Break Me off a Piece...
An exhibit currently running in Brooklyn features photographs from the Athletic Model Guild, a group started in the 1950s by gay photographer Bob Mizer.
At a time when gay pornography was deemed illegal, gay men were only able to get their fill of male visual erotica through G-rated magazines like Physique Pictorial, the publication of the AMG (Come to think of it, we're not quite different today---I remember before coming out I would constantly buy magazines like Men's Exercise, Men's Fitness, Men's Health under the guise of wanting to learn how to "keep fit").
Bob Mizer was able to capitalize on the popularity of the emerging Muscle Beach subculture of the time as well as many young men returning from WWII in search of some quick ways of making money. Although his studios would eventually be shut in a crackdown on homosexuality, his work allows us a glimpse into gay life in the 1950s.
Bob Mizer and the AMG's story is documented in the entertaining fictional 1998 film "Beefcake." (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0187712/)
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To visit the exhibit, check out:
Athletic Model Guild
Wessel + O'Connor Fine Art
111 Front Street, at Adams St., Ste 200
Brooklyn, New York
718-596-1700
http://www.wesseloconnor.com/
Through. Jul 27.
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For more information on Bob Mizer and the AMG, please go to:
http://www.bigkugels.com/content/AMGMizer.html
http://www.athleticmodelguild.com/
http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biom5/mize2.html
1 comment:
AMG's publication, Physique Pictorial, was one of my first exposures to gay life, at a time when everyone was very much closeted.
As a teenager I lived in a small town in the north of England, where there was no discernable gay life. It was a short bus ride away from Blackpool, a holiday/resort town which might have had a gay underground at the time, but, if there was, I never discovered it. However I did stumble across a store selling magazines and books that had a selection of "girlie" publications. In one corner of the store's window, next to some "muscle" and "fitness" magazines, I spotted Physique Pictorial. It took a lot of courage to enter the store, and even more to buy a copy. I could hardly wait to get home and find a private place to absorb the pictures of the beautiful men it contained. It was an intense erotic experience at a time when I could find no outlet for my feelings, and when I felt very much alone sexually.
I summoned up the courage to return to the store a few times more and buy new copies of the magazine when they became available. I remember keeping them hidden in the bottom of a drawer, under my clothes, hoping my parents would never find them. I'm still not sure whether they remained my secret.
It's hard to understand today, when images of almost any kind of sexual activity are available on the internet, how rare it was at that time to find pictures eroticising men. Bob Mizer's AMG filled a need, and spawned a number of imitators. Thanks to them all.
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