Originally published in the Seattle Gay News, May of 2002
Psst! Between you and me…
Greg Gorman reveals his obsessions
Greg Gorman is one of the giants of contemporary photography. For the past thirty years, his lens has focused on a commercial client list that has included Andy Warhol, Michael Jackson, Leonardo di Caprio and Robert de Niro, while his fine art work, primarily striking shots of his male gaze on male models, has graced the walls of galleries around the world.
His latest show, now hanging at the Benham Gallery on 1st Avenue, features large prints culled from one of his latest books, titled “As I See It,” an exploration of the “in-between time” of masculinity, when the male of the species is neither quite man nor boy, but represents, perhaps, what the Greeks might have once termed arête, a shining moment of perfect maleness.
Released last year by Phaidon Press, the book has now sold out, leaving the interested viewer with little choice but to attend the show. You won’t be disappointed. Gorman’s lens captures the graceful magnificence of the nude male form with over forty gorgeous prints that reveal technical precision along with an advanced aesthetic eye.
Such beauty doesn’t come cheap, however; Gorman’s prints run between $1600-$2000, leaving most of us gasping for air over more than just the subject matter. For the starter collector of Gorman, however, there are also copies of a slip-cased limited edition of “As I See It,” complete with a signed print by the artist for just $300, a collectable that would look quite fetching on your coffee table or divan and would no doubt provide hours of visual entertainment for yourself and your guests.
Also on display is Gorman’s very latest book, “Just Between Us,” a photographic tour de force of the intense creative relationship between the artist and one of his models. As a muse, the model, also named Greg, inspires within his artist a visual journey that is at once fiery, erotic, and sexually charged, but which ultimately appears romantic in its breathtaking obsession with this most beautiful man. The pictures reveal a narrative storyline that appears to depict a relationship in stages, from initial attraction to first encounters, mornings after, and evenings before, the evolution of a relationship that becomes deeper and more intimate as we flip through the book. As time goes on, it seems that both the subject and the photographer have changed, to where both are so relaxed with one another that the truth of both their characters emerges anew. For the subject, we see the hard edges of a tough-guy masculinity stripped away to reveal a softer heartfulness, while the photographer’s gaze changes also, revealing, in familiarity, an increased appreciation for his subject as a man.
“It’s an incredibly gutsy book,” said Paul Dahlquist, a Seattle-based photographer and collector whose own nudes are also on display in this showing. “As a photographer, not only do you show people what you see in your photographs, but you also reveal what it is that you like to look at.”
“Photographers frequently have visual lust affairs with a certain model, but for someone to reveal this obsession in a book reveals a great deal more about his eye than I would feel comfortable revealing about mine,” Dahlquist continued. “That having been said, I think this book is a great visual feast.”
In addition to Gorman and Dahlquist, Seattle photographer Marianne McCoy will also have a series of nudes on display. The show runs through June 15th at the Benham Gallery, on 1st Avenue in downtown Seattle.
