Official Site

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Tim Macpherson, “Pregnant Boy on a Skateboard”
Nominated for the Sony World Photography Award

Art, like life, isn’t always beautiful, nor should it be. Art sometimes has to grab up firmly by the back of the head, push us into a pile of dog shit, and say, “SEE THIS? NOW TASTE IT!” If we only view the art that we like, or the art that we find pleasing, then we are doing ourselves a serious disservice by completely ignoring an entire range of expression — the same as if we never expressed anger, hatred, jealousy, or sadness in our own lives. They are part of the human experience, and thus, a part of us. We cannot ignore them. Ugly art, disturbing art, terrorizing art all have places in the museum of life. Art is merely a reflection of our own selves, and if we refuse to view negative or ugly art, we by extension fail to acknowledge our weaknesses as humans and thus fail to improve ourselves. — Raptorschwanz

You’ll need an account at y!Gallery to see the images in their full size.

Found by Uncle Sidney | Made by Oki-Oki

 Official Website | Documentation Video

Ryan McGinley is an unabashed voyeur, focusing his camera on the raw and personal lives of his friends in snapshots.

Cupid Playing with a Butterfly
by Antoine-Denis Chaudet (1763 - 1810)
Marble, 1802-1807 | Louvre, Paris

Chaudet went to the seine river in Paris to look for a model for this masterpiece. Approching the young nude Parisian boys swimming. There was a misunderstanding about what he wanted from a nude young boy. This landed him in jail. [boyneworleans]

The pose, the almost suave charm of the face, the delicate fingers, the refined treatment of the hair: everything expresses sensitivity, reserve, and grace. The sculptor has achieved a subtle balance between nature and the ideal, inherited from the 18th century.

Cupid is portrayed as a naked, unarmed adolescent whose sole attributes are his short wings. He seems to be engrossed in an innocent pastime. His amusement is not as harmless as it seems, though; the butterfly allowing itself to be seduced by his rose symbolizes the soul, Psyche in Greek. Imprisoned by Cupid, the soul soon experiences love’s torments rather than its pleasures. The graceful bas-relief friezes on the base develop the theme: if the butterfly tastes the juice of a basket of flowers, it is pinned down by chubby little cupids, one of whom enslaves it by harnessing it to his chariot. But the soul finally triumphs thanks to the bees: infuriated by the arrows shot at their hive, they swarm all over the cheeky imps. These scenes are inspired by the Idylls of Theocritus (3rd century BC), the most famous Greek poet of the Alexandrian era, and the delicateness of the carving expresses all their bucolic charm. [Louvre]

Neapolitan Fisherboy Playing with a Tortoise
by François Rude (1784 - 1855)
Marble, 1831-1833 | Louvre, Paris

Rudes great success dates from 1833, when he received the cross of the Legion of Honour for his statue of a Neapolitan Fisher Boy playing with a Tortoise (now in the Louvre), which also procured for him the important commission for all the sculptural frieze ornament and one group on the Arc de Triomphe, in Paris. [Source: Wikipedia]

I felt in love with neoclassical sculputures when I saw this boy in Paris on a school trip. I was 14 and too young (I guess) to get excited about paintings but these plastic boys got my attention immediately. I stood there in front of this boy with mixed feelings… his face, his look was so natural… it was kinda spooky in a good, a wonderful way. On the other hand I felt a bit guilty cause I thought everybody who’s seeing me standing there had to think I’m just looking at his dick xD

This cheerful boy, playing with a tortoise held captive by a reed, caused heated controversy at the Salon of 1833. For the first time, an artist had sculpted a lifesize marble of a picturesque figure, an anecdotal subject. It marked a complete break with classical ideology, whereby genre scenes were considered to be unworthy of statuary art, especially in a medium as noble as marble. Rude’s theme and style also contradicted classical canons. Although reminiscent of antique sculpture, the work was imbued with an unprecedented feeling of freedom and freshness. The boy is naked like the heroes of mythology, but his body is not idealized and his hearty laugh reveals his teeth, a real breach of good taste. The tradition of representing children at play did exist in Hellenistic sculpture, but Rude emphasized the popular, lively aspect of his depiction. The child seated on a net is a young fisher boy, whose bonnet and scapular (the devotional object around his neck) show that he is from Naples. His attitude is carefree and his entire face - crinkled eyes, dimples, open mouth - is laughing.  [Louvre]
 

More art of Mike Tedder can be found on his Website

Jamie Wyeth: Proteus in Paint

James Browning Wyeth (1946-present) is a contemporary American realist painter. He was born in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, son of Andrew Wyeth and grandson of N.C. Wyeth. He is artistic heir to the Brandywine Tradition, painters who worked in the rural Brandywine River area of Delaware and Pennsylvania, portraying its people, animals, and landscape. More…

It seems like everyone who paints adolescent boys lives in Berlin - here is another one: Sacrevoir was born in Berlin in 1964 and studied mathematics and visual arts. He works in Berlin as an independent painter and graphic artist.

Adolescence - a subject which is not only supposed to reveal the the imposed identifying marks of youth… In these rare tableaus of tranquility, Sacrevoir, a painter living in Berlin, gives a suggestion of inner conflict, of a childhood led astray by clichès. Here you see vulnerability, risk, and a subtle beauty ~ Gabriele von Hohenstein / cultural sociologist

Official Website

A post about Norbert Bisky was planned since this blog started beacuse he is one of the few modern artists I like. Due to his interview with the German magazin "Spiegel" some other blogs showed some of his paintings recently… so let’s keep this short and spicy.

Norbert Bisky was born 1970 in Leipzig (where I live ^^) and is now based in Berlin. He is - like his brother - gay and well, if you study the details of his paintings you could come to some conclusions ;) His work is - how I see it - some strange offspring of the socialist realism and at the same time a parody of propaganda art in any way since is uses a mix of communist and nazi elements, mix them up and do all this weird stuff with them xD