Vince Aletti Zine

– Got an email from one of my favorite stores Printed Matter yesterday announcing the launch of a new zine by critic and curator Vince Aletti. I’ve only had a chance to look through Vince’s last publishing project Male while at Dashwood but its been on my list to buy for a while. Like Male this new zine is compiled by pictures from Vince’s personal collection, this time focusing on multiple archetypes from sailors and leather-jacketed rough trade to fresh-faced lettermen and nascent movie stars. It is being published by ELK, a press run by artist Jocko Weyland, who had this to say about the zine:

Poetic pairings as aphrodisiac, unspooling like a visually syncopated scrapbook of young male pulchritude. Dudes who were cool and looked cool without trying too hard. Blue-collar, white ethnic, from another time and place, and with an air of un-self-consciousness woefully missing in this day and age. The taboo and suppression of the era mixed with the thinly veiled and sometimes completely unmasked homoerotic nature of these striking portraits evinces a different world that burbled beneath mainstream society prior to today’s anodyne homogenization on one hand and muscle queen grotesquerie on the other. At play is a refreshing almost wholesome lubricity that pays tribute to decidedly not cheesy handsomeness in all its iterations. Pomade and brilliantine abound, as do moles, salient collarbones, strong necks, smooth chests, hairy chests, shiny backs, nice biceps, heavy brows, wide lips, Roman noses, and dark eyes. The opposite of perfect, and that’s a big part of their appeal and what makes them perfect… Kustom Kar Kommandos, Caravaggio, Tom of Finland, and the less baroque side of George Platt Lynes all come to mind, but more universally this is a celebration of eternal male attractiveness.

Be sure to stop by Printed Matter this Saturday the 18th for the launch and signing from 5-7pm.