony inspections at 2AM. Giuliani
took the fireworks away from the Chinese New Year and sanitized Times Square
so it would be just like home for all the squeaky tourists who apparently ached
for more Disney in their lives.
To me, it looked like every city agency was to be stacked with henchmen,
and Giuliani’s culture war didn’t stop with nightlife or entertainment. He was
forcing community libraries to close; museums to cut back hours. All over town,
historic landmarks like the Palladium Theatre were falling to the wrecking ball.
NYU was allowed to run rampant through the East Village — buying up every
piece of property it could get its dirty purple hands on. Thousands upon
thousands of arrogant, binge-drinking, yuppie adolescents were being herded
over the rivers and into our woods to enroll for thirty-grand a year at NYU, a
university originally founded to educate poor. Mr. & Ms. Fort Wayne and
Nashville took out second mortgages and sent junior to New York City so he
could pretend to be trendy and complain about things.
Winks, nods and blind oversight camouflaged the biggest case of housing
fraud in city history. Rent regulations and housing department codes were
ignored; inspectors paid off. Had to have been. How else could landlords turn
seven-hundred-a-month tenement shitholes into fifteen-hundred-a-month
‘Sunny Renovated Apartments’ but with a cheap coat of paint and forged
paperwork? My hunch was that Giuliani did it for spite first, profit second. To
me, he acted like a spoiled, overgrown teenager who probably never got picked
for the baseball team, probably grew up with Mommy as his only friend and
probably never got laid until he was a sophomore in college, and even then
probably had to pay for it. Now, the rest of us were paying for the mercy fuck
he never received. Funny thing was, if he’d have calmed down for a minute or
ten, he might have discovered real friendship in the very misfits he sought to
destroy. For similar reasons, I resented other club ‘rainbow’ promoters who
used the same spin to crown themselves the new Kings and Queens of nightlife.
Too many folks like Haoui, who knew the real score, were gone. Because
of AIDS, the credit for almost everything noteworthy on the downtown scene
since Studio 54 was up for grabs — and the bottom-feeders began grabbing
just like Rudy, who’d grabbed the credit for the drop in crime. ‘He cleaned up
New York...’ said the news media and salesmen from Kansas City. Bullshit.
Crime dropped everywhere because Clinton had balanced the budget and
people had jobs to go to. My take on all this: Giuliani cleaned up for his pals,
petty club promoters pocketed the proceeds of mediocre nightlife, and the
whole fucking thing gave me a migraine.
So what’s a boy to do? Go out, booze, get laid, recover. Repeat. Until he
somehow fights a hole in the side of his paper bag. And aside from any criticism
that the politically-correct naysayers could hurl, at least me and mine were at
the pinnacle of our game. Collectively we were prettier, smarter, grotesque,
hornier, and more glamorous than any other group in the whole tired, rotten
city. We didn’t need to lip synch – we could sing. We didn’t need to search for
stars, they came to SqueezeBox! on their own — through the same door as
everyone else. Simply by existing — boys in bikinis dancing next to the Steven
Spielbergs of the world; trannies with new boob jobs dancing with the naked
Drew Barrymores of the world; homeless kids chatting over martinis with the
Sandra Bernhards of the world; East Village drag queens like Misstress Formika,
Lily of the Valley and Sherry Vine were singing duets with the Deborah Harrys
and Marc Almonds of the world; Michael Schmidt was creating fashion with the
JFK Jrs of the world — for a brief moment on the scale of life, we were the
world — and many would go on to put a chink in the bourgeoisie armor well
into the 21st Century.
Me? I’d managed to climb from the foothills of North Carolina upstage to
the hottest NYC scene since Max’s Kansas City. In my teen-hood Debbie and
folks like Freddie Mercury came through my hi-fi stereo console with stuff like
‘dreamin’ is free’ and ‘don’t stop me now.’ And I believed every word. I still
do, but I’ve also learned beliefs come with a price.
For now, in the words of Sylvester,
let’s party a little bit...
______________
excerpt: Rip It Up, Start Again
I sat in George’s office. 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. Psychotherapy. The
familiar, comforting sounds of police sirens, car horns, people talking,
screeching subways, street peddlers and amplified music penetrated the smoky,
tinted glass windows. Even then, I still wasn’t sure how the hell I made it to
2004, much less up from a backward-assed southern town with nothin’ but four
hundred bucks in my pocket and a dream on my mind. But I did. And although
my fast young lifestyle — combined with an infamous September 11 surprise
had taken a certain toll, I still had style, drive, and Rock ‘n’ Roll.
