Clayton Cubitt Exposed

My friend/photographer Clayton Cubitt is debuting some new work in a group show that opens this week. They're his decay prints, which, he reports, have been "six months in the destroying," and they'll be on view at the swanky Tribeca Grand as part of "This Eclectic Explosion." The opening night reception is this Thursday, the 24th, and starts at 7PM. Siege says: "Plus there’ll be beautiful drunk people and free booze, which means drunken hook-ups in the bathroom, even if you’re ugly."

"The more recent work, the personal and the fashion work," he reveals, "where I'm literally degrading the quality of the image—injuring it, damaging it—is a result of Hurricane Katrina, what it's done with New Orleans, and what it's done with my family. It's that notion of beauty—not in spite of decay, but because of decay. It becomes so horribly beautiful that you can't look away." -- Siege, JPG

A Pornographic Coolhunting Manifesto

The other day, I added a tagline to this blog: Pornographic Coolhunting. What does it mean? Damned if I know. I've loved the idea of coolhunting ever since I read Gladwell's cutting edge at the time coolhunter profile. And it seems today, what with sex ruling everything around us, a... sexual? erotic? pornographic coolhunter would be in order.

I guess what I coolhunt for is what's sexual, erotic, pornographic--but more. Like what porno-chic was supposed to be, before it turned into a bunch of sweaty snapshots and got co-opted by American Apparel. This is that but taken to the level of haute-couture. Debauchette calls her version of it "haute-pervure." Siege's work is the idea in action.

Of course, Porn Valley is having none of it. The latest trend they jumped on was alt-porn. Tattooed chicks getting nailed is not an art movement. I don't think porn will ever produce what we're getting at. But that industry will die. People will create their own porn digitally. And someone will do it beautifully.

What if this was hardcore?

Blogs You Should Be Reading: The Daily Siege & The Constant Siege

If you're a regular Reverse Cowgirl reader, you already know Clayton Cubitt, aka Siege, a friend of mine and one of the most talented photographers shooting today. These days, so many artist cave to commercialism and leave us to see the world through their dead, commodified eyes. Not so for Siege, who has turned the act of pushing the envelope artistically into a performance art unto itself.

In a profile, I posited Siege as a shock photographer. And he is that, but more. In recent posts on his Nerve blog, The Daily Seige, worth the surcharge to see his work alone, he will pop your eye out with thisclose shots of hardcore penetration. Now, you can also see how the mind behind the lens works on his Tumblr, The Constant Siege, where what inspires him flashes before you like a peepshow.

Of the supine beauty in red light, he wrote:

"Roughly translated:
'So far so good.
But the important thing is not the fall...
it's the landing.'"

Smut Is Here

Recently, I got my contributor's copy of Smut: Volume 1 in the mail. It includes a short story I wrote, "The First Time She Died While Having Sex," and other tales by writers ranging from Aimee Bender to Jerry Stahl. I really liked Alicia Erian's "The Doctor Is In" and Catherine Texier's "A War Journal." They were unexpected. The book's cover is a beautiful shot by Siege and starring the lovely Lambchop. So go buy it.

The Future of Kink

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Portrait of the Photographer as a Young Douchebag

Yesterday, my photographer friend Clayton Cubitt, aka Nerve blogger Siege, sent me an email. The subject header read: "Any of this sound familiar?" There was a link to the website of Craig Cowling, aka former Nerve blogger Naughty James. The "sound familiar" was directed at Cowling's bio. I began reading it and thought, this does sound familiar. Because it was plagiarized from an introduction I wrote for an interview I did with Cubitt for the photography magazine Eyemazing in 2005 and falsely attributed to one "Tim Clark." Siege emailed James and requested he remove it. For now, it's still online.

Update: The bio has been removed.

Update: Xeni Jardin has posted more on the great douchebag debate in which Cowling claims that he is innocent and fingers "Tim Clark."

[Clayton Cubitt's] work is, more often than not, relentlessly sensual, saturated in deep colours, infused with an explicitness that lays its subject as bare as possible... His indulgences, it seems, are women, fashion, and sex. There is little distinction for him, it appears, between the personal and the professional. As a photographer, he has crossed the proverbial line, including himself--as voyeur and participant--in an on-camera life that utterly obliterates the distinction between object and subject, rendering objectivity an archaic term. With his rock star dalliances, his collaborator and fiancé Katie James, and a desire to marry high-art style and low-brow subjects, Cubitt sits at the photographic edge.--Susannah Breslin, Eyemazing

[Craig Cowling's] work, is more often than not, violently poetic, saturated in deep colours, infused with an explicitness that lays its subject as bare as possible. His indulgences, it seems, are woman, rock and roll, fashion and sex. There is little distinction for him, it appears, between the private and the public. He likes the viewers of his work to “feel like they have just stumbled across a situation they shouldn't have, like catching your parents having sex for example.” As photographer he has crossed the proverbial line, including himself-simultaneously as voyeur and participant-in an on camera life that breaks down the wall between object and subject, ridding of objectivity as quickly as he does his tight underpants. With his rock star lifestyle and a desire to marry high-art style with low-art subjects, Craig Cowling sits at the photographic edge. Take a peek for yourself.--"Naughty James"

Crooked Little Book

Siege has made the cover of the limited edition of Crooked Little Vein.

