Charles Gatewood (1942–2016)

This proves to be a unique look into the art of a all together cloudy subject, for most, performance art at it's most dedicated- The beauty in brutal images of Charles Gatewood.
David Aaron Clark has supplied very lush and meditative erotic text to supplement the photos, and together they create a sort of poetry beyond the "taboo" nature of the subject matter. It's a great book because it is both beautiful and decadent, and never as "shocking" as it is intensely, profoundly human.

I found this bk (probably on sale) at some shopping mall bk store (maybe they cdn't dump this 'weird crap' fast enuf, eh?!) when I was 22. It has photos by Charles Gatewood w/ commentary by William S. Burroughs. I suppose Gatewood deserves credit as an explorer of the often hidden aspects of society but it's Burroughs' commentary that does it for me. He appraises things w/o giving a shit of whether his take is PC or whatever. In response to one photo he writes:

A youth with clothespins show more pinching his nipples wearing a leather jacket and gauntlets with a whip tied around his waist looks at the camera with wooden face dead eyes that seem to turn up showing the whites as you watch. Is he a slave or victim who might turn up as a body in some Houston sex murder?

Instead of commenting on how 'hard-core' this guy looks, Burroughs gets right to the point: THIS IS A DEAD MAN, like a melancholic, WALLOWING IN DESTRUCTION - POSSIBLY HIS OWN. & it might be 'hip' & it might even be 'glamorous', but it's probably a DEAD END. show less

'Gatewood's world is freakish, earthly, blunt, erotic - most of all, terribly and beautifully alive. I am sure that there are those who are (or will be) grossed out by his vision; I would only remind them, as in the old joke, just who is it who's drawing the dirty pictures?' - A.D. Coleman, The New York Times.

"I decided to do a photography book that would show all the madness and ask the basic question 'Who is really crazy here?'" First edition of the underground classic collaboration show more between pioneering countercultural chronicler Charles Gatewood and legendary writer William S. Burroughs. Gatewood’s first photobook, the lurid exploration of America’s underbelly was initially rejected by 40 publishers due to sexually explicit–and at times disturbing–content. The small New York-based publishing house Strawberry Hill, aptly owned by leading erotic fiction publisher Richard Kasak, eventually took on the controversial monograph. The pair initially met when Gatewood was a young freelance photographer snapping Burroughs for Rolling Stone in 1972, where he showed the writer his portfolio and after receiving words of approval audaciously asked him to write an introduction for a book proposal. Burroughs enthusiastically agreed, although Gatewood later cut Burroughs’s surreal prose into fragments that suited each photograph. Illustrated with 90 black-and-white photos. show less

Reprinted collection of black and white photos from New York, 1975, with a rambling introduction by William Burroughs. Very sexual, occassionally interesting