George waited as I gazed out at the steely grey stone Empire State building
with its red trimming — no more real to me than the first time I’d seen it in
photographs. Inside my jeans pocket were three grad school invitations. Two
for Manhattan and one for Scotland. Not bad for 38, looking 28, feeling 18 again.
My heart said stay. My intuition was to run like hell. My soul just plain ached.
The New York I had loved was gone, sold off to real estate developers, women’s
fingernail salons and NYU — a city turned into a whore for the nostalgic masses,
who will never appreciate the fine prostitute she once was.
‘I could stay…’ I reasoned to George — yeah, and spend the rest of my life
lamenting the collusions of the sons of New Amsterdam. ‘…or, on the other
hand…’ I continued, stumbling over the words as I looked for my future hidden
in the ceiling blemishes.
‘You’re allowed to feel better ya’ know...’ George interrupted, just before
my gaze came down and hit the floor in a dangerous mix of friend and mental
health professional.
‘Who woulda’ thunk?’ I joked.
‘You’re surprised?’ George inquired, catching me before I daydreamed
off into space again.
‘Yeah, well, sorta. I knew I’d always get into something, somehow, in
spite of myself.’
‘I’m not surprised in the least...’
‘No?!’ I said with a start, becoming agitated.
‘No. Not in the least,’ George quickly retorted in an earnest tone. ‘All the
broken people come to New York.’
‘Huh? What... what do you mean?’ I quipped with fake familiarity,
pretending this wasn’t about me.
‘All the broken people come to New York, Martin — even the ones as
pretty as you.’
‘Pretty?’ I said, digging for something. ‘Pretty-broken-people, huh?’
‘Absolutely.’
©2012MartinBelk
http://www.PrettyBrokenPunks.com
Every story has a beginning and this is David Wallace’s. He was born in
Ithaca, New York, on February 21, 1962. His father, James, was a graduate student in philosophy at Cornell, from a family of professionals. David’s mother,
Sally Foster, came from a more rural background, with family in Maine and New
Brunswick, her father a potato farmer. Her grandfather was a Baptist minister
who taught her to read with the Bible. She had gotten a scholarship to a boarding school and from there gone to Mount Holyoke College to study English. She
became the student body president and the first member of her family to get a
bachelor’s degree.
Jim and Sally had their daughter, Amy, two years after David, by which time
the family had moved to Champaign-Urbana, twin cities in central Illinois and
the home of the state’s most important public university. The family had not
wanted to leave Cornell—Sally and Jim loved the rolling landscape of the
regåion—but Wallace had been offered a job in the philosophy department in
the university and felt he could not turn it down. The couple were amazed when
they arrived to see how bleak their new city was, how flat and bare. But soon,
happily, Jim’s appointment turned into a tenure-track post, Sally went back to
school to get her master’s in English literature, and the family settled in, eventually, in 1969, buying a small yellow two-story house on a one-block-long street
in Urbana, near the university. Just a few blocks beyond were fields of corn and
soybeans, prairie farmland extending as far as the eye could see, endless horizons.
Here, Wallace and his sister grew up alongside others like themselves, in
houses where learning was highly valued. But midwestern virtues of normality,
kindness, and community also dominated. Showing off was discouraged, friendliness important. The Wallace house was modest in size and looked out at other
modest-sized houses. You were always near your neighbors and kids in the
neighborhood lived much of their lives, a friend remembers, on their bikes, in
packs. Every other kid in that era, it seemed, was named David.
There was elementary school at Yankee Ridge and then homework. The Wallaces ate at 5:45p.m. Afterward, Jim Wallace would read stories to Amy and David. And then every night the children would get fifteen minutes each in their
beds to talk to Sally about anything that was on their minds. Lights-out was at
8:30 p.m., later as the years went on. After the children were asleep, the Wallace
parents would talk, catch up with each other, watch the 10 p.m. evening news,
and Jim would turn the lights out at 10:30 exactly. He came home every week
from the library with an armful of books. Sally especially loved novels, from
John Irving to college classics she’d reread. In David’s eyes, the household was a
perfect, smoothly running machine; he would later tell interviewers of his memory of his parents lying in bed, holding hands, reading Ulysses to each other.
