Seminar 3 - Gender, Sexuality, and the Body (click to comment)
Twemlow, A. and Van Bennekom, J. - ‘No muscles, no tattoos’
This week the theme is Gender, Sexuality, and the Body, which I personally think happens to be a rather significant focus in society at the moment. Even several years ago when I was an undergrad I remember a new course forming that focused on this theme and different talks hosted by our LGBT club that spoke on this exact topic. It’s a hot topic of conversation amongst young and even some old, it finds its way into psychological therapies (as seen by the University of Edinburgh’s counseling page which features it as a discussion), and it becomes the inspiration for many different art pieces. But from Alice Twemlow’s essay ‘No muscles, no tattoos’ it can be seen that this concept began long before the current decade and was a central part of Jop Van Bennekon’s (who I will now be referring to as VB) life and work.
VB, a Dutch designer from Holland, is not only a magazine editor, publisher, and art director, but a visionary and pioneer for the gay community in Holland and abroad. His magazine Re-, Butt, and Fantastic Man have all gained recognition, acclaim, and, most importantly, readership. VB’s close attention to every detail in his magazines, demonstrating his skills as a designer. From the type font and pull quotes to the paper quality and color pallet, he wants every aspect to match his vision. Having such a clear directive is vital to any design creation, and something we as students can learn a lot from seeing demonstrated.
The first of VB’s magazines, Re-, focused on people in its Q&A section. He found that as a gay man in Holland, there wasn’t access to enough content which spoke to him. So, he created it. He allowed the idea of identity to be explored through an art in the form of a magazine and from that created a small pocket of society that accepted gay men for who they were. It’s focus on people brought something new, something relatable and human, to its readers.
Re-Magazine - interview no. 4
Re-Magazine
Re-Magazine - no. 10
Holland’s limited gay culture restricted VB. He began working for Blvd which was a slightly more progressive magazine, but that only lasted a year before he started Butt. VB sought new horizons to match his stimulated curiosity for new, intriguing, and cutting edge design. What makes Butt unique is in the interviews the awkward moments are left in, showing mistakes and imperfections. This paints a human quality on those being interviewed instead of the perfection often displayed in many fashion or pop-culture magazines. (Although some attempts have been made in recent years to amend this need for perfection as seen by some magazines foregoing serious airbrushing). Maybe we as artists should embrace imperfections in our own art more often too. Recently I read Keeping Sketchbooks by Martin Ursel and I found myself much relieved of the need for perfection in my sketches afterward. The book has encouraged me to draw more and more in my sketchbook for myself, not for others, and I now feel able to make mistakes in order to learn. If a sketch doesn’t come out how I wanted, I can try again, and if it still doesn’t look right, I can do another right next to the other two. I am able see the difference, learn what I do and don’t like, and learn, which is the point of a sketchbook. Butt is a magazine that seems to celebrate imperfections. It shows the challenges in learning how to interact with people, even those you find interesting and of a similar mindset, and I think that applies to more than just the gay community.
Butt Magazine
Butt Magasine Covers
This concept of creating a magazine for people of a specific mindset is not new to me. Years ago I was introduced (in a rather joking way) to a series called The Aesthete which interviews interesting people and their hobbies and interests, not so dissimilar from VB’s own publications. While appealing to a somewhat different audience than VB’s magazines, The Aesthete creates a platform for like minded individuals, namely an elite, upper class one. Despite their differences, both demonstrate how people are interested in interesting people. Both VB’s magazines and The Aesthete reach an audience that desire to feel connected to others who have a similar identity to their own, who share in their own interests. There’s something about this connection that seems to encourage and validate us as humans.
The Aesthete - Roubi L’Roubi
The Aesthete - Nicky Haslam
Everyone, whether they feel “othered” or feel they fit in, search out people who feel the same. Being together in your uniqueness is a great comfort. But then what truly does it mean to be “different?” In today’s age I have seen more and more (in New York at least) people’s differences being celebrated, but at the same time this demonstrates how many people are similar in their own ways. I wonder, will the future concept of “normal” change? In America, many more commercials and books are showcasing mixed or LGBT couples or single parents. Will those who grow up years from now with heterosexual, white parents feel that they’re the ones who don’t fit in? Will they have to look at older literature to find their identity? This is of course a very dramatic question that is merely to push a thought to the extreme, but this question was inspired by my own opinion on how art, at times, have become too conceptual and someone, such as myself, who prefers simple lines drawn by hand which compose a comprehensible picture suddenly can’t as easily fit in “modern” work being featured in galleries. VB seems to also have faced a challenge in art school with not fully identifying with the forms and methodologies he was being taught at Arnhem Academy of Art and Design. He desired to try new angles for approaching magazines, and did so successfully in the form of Re-. Experimentation with magazines is like experimenting with any art form. It gets messy, feeds off collaboration and trying something new. Experimenting flourishes in failure and new attempts and concepts are born to learn from those failings.
