"Jacklighting"

January 27, 2020

French artist Anne-Charlotte Finel presents Jacklighting at The Chimney for her first solo show in the US. Referring to the nocturnal hunting practice of shining bright lights throughout dark fields in order to momentarily stun animals, Jacklighting proves itself both weird and wonderful. Finel's work, focused on spaces affected by unnatural lighting systems, is composed of four reels. And with each video being manipulated both digitally and physically, the story from viewer to viewer may be rather ambiguous.

In Triste Champignonniste (Sad Mushroom Farmer), 2017, Finel films a mushroom farm in a former underground gypsum quarry—although it may look more like the ground for a nuclear bomb shelter as bursting shapes and foggy landscapes are cast upon a pink velvet backdrop. Only upon closer inspection may one gradually discern the actual rotting of elements played upon the deteriorating pixels of the film for a versatile look on decomposition.

As is the case with all of the show’s remaining components, nothing is quite as it seems in Jacklighting. The rhythm of the subjects and the landscapes of the environment speak to the title’s permanent state through the relationship between man and nature, attesting to Finel’s expertise in observing the unordinary and inclination to search for truth in the otherwise vastly unseen.

Text by Caroline Brown
Photos courtesy of The Chimney and the artist; Photography by Reggie Shiobara

Jacklighting is on view at The Chimney until February 23, 2020.

Art

Kinbaku @ Museum of Sex

July 31, 2018

Hajime Kinoko is a master of tying up women. As Japan’s leading rope artist, the 41-year-old has reinvented the Japanese traditions of Shibari and Kinbaku, using BDSM to explore connectivity and celebrate the human form.

His rope work isn’t the simple kind of bondage imagery we’re used to seeing in photos by famed Japanese artist Nobuyoshi Araki, or even in BDSM-themed porn. Kinoko creates large-scale installations that bind his subjects within a larger framework—just one small part of something bigger, all connected by rope.

Earlier this month, the artist did a live performance as part of The Incomplete Araki Event Series at the Museum of Sex. As part of the event, Kinoko bound his model, Aimi, in an emotional act in which traditional roles were completely reversed. Whereas most Shibari performances see the woman—or the person being tied up—as the quiet submissive, it was Kinoko who was completely devoted to Aimi; in this scenario, she was completely empowered. But even more than watching IRL power dynamics, it was the real sense intimacy that made us all feel like voyeurs.

Interview by Alexandra Weiss
Photos by Nadine Hess

What’s the difference between Shibari and Kinbaku?

In the Japanese dictionary, Kinbaku means “to bind tightly,” while Shibari means “to limit someone’s movement so they can not move freely.” But the way I think about is: Kinbaku is to tie people in the way of BDSM, and Shibari is to bind people, but also bind something that's not human. I think Shibari has more variety.

How did you get into it?

I started to learn Shibari 20 years ago because of my ex-girlfriend. She liked it, so I wanted to be able do it for her. [At the time], I was working in a fetish bar, and there was a customer named Yumeko who taught me how to do it.

Do you see your practice as strictly sexual?

No, I see Kinbaku as art. But sexuality is an essential element for Kinbaku, [in order to] give it great depth as an art form.

What does the act of physically tying and knotting ropes feel like for you? Is it empowering?

When I bind people, something interesting happens. Like, when I bind an energetic person, I also feel energetic; when I bind a person with negative feelings, I get negative. Tying people is a way to for them share their hearts and bring our senses closer together.

Still, in most of your pieces, it’s women being tied up. Do you see the submissive (the person being tied up) and dominant (the person doing the tying) roles as equally empowering?

Many people have master and slave relationships in Kinbaku, but in my case, the model and I have an equal relationship, or if anything, I am the inferior — the woman is the main subject, and I am just a supporting role.

So, you consider your work to be a celebration of the female body?

Yes. I do Shibari because I like to make women feel beautiful in that form.

Your works are so much more detailed than a lot of Shibari/Kinbaku performances I’ve seen. They also often take on obscure forms, like that of a spider web. What’s the goal behind that?

In Japan, people think Shibari is abnormal. It’s discriminated against by the Japanese media and the public. But Shibari is very beautiful and an important tool for people to build loving relationships. So, I want people to know about it. But I also believe it’s important to [show] a strong beauty when I’m sharing Shibari. That’s why I make my work so detailed — to express a connection; how everyone is connected with someone, somewhere, and never has to be lonely.

What do you want people to take away from your work?

Power.

Event made possible with the support of HEAVENSAKE.

Art

"Sweat" and "Machine"

In "MACHINE," a crimson-haired female heavyweight stretches and tears her mesh bodysuit as she contorts her impressively-sculpted body over sleek techno beats. "When we were casting this film, I knew I wanted the contrast of a very 'masculine' body with a very 'feminine' face," Kirk says. "Despite this, though, gender was not my primary concern here."

The true focus of the series is to showcase very specific personalities and subcultures—the young skinhead, the female bodybuilder—and subvert stereotypes surrounding them through movement, through their distinct and personal relationship with the camera. "In the case of 'MACHINE,' I see hard work, I see dedication, I see mental strength—which is beauty, and beauty isn't feminine nor masculine."

Watch "MACHINE" below.

Play video

'SWEAT,' on the other hand, studies the movement of two male subjects as they run on a treadmill, frantically smoking bent cigarettes and drenching themselves with bottled water. "I wanted to use my close friend Axel Swan because of the fact that he's 6'3" and probably the skinniest guy I know," Kirk tells us. "I knew he would look rather awkward and uncomfortable in all the positions he'd be in, and that element of discomfort is something I want to be present in all of my films."

With that, it seems that the central goal with the Status series is to not show our differences through movement, but rather how movement is a universal, unifying language. "We found ourselves in a studio with people of different generations, backgrounds, tastes and beliefs, yet once the music was turned on the energy in the room would immediately and indiscriminately balance."

When I ask the artists if they think fitness is important, Bato replies: "Everything is important."

Watch 'SWEAT' below.

Play video

Director of Photography: Jon Jenkins
Casting and Styling by Roff Studios
Makeup and Hair by Shideh Kafei, assisted by Cris Danilhidalgo
Producer: Maximilian Kurzweil
Creative Developer: Nathan Bouton
Art Director: Jordan Marks
Color Correction: Edwin Rodriguez

STATUS ARTISTS:
'Machine': Vanessa Adams
'Sweat': Alexey Glebko and Axel Swan
MUSIC BY:
'Machine': "5000 Moments" by Julia Govor
'Sweat': Starship Journey (Alien Apartheid Mix) Originally by Syringe, Mixed by Arsene Survie & Martin Daa Funder

Art

Wages of Sin

July 27, 2018

Remy Lagrange’s lens is singing an epic indie rock ballad. Each photograph forms a beguiling verse in a song we cannot hear, but instead we strangely feel—the reverb of a guitar riff wafting over the pictures from an uncanny presence that seems to linger barely out of sight, the camera about to turn and capture the puckish balladeer, but never does.

If the story is a song then the muse is the ocean. Lagrange builds a mood similar to that of a long day at the beach: perhaps too much to drink, perhaps too much sun, but plenty of deep, melancholy thoughts while gazing at the curve of the earth on the horizon, and a debate on the walk home whether to rally the party or just go to bed—either way, you play the song over again as the last scene is captured in a sigh-worthy snapshot. That was what it was like, you’ll say years from now, to be alive when the world was falling apart.