The results of detailed research from Susana Vargas and art critic Cuauhtémoc Medina, Mujercitos gathers photographs of men dressed as women featured in the periodical Alarma!, known as a nota roja or "red page" newspaper for its bloody content, from the 1960s to the 1980s. This volume collects a selection of key Mexican newsprint tearsheets, with the original layout and typography, each of which represents a mujercito, or "effeminate man," in a highly sexualized, objectified way. Vargas' contextualizing research explores the ways in which these photographs, printed in sensationalistic "true-crime" newspapers, participate in the larger national imaginary of non-normative sexualities in Mexico. In studying these representations of mujercitos, Vargas further traces Anglo-North American theories of gender/sex performativity onto Mexican society, only to discover the multitude of ways in which the relation between gender, sex, sexual orientation and desire is permeated with concerns of race and class in Mexican culture. Click here to buy.
Wunderkind Chinese Photographer Ren Hang Has First Solo Show In Japan
Opening tonight in Tokyo, at the Matchbaco Gallery, wunderkind Chinese photographer Ren Hang will present new photographs taken in New York City. A new publication featuring works from this series will be published by Session Press and distributed by Dashwood Books. Ren Hang "New Love" will open tonight at Matchbaco Gallery and it will run until July 25, 2015.
Nick Haymes' Unflinching Portrait of Teenage Angst
Selections from the book - email correspondence between Gabe Nevins and Harmony Korine
Nick Haymes first met Gabe Nevins on an editorial assignment in the summer of 2007. Gabe had just wrapped up his lead role in Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, in which he had played a teenage skateboarder who accidentally kills a security guard. Gabe had never acted prior to starring in the film; he had heard about Van Sant's casting call from a skateboard store and initially auditioned as an extra. Meeting the teenager, Haymes recalls: "Initially, Gabe was fairly shy, but it quickly transpired that he had seen some of my skateboarding images online and an instant friendship was struck. When the assignment was over, I approached Gabe about the possibility of working on more photographs as there was something entirely captivating about him and his energy." A new volume, published by Damiani Editore, tracks the highs and lows of Gabe's teen years, from stardom to emotional breakdown and homelessness. On Wednesday, March 1st, from 6.00 to 8.00 pm, Haymes will be signing the volume at Dashwood Books in NYC.
Lovesody
Photographer, Motoyuki Daifu, has established himself as one of Japan’s brightest young talents. His chaotic diaristic style continues to evolve in his first monograph Lovesody a short print run of only 300 copies from new publisher Little Big Man. We see him in his twenties now having left home and seemingly over-his-head in a relationship with a young single mother of two. To mark the release of the book, today Dashwood Books (33 Bond St New York, NY) will be hosting a book signing and tomorrow will be the opening of Motoyuki Daifu’s solo show of the same series at Lombard Freid Projects (518 West 19th Street, New York, NY) on view until March 3, 2012.
Francesca Woodman's Notebook
Dashwood Books has just released a publication of one of Francesca Woodman's notebooks. You can purchase the book here.