New Queer Photography: Focus on the Margins from Gingko Press Cracks Open Intimate Shells of LGBTQI Lives
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New Queer Photography: Focus on the Margins from Gingko Press
Cracks Open Intimate Shells of LGBTQI Lives
52 Artists from Six Continents Explore Sex, Sensuality, Radicalism & Romance in Richly Designed Paean to Proud Celebration of Diversity
http://gingkopress.com/shop/new-queer-photography/
5 October 2020 – Berkeley, CA. If there is queer culture in Antarctica, count on editor Benjamin Wolbergs to find it — at the moment, that’s the only continent not represented in the rich, raunchy, romantic and radically real New Queer Photography: Focus on the Margins from Gingko Press. In 304 wild and wickedly diverse pages we meet 52 artists — Rainbow Girls, Berlin Boys, Queens at Home, Queer Kids, Beautiful Freaks and numerous safe havens of body and soul welcoming Sexugees who flee Where Love is Illegal.
“These photographers have a rare gift and rare accessibility to intimacy,” said Wolbergs. “The works are raw, racy and unapologetic. It’s about queer people. No two of this collection’s artists are the same. Neither are the images or the perspectives.”
Wolbergs lives and works as an art director and editor in Berlin. His work as an art director includes over 100 books for art publishers such as Taschen, Gingko Press, Prestel, Distanz, Gestalten, Junius, Kettler and more. As an editor he is eager to find new inspiring themes in the field of art and design that have not yet been published. These book projects often turn out to be longer term projects — New Queer Photography in particular was developed over the last four years.
Besides the graphic and richly realized images, there are eloquent and revelatory texts spread throughout such as Edna Bonhomme’s “The Joys of Trouble making”, Shiv Kotecha’s “Call Me Heena” and noted author Alexander Chee’s “Queer Kids In America” where he writes movingly about “the dream of the heroic age of gay liberation, that became in turn the nightmare of AIDS.”
A balancing act between sometimes diametrically opposed aspects is at the heart of the message that New Queer Photography is trying to convey: focus on examplesof people on the margins of society whoare discriminated against, oppressed,and attacked because of their sexualityand gender identity.
“Living on the margins — under different circumstances — may often create the very conditions that enable people to throw off the shackles of social norms and spread their wings in total freedom,” writes Wolbergs in the introduction to the volume. “This book celebrates the exploration of gender
identity in all its fluidity and explores perceptions and alternative ideals of beauty. For the photographers represented in this book, working on the margins opens up unique opportunities.”
Films, series, and mainstream cultural appropriation suggest that society has largely embraced queer lifestyles. However, a number of documentary photographers provide evidence that being gay or lesbian can still lead to marginalization, isolation, stigmatization, and violence in certain countries and communities. Their works also take the regime of sexuality itself into account and show that many bans on same-sex contact have colonial origins. This carefully researched and richly designed book introduces contemporary photographic positions, including those of well-established photographers as well as plenty of unknown and less well-known talent.
As Gert Jonkers,cofounder of BUTT & Fantastic Man, writes: “Thisbook takes me back to my teens, to the thrill of photography, discovery, and sex.”
Artists in New Queer Photography: Focus on the Margins (in order of presentation)
Dustin Thierry, Florian Hetz, Melody Melamed, Alexandre Haefeli, Maika Elan, Bradley Secker, Ralf Obergfell, M. Sharkey, Donal Talbot, Luis Venegas, Goodyn Green, Lasha Fox Tsertsvadze, Francesco Cascavilla, Bettina Pittaluga, Jan Klos, Laurence Rasti, Damien Blottière, Manuel Moncayo, Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert, Lia Clay Miller, Pauliana Valente Pimentel, Lissa Rivera, Julia Gunther, Soraya Zaman, Matt Lambert, Benjamin Fredrickson, Pepper Levain, Christopher Sherman, Mohamad Abdouni, Robin Hammond, Hao Nguyen, Milan Gies, Ashkan Sahihi, Lukas Viar, Jonathan Icher, Birk Thomassen, Shahria Sharmin, Kostis Fokas, Jordan Reznick, Laurence Philomène, Gianfranco Briceño, Daniel Jack Lyons, Maria Clara Macrì, Claudia Kent, Danielle Villasana, Brian Oldham, Red Rubber Road artists Ana Hell and Nathalie Dreier, Mark McKnight, Spyros Rennt, Gerardo Vizmanos and Michael Bailey-Gates.
9 ½” x 11 4/5” • 304 Pages • Hardcover
$65.00 Retail • ISBN 9781584237563
Releasing November 2020