I ugly cried watching Veneno. Ug. Ly. Cried. Also laughed my guts out. Hissed — hisssssed!!! at Cristina’s mother and family and all the other cis cunts who fucked with her and straight up I would cut without a second thought.
When Pose came out, that was the first time since Paris is Burning I’d seen myself in some recognisable way, and known it was us in front and behind the camera. It was America though and similar worlds, yeah, but very different ones too.
Veneno though … this was real. Truth. Painful, angry, joyful, hilarious, terrifying, spiteful, sad, beautiful truth. I love seeing us on screen. Old us who did it hard, survived, loud and foul-mouthed and cackling. Young us who have so many more possibilities for lives without harshness and exile, yet still know those all the same. If we are trans, if we are trans femmes, trans women — transsexuals, transvestites, the old words you don’t use anymore and we grew up with — this is our life. This is our world.
Veneno — 1: Flip me over. I wanna talk to my friendsVeneno — 2: Jeez. He slammed her door
A question I got asked today. I’m writing a lot lately (a long overdue distant continuation of this), and well, sometimes I write, and sometimes nameless horrors what fancy themselves to be comedians write me (& cheers to Vass for leading me down the award ceremony trail).
“Tell me a truth time! What’s your porn category?”
“Hot Action Alien Tentacle Sex 6-Way Shemale Gang Bang?”
“That’s very specific.”
“Where all the tentacle suckers are James Franco’s face going ‘Eyyy, how ya doin’?’ in a shite Brooklyn accent.”
“That’s suddenly Category: Not My Fetish!”
“Bait and Switch, child! The Category is…—”
“Nightmare Porn!”
“Aw, steal my punchline, why doncha?”
“Just like Franco steals your award at the ceremony.”
“Tentacles take stage like Kanye at Taylor Swift, ‘Imma let you finish,’ rips Franco’s face off with razor-toothed Franco suckers.”
“Camera cuts to Xzibit in the audience, ‘Yo dawg, I heard you like James Franco Tentacle Suckers…‘”
“Shit just writes itself, eh?”
“It’s not a porn category unless it starts with ‘Hot Action’.”
“Amateur Porn? naah. Hot Action Amateur Porn? Now that’s a category.”
“Now That’s What I Call Hot Action Amateur Porn!”
“Volume 69.”
“The Soundtrack.”
“Hot moaning and grunting, wet sounds of skin slapping, screams of terror and ripping of flesh, ‘Eyyy, how ya doin’?’”
“Stop. Please. Stop.”
“Won’t stop, can’t stop.”
Xzibit: “Yo dawg, I heard you like James Franco Tentacle Suckers…”
There was a big Hokusai show in Berlin at (I think) Martin Gropius Bau a couple of years ago, I went to see with Dasniya. No Shunga. No pervy octopus tentacle porn. Not even a mention. But in Marbella, in the small but very nice MGEC Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo, in the very unexpected exhibition, Estampa japonesa — Imágenes del mundo flotante, amidst three rooms of Japanese Edo and Meiji era prints, a whole wall of Shunga. And this one, from Katsukawa Shunchō’s: series, Imayō irokumi no ito. One of my absolute favourites, just hanging on the wall in a small museum in Marbella.
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 15: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 16: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 17: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 18: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 19: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 20: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786 (detail)
On the afternoon of my hectic 36-hour round-trip to Marbella / Puerto Banùs, I had a couple of free hours in the afternoon. I could have slept, but I figured I’d be all perky at 10pm and needed some distractions. Museums, then. Yes, Marbella has one: MGEC Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo, in the old town, down an alley on the north-east corner of the big church (very tourist; much eye-watering Catholic art), in a former late-Renaissance hospital.
I hadn’t looked at the museum’s website properly, mainly because I was rather thrilled to have found any suitable distraction for the afternoon, and had no idea what to expect. Straight into Picasso and Miró. Straight out and up the stairs into 3 rooms of Japanese Edo and Meiji era prints. I really wasn’t expecting that. And I really, really wasn’t expecting to see Shunga in an exhibition like this. Saving on of those for its own post. That good. So here, without much elaboration, pretty much every piece in Estampa japonesa — Imágenes del mundo flotante. As usual, besides straightening, cropping, and a bit of colour-balancing, this is pretty much what my now rather old Panasonic LX7 saw. The lighting was awkward (the usual direct light glare on glass type nonsense), I am very out of practice in visiting museums and photographing art, they’re all on the underexposed side and tinted a bit blue … excuses. Fuck it. I’m not much for omens, but stumbling into this after the whole reason I was in Marbella in the first place was Pretty Bloody Significant, if you know what I mean.