For David, his mother was the center of the universe. She cooked his favorites,
roast beef and macaroni and cheese, and baked his chocolate birthday cake and
drove the children where they needed to go in her VW Bug. Later, after an accident, she replaced it with a Gremlin. She made
beef bourguignonne on David’s birthday and sewed labels into his clothes
(some of which Wallace would still wear in college).
No one else listened to David as his mother did. She was smart and funny,
easy to confide in, and included him in her love of words. Even in later years,
and in the midst of his struggle with the legacy of his childhood, he would always speak with affection of the passion for words and grammar she had given
him. If there was no word for a thing, Sally Wallace would invent it: “greebles”
meant little bits of lint, especially those that feet brought into bed; “twanger”
was the word for something whose name you didn’t know or couldn’t remember.
She loved the word “fantods,” meaning a feeling of deep fear or repulsion, and
talked of “the howling
fantods,” this fear intensified. These words, like much of his childhood, would
wind up in Wallace’s work.
To outside eyes, Sally’s enthusiasm for correct usage might seem extreme. When
someone made a grammatical mistake at the Wallace dinner table, she would
cough into her napkin repeatedly until the speaker saw the error. She protested
to supermarkets whenever she saw the sign “Ten items or less” posted above
their express checkout lines. (Wallace would later give this campaign in Infinite
Jest to the predatory mother figure of Avril Incandenza, cofounder of “Militant
Grammarians of Massachusetts.”) For Sally, grammar was more than just a tool. It
gave membership in the club of educated persons. The intimation that so much
was at stake in each utterance thrilled David, and added to the excitement of
having a gifted mother. As did her sensitivity— Sally hated to shout. If she was
upset by something she would write a note. And if David or Amy had a response,
they would slip it back under her door in turn. Even as a little boy, Wallace was
attuned to the delicate drama of personality. He wrote when he was around five
years old—and one hears in the words the sigh of the woman who prompted it:
My mother works so hard
And for bread she needs some lard.
She bakes the bread. And makes the bed.
And when she’s threw
She feels she’s dayd.
The boy loved his father too, an affectionate if slightly abstracted figure, the
firm, gentle man who read to him every night at the dinner table. “My father’s
got a beautiful reading voice,” Wallace told an interviewer when he was in his
mid-thirties,
and I remember me being five and Amy being three, and Dad reading Moby
Dick to us—the unexpurgated Moby Dick. Before—I think halfway through Mom
pulled him aside and explained to him that, um, little kids were not apt to find,
you know, cetology, all that interesting. Um, so they were—but I think by the
end, Amy was exempted. And I did it just as this kind of “Dad I love you, I’m gonna sit here and listen.”
The memory is exaggerated—Wallace’s father says he knew enough not to read
MobyDick, certainly not its duller parts, to small children—but it captures well the
relationships in the family as David saw them: the kind, somewhat otherworldly
father, the noncombatant younger sister, and David in the center, at once shielded by his mother and trying to break free of her dominion.
The Immortal’s Last Breath
by Jorge Socarras
NYC
After Krishna had dropped his passengers off as near to the temple as the rickshaw
could come, Vikram led Maria through a narrow series of alleys where they
couldn’t pass two abreast. In the sari, Maria couldn’t help walk more slowly
than she normally did, and with only flip-flops on her feet, she was especially
careful not to step in cow dung.
“One has to develop radar in one’s feet here,” Vikram commented, seeing her
keep her eyes on the ground.
“Apparently, New York used to be like this before they made it the law to pick
up after your dog.”
“Ah, but surely New York never had anything like this!” They had emerged onto
an open place thronging with people. Looking up over the crowds, Maria saw
the graceful golden spires she and Andrew had seen from the river the previous
morning, their ornate detail much clearer now.
“The Golden Temple of Kashi,” announced Vikram.
“Kashi?”
“Yes, one of Varanasi’s most ancient names—from the days when the Buddha
walked among the people. It means ‘city of light.’The Golden Temple is considered
the center of this light. What celebrities are to Hollywood, holy people are to
Varanasi, and the Golden Temple is like its ongoing movie premiere.”
