.: Fierce!

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Fierce!

Finally getting to the final cut of images for my book Fierce! The following is an excerpt from the books preface writen by Curtis Lipscomb, Exsecutive Director of Kick – The Agency for L-G-B-T African-Americans in Detroit. I worked with Curtis in one of the first outlets for my images was for The Motivator, a monthly news letter for Detroits Men of Color Motivational Group. The work carried over to Curtis's Kick magazine.

"What Chris has done with this important collection of images, Fierce: Being Black, Being Gay in America, A Photographic Essay, is to seek, lift, and affirm the identity and visibility of men-who loved-men and express it in many ways. His photographs display Midwest American men from the outlandish and flamboyant, to the subdued and subtle. You’d think these were “ladies who lunch;” muscular men dressed for the “Park” in lace, and floppy hats to give effect for all to see. Brothers connecting in places we know are safe, such as our nightclubs, the discos, and special events targeting our interests.

Friends are captured as they share a laugh together. At the “Show,” young men, who are infatuated with their appearances, strike a pose, for the sake of drama. The House of Charles members give face backstage at a ball. The members are captured with their excitement, youth, and ovah-ness. At the “Show,” exotic male dancer, a fixture in our community, becomes more than just a sexual idol, he becomes a whimsical teaser to the camera, and let’s the viewers have a sneak peak at his moneymaker. Gleeful members of Men of Color lend their brown and black physiques (including my own) to charity at the defunct Body Auction fundraiser. “Bois” are casually seen in their happy times, (such as me and my honey Willie), while others are pictured in relationships long forgotten. Take another look and you’ll simply see us enjoying ourselves and having a good time, openly and lovingly.

The importance of Fierce is paramount: all men are created equal, and share a space on earth. These portraits of men have to be recognized as God’s beauty and not His damnation. Time will thank those who were strong and dared enough to express themselves for all to see and appreciate in a manner that’s loving and creative. Time will also thank us for not living in a paranoid state of mind, and afraid of our own shadows. Remember, this cluster of work isn’t Robert Mappelthope’s approach to black imagery, but the approach of documenting men as they wanted to be seen: with and without sexual stimulation, for shock value.

Photography has become the evidence of things seen while faith is the evidence of things not seen. Our modern history in the age of film has helped create our destiny while accurately reflecting our past. Film helps put our perspective in order. Film allows us to be visible and exposed. The relationship between the photographer and subject should be of trust and honesty. The success of Kick Magazine and other same-gender-loving publications was based upon these two well-defined words. By the time the annual, gay pride celebration, Hotter Than July!, was established, there had already been a feeling of security for the black, gay, bi, and transgender male to be photographed and studied in one of our own environments. Lined with rocks, trees, bushes, and streetlights, Lake St. Francis in Palmer Park was the perfect stage and backdrop of many of Chris’ works. The Motor City is my home, and I’m proud of it. Our city, the true renaissance for the early 20th century, southern Negro, has been the blessing for the advancement of colored folks. GQ Magazine once featured the style of Detroit’s black men to be as vivid as a peacock’s tail, and cocky as a bull. There is no other place in America where black men are proud to wear suits colored from a box of Crayola crayons, and in no other region can men be as colorful and as Fierce as they are here. This collection will evoke discussions throughout America’s urban centers and bible belts, as it should. These images of men who intimately love men will cause many to be informed that you are not alone. The African-American experience is vast. Catch it and learn.

I love the male form, particularly the black male form. So does Chris."

Curtis A. Lipscomb
Executive Director Kick – The Agency for L-G-B-T African-Americans
Detroit Michigan / 2005
www.e-kick.com

1 comment:

Morisset said...: A book would be HoTt! How's this project coming along?; 12:37 AM

The Dance Through Life Project

Photograph project dedicated to capture the Art of Dance within the parameters of everyday life. The project hopes to capture the innate relationships between dance and everyday life. Images of dance performed in non-traditional locales hopefully demystifying dance as being inaccessible and drawing the obvious metaphor that while all can not express life with such movement and physicality, we all love with our own signature grace. Therefore we all dance.