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 1: Kitagawa Utamaro: Mujer leyendo una carta; Fujo ninsô juppin. Edición original es del Periodo Edo. Ca. 1972–1793
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 2: Kitagawa Utamaro: Naniwaya Okita; Las tres bellezas de Kanamaza. Edición original es del Periodo Edo de 1793
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 3: Kitagawa Utamaro: Retrato de Tomimoto Toyohina; Las tres bellezas de Kanamaza. Edición original es del Periodo Edo de 1793
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 4: Kitagawa Utamaro: Retrato de Tomimoto Toyohina; Las tres bellezas de Kanamaza. Edición original es del Periodo Edo de 1793 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 5: Utagawa Kuniyasu: Tōtō Yoshiwara zensei sakura zu. (Illustración de la plena floración de los cerezos en Yoshiwara, en la capital este). Periodo Edo. Entre 1818–1830
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 6: Utagawa Kunitomi: La cortesana Shirakawa del establecimiento Tama. Periodo Edo. 1830–1835
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 7: Utagawa Kunitomi: La cortesana Shirakawa del establecimiento Tama. Periodo Edo. 1830–1835 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 8: Utagawa Kunitomi: La cortesana Shirakawa del establecimiento Tama. Periodo Edo. 1830–1835 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 9: Utagawa Kunitomi: La cortesana Shirakawa del establecimiento Tama. Periodo Edo. 1830–1835 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 10: Utagawa Sadahide: Koharu niwa (Jardín de otoño). Periodo Edo. 1843–1847
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 11: Utagawa Sadahide: Koharu niwa (Jardín de otoño). Periodo Edo. 1843–1847 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 12: Utagawa Kuniyoshi: Edo’s Murasaki Yoshiwara Genji. Serie: Genji monogatari. Periodo Edo. 1835
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 13: Utagawa Kuniyoshi: Edo’s Murasaki Yoshiwara Genji. Serie: Genji monogatari. Periodo Edo. 1835 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 14: Desconocido. Periodo Edo
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 15: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 16: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 17: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 18: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 19: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 20: Katsukawa Shunchō: Escena erótica shunga. Serie: Imayō irokumi no ito. Periodo Edo. 1786 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 21: Katsushika Taito II: Ehon Tsûoku Sangoku shi. Serie: Ehon Tsûoku Sangoku shi. reedición fechada en el año 13 de la era Meiji. 1880
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 22: Katsushika Hokusai: Denshin Kaishi. Hokusai Manga. Serie: Denshin Kaishi. Hokusai Manga. Primera edición: 1878. Era Meiji
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 23: Katsushika Hokusai: Denshin Kaishi. Hokusai Manga. Serie: Denshin Kaishi. Hokusai Manga. Primera edición: 1878. Era Meiji (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 24: Katsushika Hokusai: Denshin Kaishi. Hokusai Manga. Serie: Denshin Kaishi. Hokusai Manga. Primera edición: 1878. Era Meiji (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 25: Yanagawa Shigenobu: Yanagawa Gafu Kachô no bu. Páginas 36 y 37: Sansaku (Urraca). Periodo Edo. 1856 (año 3 de la era Ansei)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 26: Katsushika Taito II: Banshoku Zuko (dibujos para todos los artesanos). Volumen número V. reedicón de Ōkura Magobei. Era Meiji. Tokio, 1890
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 27: Katsushika Hokusai: Muchù no Fuji. Serie: Fugako hyakkei. Periodo Edo. 1834–1849. Edición 1849
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 28: Katsushika Hokusai: Ryûtô no Fuji. Serie: Fugako hyakkei. Periodo Edo. 1834–1849. Edición 1849
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 29: Katsushika Hokusai: Kika bessô Sunamura no Fuji. Serie: Fugako hyakkei. Periodo Edo. Edición 1849
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 30: Katsushika Hokusai: Sumida no Fuji. Serie: Fugako hyakkei. Periodo Edo. Edición 1849
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 31: Katsushika Hokusai: Inageryô no Fuji. Serie: Fugako hyakkei. Periodo Edo. Edición 1849
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 32: Katsushika Hokusai: Inageryô no Fuji. Serie: Fugako hyakkei. Periodo Edo. Edición 1849 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 33: Katsushika Hokusai: Gaifû Kaisei. Serie: Fugaku sanjurokkei. Reimpresión o copia del siglo XX. La primera edición es del periodo Edo: 1834–1876
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 34: Utagawa Hirokage: Shin ōhasi no ōkaze. Periodo Edo. 1859
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 35: Utagawa Hirokage: Shin ōhasi no ōkaze. Periodo Edo. 1859 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 36: Tsukioka Yoshitoshi: Yûgao dana nôryô zu. Serie: Tsuki hyaku shi). Era Meiji. Octubre de 1890
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 37: Tsukioka Yoshitoshi: Yûgao dana nôryô zu. Serie: Tsuki hyaku shi). Era Meiji. Octubre de 1890 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 38: Utagawa Kuniyoshi: Ise. Masamon tsuna ōtani. Serie Ogura Hyakunin isshu, nº19. Periodo Edo. 1847
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 39: Utagawa Kuniyoshi: Ise. Masamon tsuna ōtani. Serie Ogura Hyakunin isshu, nº19. Periodo Edo. 1847 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 40: Utagawa Kuniteri ? o Utagawa Kunisada. Periodo Meiji, segunda mitad del XIX. 1868
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 41: Utagawa Kunisada II: Minori. Capitulo 40. Serie: Murasaki Shikibu Genji karuta. Periodo Edo. 1857 (ansel 4), 11 mes.