Maria could see what Vikram meant. A colorful current of devotees moved in
and out of the temple while a more constant crowd hovered around the entrance.
Vendors were selling incense, garlands of marigolds, coconuts, assorted sweets,
icons and amulets. “Offerings for Shiva,” said Vikram. Maria couldn’t help but
stare at the many stunning women in their fine saris, their vermillion-marked
foreheads and kohl-lined eyes accentuating the symmetry of their faces, as well
as their stares. She saw deformed beggars with missing or misshapen appendages,
a gaping hole where an eye or a nose should be, faces bereft of any symmetry
whatsoever. Most prominent were longhaired men with vivid markings on their
foreheads, many of them nearly naked. Some were reposed in contorted postures,
meditating in the midst of the hubbub. Others walked through the crowds with
an otherworldly gaze, reeking of hashish.
“They are sadhus—renunciators,” explained Vikram. “Varanasi is the city of
Shiva, and the Golden Temple his abode. These sadhus are Shiva’s devotees.
Take a look at that one over there. See the bowl he is carrying?”
“It looks like…a skull?”
“It is,” confirmed Vikram, “a human skull. He eats and drinks from it as a daily
reminder of death.”
“In case the street signs and crematoriums don’t do the trick?”
“Ha-ha! It’s true how obsessed with death this culture is.”
“Our culture’s the opposite extreme—we’re in mass denial of death.”
“How refreshing!”
“You’re not serious.”
“Completely. For me it’s as far away from the familiar as all this is for you.”
Maria found herself looking at Vikram with more intrigue than she cared reveal.
“I hope Andrew’s able to meet up with us,” she said, trying to convince herself.
“I told Luther we’d be outside the temple here. Unfortunately, the inside’s not
open to non-Hindus.”
“Oh, if you want to go in, I’m happy to wait out here.”
“On the contrary, if we put the requisite bindi on your forehead, you could likely
pass unnoticed. It is I who will not enter.” He saw the surprise on Maria’s face.
“Bad memories. Besides, I have no patience for religious superstition.” Again,
he took note of Maria’s expression. “You’re wondering how a yogi could be so
intolerant.”
“Oh, you don’t have to explain to me. The only reason I ever step into a church
is to see the artwork.”
“Ah, yes. I wish I could show you what treasures our temples once harbored—
nothing like the tawdry iconography that fills them now. In those times, art was
inseparable from religion. The painter channeled the deity he portrayed; the
sculptor achieved union with the goddess he called forth from stone.”
As he spoke, it seemed to Maria that the scene around them dislodged itself from
the Christian calendar year. She wasn’t sure if Vikram was talking of a time he
actually remembered or some altogether idealized time, but somehow she felt
that he was also calling forth something in her.
“And you…” He looked at her as if they were completely alone. “You would be
priestess of the temple, the medium for the sacred rites enacted between you and
your priest.”
The crowd’s lilting babble, the templegoers’ muffled chants—all lent their force
to Vikram’s voice, his words penetrating Maria to her core, rousing in her that
which she had left for dead. She breathed in the mingled scents of sandalwood
and hashish, felt the sun’s effusive rays, and when Vikram’s marble-smooth hand
took hers, she could almost hear the quickening pulse of her blood.
“Come, there’s another place I want to show you.”
Maria knew now that Vikram had never really intended for Andrew to find
them. What’s more, she had known it too, and to protest or resist now would
have been pointless. She followed him down another series of lanes and alleys,
passing many little shrines where people stopped for a moment’s devotion as
they might for a traffic light. Eventually they came to the towering mosque she
and Andrew had glimpsed from the rowboat as well. Vikram recounted how a
Mughal emperor had razed a more ancient temple and built the mosque upon
its ruins. “See the minarets?” He pointed up to them. “They were the columns
of the original temple.” Still holding her hand, he then led her into the mosque,
which seemed to have more guards than visitors. Traversing the palatial interior,
they went up a narrow, swirling stairwell to one to one of the minarets’ lofty
lookouts. Alone up there, they scanned the countless spires and terraced rooftops
of the old city and its tiered riverfront. There being no cars in the surrounding
streets and so many rustic boats on the river, it was easy to imagine seeing it as
someone might have centuries ago.
“It’s wonderful!” exclaimed Maria. “The whole city seems to rise up right out
of the Ganges.”
