[Frameworks] Chicago - May 5 and 6 - The Pioneering Physique Films of Bob Mizer's Athletic Model Guild

Sun Apr 29 16:25:31 CDT 2012

Frameworkers!

Once again I completely forgot to list my stuff on This Week...

So, for those in Chicago:

(And thanks to Stephen Kent Jusick!)

White Light Cinema, in Conjunction with The Nightingale Theatre and the Bob
Mizer Foundation, Presents:

The Pioneering Physique Films of Bob Mizer's Athletic Model Guild

A Two-Night Illustrated Lecture/Screening Series with NYC
Curator/Writer/Publisher Billy Miller in Person!

Saturday and Sunday, May 5 and 6, 2012
At the Nightingale Theatre (1084 N. Milwaukee Ave.)

White Light Cinema is excited to present two nights of rare work (from the
1940s-90s) by pioneering gay physique and erotica photographer and filmmaker
Bob Mizer, accompanied by short illustrated lectures each night by New York
City-based curator/writer/publisher/artist Billy Miller (editor and
publisher of the Straight to Hell chapbook series).

Miller has organized exhibitions of Mizer¹s photography and curated
screenings of Mizer¹s work for MIX: New York Queer Experimental Film
Festival and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco). For these
special Chicago screenings, Miller has been collaborating with Dennis Bell
of the Bob Mizer Foundation to organize a selection of rarely seen (and in
some instances, never seen) work from the vast Mizer archive.

For most of his career, Mizer¹s films were playful, tame (as seen
todayrisqué at the time) works of young men posing, flexing, wrestling, and
goofing off, but in states of near nudity. On the surface, they (and his
photography magazines) were marketed as physique materialssupposedly
intended for bodybuilding and physical culture adherents. But, of course,
they were really meant for gay male readers and viewers and walked a fine
line as to what was legally permissible. As the decades progressed, Mizer¹s
work became more overt in its sexual intention and in its
explicitnessmoving from posing straps to full nudity to hard-core content
(though he disliked making these later films, only doing so to stay viable
as a business).

Billy Miller¹s illustrated lectures and selection of films will provide an
overview of Mizer¹s pioneering effortsfrom his beginnings in the early
1940s to the end of his career and beyond, with some consideration of his
legacy and influence on subsequent artists, filmmakers, and the gay adult
film industry. 

Mizer¹s work is only now beginning to receive more sustained attention and
interest. Thanks to Dennis Bell at the Bob Mizer Foundation, the curatorial
work of Billy Miller, and the release of (still a tiny fraction!) a number
of Mizer¹s films on DVD, the vital role of Mizer as a cultural and social
game changer and his status as an artist can start to be fully appreciated.

Saturday, May 5, 2012  8:00pm
Program 1: Bob Mizer and the Athletic Model Guild  The Early Years, Life,
and Legacy
Billy Miller in Person!
Tonight¹s program will include a slideshow and lecture outlining Mizer¹s
early-to-mid career films and an overview of the artist¹s life and legacy.
Films showing range from 19541969 and include:
Booking A Hood
GoGo Steve & Eddie
Jealous Cowboy
Trick or Treat
Park Theatre intermission segments
Plus additional titles TBA
Digital Projection

Sunday, May 6, 2012  8:00pm
Program 2: From Posing Straps to Porn  AMG in Transition and Mizer¹s
Influence
Billy Miller in Person!
For this program Miller will present a selection of mid-to-late career films
and videos from Mizer¹s later, and more ³hard core² period along with an
accompanying presentation of the artist¹s influence and connections to the
history of the adult/porn industry and the unfolding of the sexual
revolution.
Films showing range from 19691990 and include:
Max Irish vs. Bill Jason
Jake Scott session #1
Erotic Positions For Consenting Adults
Night In A Dungeon
Blowjob Film Tests
Plus additional titles TBA
Digital Projection

³Pioneering photographer and filmmaker Bob Mizer (19221992) was known for
pushing societal boundaries in his work. Mizer¹s earliest photographs
appeared in 1942, and in 1947 ³society² pushed back when he was convicted of
the unlawful distribution of obscene material through the US mail. The
material in question was a series of black and white photographs, taken by
Mizer, of young bodybuilders wearing what were known as posing strapsa
precursor to the G-string. He would serve a nine-month prison sentence at a
work camp in Saugus, California, for what today are extremely tame images.
At the time, however, the mere suggestion of male nudity was not only
frowned upon, but also illegal.