Order your copy today by clicking on the books above!

Through New Eyes: The Photography of Christopher Cushman by Rinaldo Walcott

The Black male body remains an enigma despite its over representation in the public sphere. The dominance of hip hop culture globally, driven in part, but not exclusively by the innovative sounds of rap music have made Black men a standard by which Black men and other men judge themselves in contemporary culture. However, there is a paradox, because despite the prevalence of hip-hop’s popular global impact, Black men are also still some of the most despised men in Western culture. Stereotypes of criminality, disease and danger still abound and organize Black men’s lives, even within hip hop culture. Thus representations of Black men tend to be much more restricted, than open-ended. The struggle to bring Black men into complex open-ended representations has been an on-going historical struggle. One of the most potent forms of representation in the last one hundred and fifty years has been the photograph. Photography has offered the promise to represent the real in a manner that has both seduce its viewers and baffled them with its artifice. Black male photographic representations in the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first have promised to rescue Black men from the confines of mis-representation and stereotype. One of the most difficult and complicated circumstances of Black male representations has been in the realm of representing their sexuality. Black men’s sexuality is still over-burdened by a perceived threat and danger, especially now in the hyped-up era of the downlow. Then along comes Cushman. I first hear of Christopher Cushman’s photography from my boyfriend. He told me of a guy who was taking photographs of black nudes based upon how they wanted themselves to be seen, not how he posed them as his models. When I met Cushman he confirmed that he did indeed work from the models’ suggested posed and not impose his own. The idea is a great one because it allows the models agency in choosing what they believe to be an adequate representation of who they are. While it is now true that in contemporary culture subjects have learned to play for the camera, offering us artifice on command, this artifice can be understood as exposing inner senses of self and being. Cushman’s photography captures and reveals those inner desires. Look at me, many of the models seems to say. But look at me anew, is also what they seem to project and insist on. Cushman’s eye lavishes these Black male bodies with glimmers of light revealing their nuance personalities. While most of the men are naked their individuality comes clearly through. And yet, their eyes too reveal that they belong to a community, a family and possess desires, fantasies and needs. In these photographs, as viewers we are given new eyes to see beyond our inner voyeur. Cushman channels, Robert Mapplethorpe, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and many other artists, commercial and amateur photographers who seek to rescue the Black male body from the disastrous depths of mis-representation, and who almost always fall short. The conversations that his models create between his work and others whether unconscious or not reveal the profound influence of the image in our time. However, in Cushman’s eyes the Black male body is not being rescued, instead it stands on a self-made pedestal, not arrogantly announcing its existence but coolly (its signature) singing its own praisesong as swathes of light and behind the camera love washes over it. In each moment a small but significant revelation is made. Each revelation offers us the opportunity of an Epiphany – to think a thought about a Black man that we have not thought before. Professor Rinaldo Walcott is a cultural critic and Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto. He lives and writes in Toronto.

FIERCE! Being Black, Being Gay in America

"What Chris has done with this important collection of images, Fierce: Being Black, Being Gay in America, A Photographic Essay, is to seek, lift, and affirm the identity and visibility of men-who love-men and express it in many ways. His photographs display Midwest American men from the outlandish and flamboyant, to the subdued and subtle. You’d think these were “ladies who lunch;” muscular men dressed for the “Park” in lace, and floppy hats to give effect for all to see. Brothers connecting in places we know are safe, such as our nightclubs, the discos, and special events targeting our interests.

The importance of Fierce is paramount: all men are created equal, and share a space on earth. These portraits of men have to be recognized as God’s beauty and not His damnation. Time will thank those who were strong and dared enough to express themselves for all to see and appreciate in a manner that’s loving and creative. Time will also thank us for not living in a paranoid state of mind, and afraid of our own shadows. Remember, this cluster of work isn’t Robert Mappelthope’s approach to black imagery, but the approach of documenting men as they wanted to be seen: with and without sexual stimulation, for shock value."

Curtis A. Lipscomb
Executive Director Kick – The Agency for L-G-B-T African-Americans
Detroit Michigan / 2005
www.e-kick.com