[W]hen it came time for me to create the cover I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to reference the cover of the mass-market edition's use of Ben Franklin's Join Or Die snake with an infamous internet image, Daddy Fucked Me, which plays into Warren's interest in extreme body modification and net perversion, and his fans tendency to go too far for him. Almost as if a deranged fan loved his book so much he carved its cover graphic in his arm, and then we used that for the cover.

Clayton Cubitt Interview

JPG: The Magazine of Brave New Photography has posted my profile of photographer Clayton Cubitt, aka Siege, online. Issue 12: Fashion, edited by designer Alison Kelly of "Project Runway," will be out soon.

Recently, his work has taken a new turn. He has begun "degrading" his images. The results bring to mind the experimental films of Stan Brakhage, who painted on and scratched the film surface to dramatic effect, and "Decasia," a 2002 film by director Bill Morrison created out of found silent film footage that is actively deteriorating. This new work—in which shards of light streak across a model's face and shooting vectors intertwine with whirling hairdos—are as enamored with desecrating beauty as they are invested in paying it homage. In this case, his inspiration came from a most unlikely source. In 2005, his mother, a resident of Pearlington, Mississippi, a small town located not far from New Orleans, was living in a new home Cubitt had spent his savings buying for her six month previous. Her home and all her belongings were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. His subsequent efforts to help his mother recover from this devastating loss, his repeated tours through this fallen city in shambles, and his experiences creating portraits of the survivors he encountered there deeply moved him and forever changed his view of the world. "The more recent work, the personal and the fashion work," he reveals, "where I'm literally degrading the quality of the image—injuring it, damaging it—is a result of Hurricane Katrina, what it's done with New Orleans, and what it's done with my family. It's that notion of beauty—not in spite of decay, but because of decay. It becomes so horribly beautiful that you can't look away."

Lambchop de Milo

Today, I turned in my profile of Clayton Cubitt, a.k.a. Siege, to JPG. It came out rather well. I'll let you know when it's out, so you can buy it.

Blue Man Blues

I'm going to be interviewing Siege, aka Mr. Cubitt, for JPG.

Under Milk Wood

Siege, aka Clayton Cubitt, is a Brooklyn based photographer. Adult film star Justine Joli, aka the prettiest girl in Porn Valley, is his sometimes muse. Recently, as I understand it, Joli came for a visit.

Update: Siege's video has been removed by YouTube. Xeni writes: "What a disappointment... It wasn't porn, she looks like a Greek statue, rotating on a pedestal." Truth beauty, beauty truth--is all.

Update 2: Xeni reports you can watch the video on Veoh now.

Under Milk Wood
And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now. Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cocklewomen and the tidy wives. Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glow-worms down the aisles of the organplaying wood. The boys are dreaming wicked or of the bucking ranches of the night and the jollyrodgered sea. And the anthracite statues of the horses sleep in the fields, and the cows in the byres, and the dogs in the wetnosed yards; and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sly, streaking and needling, on the one cloud of the roofs. You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing. Only your eyes are unclosed, to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep.

Justine Joli for Your iPhone

Xeni Jardin, our girl on the corner at the intersection of Tech Avenue and Porn Boulevard, delivers unto the world Justine Joli wallpaper by Clayton Cubitt for your iPhone. Nothing says "I Love My Jesus Phone" like a shot of the prettiest girl in Porn Valley. Touch screen, indeed...

Update: Xeni text 'n' photo blogs the goods-in-hand at Boing Boing.

Update 2: COOP jumps on the iPorn for your iPhone free wallpaper bandwagon with his retro kitsch and porn star Kimberly Kane pix!

She Is the Baddest Motherfucker in the Valley

Yesterday, I got an email from an editor at New York magazine. He was hard at work on their upcoming "Love & Sex" issue, he said. He asked about the sample chapter from my book proposal. He wanted to know what it was about, to see if it might work for the magazine. I told him. He told me it was "too LA." Relatedly, Brooklyn-based photographer Clayton Cubitt revamped his online portfolio and posted the "Damaged Doll" series, starring Justine Joli. I would say his photos are "too hot."

Queen

Late last Saturday night, I interviewed Siege, aka Clayton James Cubitt. Siege is a photographer who lives in Brooklyn. He blogs his work and his private life in photographs and words at The Daily Siege. Recently, he has been posting a series he calls "Damaged Doll." Their subject is Justine Joli. In his mind, she stands in the middle of a Venn diagram where porn, art, and fashion intersect. In my mind, she walks through the Valley of Pornography, unscathed, untouched. If you were here with me, I'd point at this photo, and I'd tell you, "This is what I mean to say."

Honeymoon Suite Siege

Photographer Clayton James Cubitt, aka Siege, has a new Nerve photo set, "Honeymoon Suite," featuring Justine Joli. It is very pretty, indeed.