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 42: Utagawa Kunisada II: Minori. Capitulo 40. Serie: Murasaki Shikibu Genji karuta. Periodo Edo. 1857 (ansel 4), 11 mes. (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 43: Utagawa Toyokuni: Género: Actores de teatro popular Kabuki: Yakusha-e o bien grabado conmemorativo. Periodo Edo. Ca. 1797 y 1800
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 44: Utagawa Toyokuni: Iwai Hanshiro V como geisha Koman. Actor onnagata de teatro kabuki. Periodo Edo, 1813
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 45: Utagawa Kuniyoshi: El amante Genobei de Koman (caracterización del actor Ichikawa Denjûrô VIII). Serie: Teijo misao kagami. Periodo Edo. 1843–47
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 46: Utagawa Kuniyoshi: El amante Genobei de Koman (caracterización del actor Ichikawa Denjûrô VIII). Serie: Teijo misao kagami. Periodo Edo. 1843–47 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 47: Utagawa Kuniyoshi: El amante Genobei de Koman (caracterización del actor Ichikawa Denjûrô VIII). Serie: Teijo misao kagami. Periodo Edo. 1843–47 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 48: Utagawa Kuniyoshi: El amante Genobei de Koman (caracterización del actor Ichikawa Denjûrô VIII). Serie: Teijo misao kagami. Periodo Edo. 1843–47 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 49: Utagawa Yoshitora: Dazaifu-Tenjin sonzó. Periodo Edo. c. 1850
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 50: Utagawa Yoshiiku: Takeda Katsuyori. Serie: Taiheiki Eiyūden, nº 8. Samurái. Periodo Edo. 1867
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 51: Utagawa Yoshiiku: Takeda Katsuyori. Serie: Taiheiki Eiyūden, nº 8. Samurái. Periodo Edo. 1867 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 52: Utagawa Yoshiiku: Shima Sakon. Serie: Taiheiki Eiyūden, nº 40. Samurái contra ciclope. Periodo Edo. 1867
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 53: Utagawa Yoshiiku: Shima Sakon. Serie: Taiheiki Eiyūden, nº 40. Samurái contra ciclope. Periodo Edo. 1867 (detail)
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 54: Utagawa Kuniaki: Ashū Tsurugizan Kumajūrō. Era Meiji. 1871
Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo — 55: Toyokuni III, Utagawa Kunisada: Oguri gaiden Namishichi chūgi seppuku no ba. Periodo Edo. 1851
In Oldenburg for the première of Das Helmi’s collaboration with Oldenburgisches Staatstheater, the “progessive feminist science-fiction soft-porno project” Gullivera’s Reise (and repeatedly realising I should have gone: London, train to Brussels, night in Brussels, train to Oldenburg, and not London, fly to Berlin, arrive at midnight, get a morning lift to Bremen, train to Oldenburg, arrive half an hour before the show). It was most excellent seeing the Helmi mob (including Dasniya Sommer and Solene Garnier) once again — the company I’ve seen more than any other.
Friday night was the second and last of this season, in the BANDEN! Festival, and after we joined the throng in the parking lot of Exerzierhalle for food and beer. And there was this bicycle caravan thing, delivering people from one party to the next. This thing was riding around Oldenburg at night like a deranged dragon pirate ship. I saw some mad good bikes in Oldenburg.
You thought I was joking about Dasniya only being in Berlin on a Tuesday? Right now she’s in Oldenburg, then she’s off to Warsaw, then back to Berlin to perform, then I dunno — too far in the future to scry. Definitely in Berlin in December with Das Helmi though. Plenty of rope/shibari/bondage/yoga workshops in November too (and Wellness to Torture is still the best name for a workshop ever).