“Even the name Varanasi comes from the River’s two tributaries.” Vikram let
go of her hand and indicated. “The Varuna on the north...” He pointed the other
way, “and the Asi on the south.”
“Varuna-Asi,” repeated Maria, “I see. What about the name Benares?”
“A British corruption—theirs was the last in a long list of conquests. For thousands
of years, conqueror after conqueror came, each destroying what did not suit him,
imposing his own culture and beliefs. Yet like the river itself, the city proved
indomitable—it will not die.”
“I can see why people come here seeking immortality.”
Vikram looked at Maria with wistful amazement. She knew from the way he was
looking at her that what he wanted to say next did not involve words. Curious as
she was to feel another man’s kiss after so long, to verify the passion she newly
suspected she was still capable of, she knew also that the new persona she had
assumed had come as far as it could without undermining her existing life. “I
should probably go find Andrew.”
“Forgive me—I always lose track of time up here.”
“I can see why.” She took in the splendid view one last time before they started
down the stairs. He did not take her hand as they wound their way back down to
the ghats, but remained quietly remote, as if still on that tower.
Chapter Eighteen
Damnation Books http://www.damnationbooks.com
Dietmar Busse
by Jorge Socarras - New York
New York has a history of photographers who have proven iconic in the realm of portrait
photography: Arbus, Avedon, Horst, Mapplethorpe Scavullo, Penn, to name a few. None of them
limited themselves strictly to portraiture, and each had some connection to fashion and celebrity.
However classical or iconoclastic their portraits, a discernible theme running through all their
work is an ongoing fascination with persona. Guileless, artificial, beautiful, brutal, inviting,
strange, repulsive, erotic, mysterious - the “face” the subject presents (literally or otherwise)
to the camera, and what it mirrors and reveals, tirelessly captivates photographers and viewers
both.
Photographer Dietmar Busse also shares roots in fashion and celebrity, though he is as apt to
shoot scenes of his native German countryside: a tree starkly silhouetted against a glaring sky; a
horse stunningly suspended in motion. He turns his camera on human subjects with equal acuity.
His elegant, black and white portraits are succinctly staged dramas in which the play of persona
becomes the meta-subject. Busse’s strong, formal sense of composition belies a more raw and
primitive confrontation with the subject. He engages the viewer in the dialectic between what
the subject appears to be and aspires to be, between the subject’s desire to be seen and what
remains invisible. Skillfully, playfully, he brings these aspects to the fore in the way he shoots
his subjects, and at times in his manipulation of the print itself. Even a still life of shoes amid
fruits and plants seems to reveal something about the absent subject.
Despite his twenty-two years in New York, I only came upon Busse’s work a little more than a
year ago. Meeting him for the first time at his pristine, appealingly ascetic studio in Manhattan’s
“Curry Hill,” I couldn’t help notice qualities the artist shares with his art: intensity, elegance,
depth, and humor. Talking with him proved as engaging as his work.
JS: How did you first come into photography?
DB: I was registered for my first semester as a law student at the University of Berlin. The
summer before classes started, I hitchhiked to Spain and Morocco. I fell in love with Madrid
and it’s crazy nightlife, and decided to stay. There I met people who worked in fashion, and they
connected me to a big commercial photographer whom I assisted for a couple of years. It taught
me everything I ever needed to know technically.
JS: Did you realize right away that this was what you wanted to do, or was it an evolution?
DB: I loved the idea of becoming a photographer immediately. It was quite a stretch from growing
up on a farm with cows, pigs, and chickens, and it was so exciting. So when the opportunity to
become a photographer’s assistant presented itself, I went for it.
JS: How did you end up in New York, and how did this city change your career?
DB: After almost four years in Madrid, I had to move on. I was going to move to Milan, but a
photographer friend told me that I belonged in New York. I’d honestly never thought about it,
but the moment he said it, I knew I was going. Three months later, in August 1991, I arrived in
New York City. New York is the mecca for photography. Anything a photographer needs is here:
magazines, advertising agencies, galleries, collectors, and clients. Living here really opened my
mind and gave me the courage to pursue my own path. Unlike in Germany, here I feel free to
make my own rules. There are interesting people to photograph everywhere - just go out in the
streets. That’s how I started doing portraits. Later, I was commissioned to do work for many
magazines, and met many people. I’d go to nightclubs just to talk to people. Most people want
to be seen and remembered, so finding models is very easy.