Often I find that experimentation does well with interdisciplinary arts. Years ago I came across a piece which I’ve called the cello dance, although it’s actually called Multiplicity / Forms of Silence and Emptiness by Nacho Duato. The coming together of music and dance in this way I found completely unique and aesthetically stunning. As a dancer, being able to see someone become the instrument was so breathtaking a concept. Just as VB came at his magazine and designs from a different point of view, combining the interviews and artwork in a new way, I felt that this piece approached the relationship between dance and music in a way that was wholly new to me. (*note there are two links at the bottom, one on YouTube and one on a website, if you’re interesting in the piece)
Multiplicity / Forms of Silence and Emptiness by Nacho Duato
Something I found interesting in Twemlow’s article was that despite the limited gay culture in Holland, VB continued to live and work there for years. It made me wonder, are we as artists and designers sometimes better suited to a different country or culture? What then becomes of our sense of ‘home?’ Is it easy to live in another country in today’s age as an artist? It seems that VB’s ability to create a better platform for gay men in Holland created a better environment not just in Holland, but in other countries. Perhaps our sense of home isn’t restricted to the same geographical boundaries drawn on a map, but rather our own inner sense of self.
I was quite taken when Twemlow mentioned “the one-page typographic ads throughout the interior, paid for by galleries and clothing stores, are all designed by Van Bennekom himself and therefore fit seamlessly with the rest of the content” (Twemlow). Despite the advertisers being furious at first, personally I think this is absolutely incredible. So often when I pick up a magazine in a doctor’s office it feels just like a collection of ads and I find myself having gone through the whole thing and not noticed where the actual content was. Having worked in a theater, I understand that sometimes the approved artwork that is sent to you doesn’t always match the identity of the hosting company. For example, there was a show that came to our theater called “Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life” which featured the comedic brilliancy of Steve Martin and Martin Short. Several of our members called up to complain that the title was confusing, but we had no control over this. We didn’t write the title or the act, we were merely the venue showing the traveling show. Our members were not ones to understand the humor in the title, and perhaps if we had been titling the show we would have named it differently to better suit our usual patrons. What difference it must making being able to design ads for your own magazine so that they fit seamlessly with the rest of your content! This is not often the case for designers or illustrators, we don’t always have such total control over our imagery. Sometimes as illustrators we imagine a book will be a certain shape or size, but a publisher may have a different vision. I think it’s important to understand where you have limits, and appreciate where you have full creative license.
Steve Martin and Martin Short - “An evening you will forget for the rest of your life” poster
Growing and appealing to different audiences is something develops over time. VB has developed in his magazines as he has developed in life. Beginning as more of a novice and apprentice with Re- and Blvd he grew into Butt and then further into Fantastic Man which spoke to audiences with which he himself identified. How does our own art grow and develop with us? Perhaps it’s the style and design, or perhaps it’s the story we’re trying to tell, or maybe even the audience we’re trying to reach. But how do we accomplish this without losing our own personal sense and style of design? Fantastic Man celebrates fashion and personalities. Its overall composition and covers are similar and have the same feel to that of Butt, both have clean designs with bold typography, yet Fantastic Man is able to connect with a slightly older audience. Even though VB has changed his audience, his own personal thumbprint remains in his work. In Fantastic Man there seems to be a greater focus on the text which leaves some pages as a bit dry visually, but VB believes that because of the content, the interesting and unique people whose stories full the pages, the magazine is worth reading regardless. This is a bold and somewhat daunting task in today’s age for me. Often I feel people won’t read something that’s not brief and surrounded by images, or other times they won’t read at all and simply scroll through with a cursory glance at the colors. How, as designers and illustrators, can we build trust with our audience? How will we trust that they will actually read, look at, take in, and appreciate our content, and, in return, build up content that is worth reading so that our audiences trust us to produce something worth reading? VB seems to have already proven himself and gained a following, so perhaps he has more courage to support his decision to make some of his pages less visually dynamic.
Fantastic Man Is. 27 ft. Luca
Fantastic Man Is. 28 ft.Tyler the Creator
Just as VB made efforts to reach an underserved audience, other art forms and creators are making waves to tap into groups that feel underrepresented in today’s society. In many ways, the modern age is a brave new world for accepting different mindsets and expression, although there these things are still met with a significant amount of resistance in many aspect. In some parts of the world, such as New York, gender and sexuality are gaining new platforms for expression. In general, there have been many attempts made to reach certain groups of individuals who feel they don’t have a voice. When a large corporation features a group of people who feel underserved, such as Dove featuring Kia Labeija (who gives voice to women suffering from HIV, a group that is often overlooked) in a Pillar Point video, it helps create a sense of normalcy for it. Maybe certain corporations do this merely out of obligation, a sense of need to appeal to larger audiences and show that they are open minded, current, and inclusive, but regardless of the reasoning behind it, at the end of the day new identities are still being represented. And perhaps down the road it will become just another accepted part of life.
Pillar Point: Dove - Wild Combination
References
Twemlow, A. and Van Bennekom, J. (2006) ‘No muscles, no tattoos,’ Eye 61:16. Online. Available at: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/no-muscles-no-tattoos
Links
https://www.ed.ac.uk/health/subject-areas/counselling/research/gender-sexuality-body
https://howtospendit.ft.com/the-aesthete
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZwliYFgBqs or https://oopperabaletti.fi/en/repertoire-and-tickets/bach-forms-of-silence-and-emptiness/