Dasniya says:
Dear Rope and Theatre Friends,
the must-be event of the month is the Porn Film Festival 2016, starting next week. Check out my first photo exhibition Moviemento cinema! For November there will be five morning classes, and a bondage gig for Arte.
Also back in November: Yoga Shibari, and Self-Suspension #2.
I discovered Oglaf last night. A first I thought it was pretty cool and smart. Then I thought maybe it was a bit bro-ish. Not that I mind, just the perspective of who’s writing and drawing alters how much I enjoy it, usually because it ends up slipping into dickhead hetero bro ‘humour’. Then … “Heh. Snake tits.” And when I found out it’s done by an Australian pair, it all made sense. Fucktastic! It’s so disgustingly, brilliantly funny. My guts are aching. I want to live there. Buying the comic already! (Not sure if it’s a comic or masturbatory aid. Probably going to end up blind either way. Doesn’t matter. Fucking worth it.)
Oglaf — Fresh Horses (involves no actual horses)
Oglaf —The Glamazon Way (the Glamazons didn’t follow fashion – they set traps for it and wear its shiny pelt)
Oglaf — Hoopla (The fucktopus’ only natural predator is the sperm whale)
Oglaf — Puzzlecunt (Once you know it, the solution seems obvious)
Oglaf — Rainbow Cake (Garish sex can cause permanent colour blindness. Wear eye protection)
Oglaf — Romance (Turns out love arts and Lovecraft are pretty much the same)
Oglaf — Snakeskin (The invincible vampire gorgon doesn’t show up in mirrors)
Some rather nice art has fallen my way recently, falling around something that might become abjection. Of course it induces controversy, squeamishness and nervous laughter, the kind that says, ‘I don’t understand this and maybe I don’t want to.”
I wasn’t sure how to write about all this. At first I thought I’d make a separate post for each one, then thought the two exhibitions with trans* people in them should go together, though awkward because of the dogmatic and shrill noise from a couple of trans* blogs. One of the pieces – Buck and Allanah – I discovered on the blog of a trans porn star, which in a roundabout way comes over to alien tentacle rape. To avoid more confusion, I decided to throw it all here.
Emile and I sit somewhere in Berlin talking about art (well, mostly making noises, and sometimes talking about art). Tentacle porn comes up, thinking of Hokusai and my wondering where this might exist now. Emile sends me some links. Genki Genki. I wonder how nice this might be to do while suspended upside down.
I’m not sure when I started reading Danielle Foxx’s blog, but I enjoy rather a lot. A long time ago I wrote about Buck Angel and Allanah Starr making porn. A trans man and a trans woman, both quite huge in the porn world getting it on for the cameras. I thought it was beautiful at the time and still do. Reading Danielle, I find they have been cast in bronze.
Then I discover – same day even – an exhibition by artist Andrea Cano and photographer Manuel Antonio Velandia turning Barbie and Ken into trans* women and men. (The whole thing is more interesting in Spanish, because it got hijacked by a bunch of english-speaking, right-on trans-activists who started out by calling the work a product of straight, cis- fetishists until it turned out Andrea is a trans* woman, so then without missing a beat went on to loudly decry her for stereotyping trans*women as hookers whores and streetwalkers with a plastic surgery obsession. Blah. No wonder I prefer trans* porn to trans* (pseudo) academics.)
I like the statues of Buck and Allanah, part of an exhibition by Marc Quinn. I don’t find his attention to particular bodies so easy to reconcile though, and the gallery statement is a bit awful also. It smacks of sensationalism and gawping idiots, “Looka tha freeeks mama!!!”. But equally, the strident victim speech from some trans* blogs on the Andrea Cano exhibition, the current heavy obsession with trans* guys in the queer scene, along with a not unproblematic indulgence into femme play make it all a bit heavy and burdensome.
Aaahh… problems all around. So.
I think the Genki Genki porn is brilliant, bringing to the world of internet porn a lineage in Japanese and asian art that goes back at least to Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife. Buck and Allanah is poignant on its own, but a little empty in a post-Jeff Koons Cicciolina when seen in the milieu of exhibition and gallery. Barbie and Ken, part of Invisibles: Natures transgressive it likewise so. I smile, it makes me happy to see such things at all, but its worth comes more from the weight of theory loaded on to interpret it. And mostly that theory is decidedly lacking, asinine.
In and of itself, the latter two are not especially interesting. What causes such a work like Buck and Allanah to exist in the first place is the profile of their lives as both porn actors and trans*, and how these interact. I was thinking of Jenny Saville’s painting, Passage here. For me also, I find them more interesting as people, and what they publicly say about their identities. Perhaps then this work is something of a public service announcement, or political art in the vein of Jenny Holzer? Hmmm… no.
If they would do a film with Genki Genki, the universe would be perfect.