JS: How do you think fashion has informed your way of seeing and your work?
DB: Fashion to me is about transformation and fantasy. I love when people dress up and express
themselves through what they wear. Fashion is often the entryway to my portrait work in the
studio.
JS: Who are some of the photographers and artists who have most inspired you?
DB: Irving Penn, August Sander, Diane Arbus, Peter Hujar, Eugène Atget, Federico Fellini,
Werner Herzog, Antoni Gaudí, Henri Matisse, Kazuo Ohno, and tribal people the world over.
JS: There is a certain classicism that always comes through your work. Is this conscious on your
past, or an integrated part of your process?
DB: It’s just the way my eye and brain work things out. I like order - I am German. (laughs)
JS: Over the past couple of years, you have been experimenting more with multiple exposures
and with painting over your photographs. Is this a direction you’d like to continue pursuing?
DB: Yes, definitely. I started playing with multiple exposures, and recently have been drawing on
my work in the darkroom with chemicals and sometimes with paint. When I do a straightforward,
classical portrait, I can only recreate what I have captured through the lens. It’s more or less a
technical affair. Using darkroom chemicals for drawing is full of surprises. With painting you
can go off anywhere you want - there are no rules. The photograph’s underlying structure keeps
the image grounded. The photograph and the paint inform each other.
JS: How do you respond to “mistakes” in your artistic process?
DB: When printing in the darkroom and something happens that I did not intend, it’s mostly
annoying. But often it can be a great gift. There is the chance that something is revealed that is
better and more interesting than what I had planned initially, or it leads me on a new exciting
path. I believe it’s important to have an open mind and a sense of adventure.
JS: Can you talk a bit about the new projects you’re working on?
DB: For one, I am working on a book of portraits I’ve taken in New York for the past two
decades. It will encompass all the different approaches to portraiture I’ve been working with,
from the Harlem streets to downtown personalities, to multiple exposures and my self-portraits
in flowers, and eventually the painted portraits. The other project, which is very close to my
heart, is a book dedicated to my father, who passed away earlier this year. For some years, he and
I had been going on what we called “horse and cow safaris” - taking pictures of people, animals
and landscapes around our native village in northern Germany. It’s a stark contrast to my New
York work, yet at the same time the point of view is very similar, and again I am incorporating a
whole wide range of approaches. For example, I glued flowers on both my father and my mother
during his last days.
JS: What do you think is most distinctive about your own photographs?
DB: I think that’s not for me to answer; I think the answer lies in the work itself.
JS: What qualities do you most admire in other photographers’ work?
DB: It can be anything, but I am mostly interested in work that deals with human emotion
JS: Regardless what other directions your work may take, do you imagine you will always do
portraits?
DB: Absolutely yes - if for no other reason than getting to meet wonderfully interesting people,
especially in New York.
jewelry by Typhaine Le Mommier
jewelery by Beatriz Mousinho
Exposed
Pedro Matos – photography
Jorge Serio – Concept, AD, hair, makeup
Assistant – Frederica Santos
Model – Hellyda Cavallaro /Central Models
Umbigo 2010
jewelry by Sandrine Viera
jewelry by Manuela Domingues
jewelry by Sonia Brum
jewelry by Joana m. Capitao
100 BEARDS
100 DAYS
Johnathan Daniel Pryce
London
The beard re-emerges as an essential for the modern gentleman and caught the
attention of photographer Jonathan Daniel Pryce, who set out to shoot a new
beard on the streets of London every day for 100 days. Big and bushy, or tailored
& trimmed, Pryce found men spanning three generations who’ve joined the
contemporary cult of the hirsute.
Artists
Greg Gorman www.gormanphotography.com
Annysa Ng www.annysang.com
Randy Rakhmadany www.r3ndybl4ck.deviantart.com
Gio Black Peter www.gioblackpeter.com
Pretty Broken Punks www.prettybrokenpunks.com
Every Love Story is a Ghost Story www.dtmax.com
The Immortal‘s Last Breath http://www.damnationbooks.com
Dietmar Busse www.dietmarbusse.com
Exposed www.pedromatosimage.blogspot.com
www.jorgeserio.com
100 Beards - 100 Days www.100beards.tumblr.com