In spite of societal expectations and pressure from law enforcement, Mizer
would go on to build a veritable empire on his beefcake photographs and
films. He established the influential studio the Athletic Model Guild (AMG)
in 1945 with one or more still-unidentified partners, but by the time he
published the first issue of his magazine Physique Pictorial he was
operating the studio on his own. With assistance from his mother Delia and
his brother Joe he would go on to photograph thousands of men, building a
collection that includes nearly one million different images and thousands
of films and videotapes.

Despite the difficulties and legal restrictions that he faced, Mizer
continued in the pursuit of his vision, influencing artists as varied as
Robert Mapplethorpe, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Bruce Weber,
Jack Pierson, and many others. Examples of his work are now held by esteemed
educational and cultural institutions the world over, and can be found in
various books, galleries, and private art collections.

One of the most prolific and varied photographers in history, much of his
work remains unseen and has only recently beginning to come to light thanks
to the work of Bob Mizer Foundation. An exhibit at the Exile gallery in
Berlin, Germany was an initial peek into the yet-to-be-fully-exposed scope
of his output. And recent film screenings at NYC¹s Mix Festival and at the
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts are part of an ongoing exploration of his
many and varied films which span an almost half century of creation.² (Billy
Miller)

More info on Bob Mizer and related projects:
http://thisisexile.com/artists_BMizer.html#
<http://thisisexile.com/artists_BMizer.html>

www.bobmizer.com <http://www.bobmizer.com>

More about Straight To Hell:
Straight To Hell (a.k.a. ³The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts²) was
initially conceived of and founded by cult writer Boyd McDonald in the early
1970s and quickly gained a large international following and underground
notoriety due to a combination of graphic sexual content, radical politics,
and stinging wit. The unique concept of Straight To Hell remains unchanged
to today: via a New York City P.O. Box, readers are invited to send their
accounts of true sexual experiences to the editor.

Over the decades Straight To Hell has become an infamously comprehensive and
uncensored library of homosexual practice and identity. The resulting series
is a uniquely democratic and powerful collection of bizarre, funny, scary,
and raunchy stories documenting the real and often embarrassing sex lives of
a wide range of mendetailing a continuous chronology spanning nearly a
century. 

Although text contributions are almost entirely published as anonymous, over
the decades contributors have included: William S. Burroughs, Gore Vidal,
Raymond Pettibone, Dennis Cooper, David Sedaris, Robert Mapplethorpe, David
Hurles (Old Reliable), Brian Brennan (Latino Fan Club), Slava Mogutin, Bruce
LaBruce & many others.

Current editor Billy Miller is at work now on a new issue. Interested
parties are encouraged to write to: Box 20424 NYC 10023, or online at:
STH at Straight-To-Hell.net   confidentiality is assured (no names needed).

http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2008/11/billy-miller-christian
-siekmeier-and.html

More about Billy Miller:
Billy Miller is an artist-curator-writer-filmmaker-and independent
publisher. His artwork has been exhibited internationally at P.S.1/MoMA,
John Connelly Presents, Team gallery, Visionaire Gallery, Andrew Edlin
gallery, D¹Amelio Terras gallery, Dietch Projects, Galerie du Jour,
Kunstverein München, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts among others,
and he has curated shows and events at The Randolph Street Gallery Chicago;
The Jersey City Museum; Artists Television Access; The Center for Book Arts,
Anna Kustera gallery, Autoversion gallery, Munch gallery, and Famous
Accounts gallery in NYC; EXILE Gallery Berlin, and other galleries and
cultural institutions. His writing has appeared in publications such as
INDEX, BUTT, VICE, WON Magazine, K48 and many others, and he is the editor
and publisher of a number of independent publications including: When Johnny
Come Marching Home Again, No Milk Today, and the cult series Straight To
Hell (a.k.a. The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts). Miller is currently
working with an international team of filmmakers on a documentary about the
Occupy movement.
http://a-poor-wayfaring-stranger.blogspot.com/

These programs take place Saturday, May 5 and Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 8:00pm
each night at The Nightingale (1084 N. Milwaukee Ave.).

Admission: $7.00-10.00 sliding scale each night.

Website: www.whitelightcinema.com

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