Bernardamus   @TheC_Barcelona

More info:

http://www.pallapupas.org

@MusicsAmbNassos

Dejacopis @ TheC_Amsterdam


Intimacy.
You cannot truly describe it.
It just happens and you can sense it. Feel its warmth.
You can picture it though, represent it, show it.
Nadine Reef knows how to portray intimacy to its most poetical height.
Take ‘Kissing Darkness’, 2010: it’s the exact moment when lips get closer but are still apart.
The time when the eyes are starting to close and the hands drop to avoid distancing the other.
Shot in a light black and white, this picture could be the manifesto for the ArtPride exhibition at the Go Gallery.
You could say this show is blunt, direct, provocative, but at its core, isn’t intimacy blunt? isn’t it the most open time ever shared with someone else?

M-a-k takes the private and turns it open for everyone to see. Each of her portraits focuses on bare open legs juxtaposed with the most various objects and backgrounds. The appeal is glamorous, like a fashion spread but the quality is raw, stripped of the artificial.
Delayla 1 and the photo ‘Thermos’, 2010 have a slightly different appeal; Skin is showing, the man at the center calls for action, his cigarette is not yet lid, but even in such setting and even if naked, he flashes a humorous side due to a plastic nose that could be a sexual fetish, still able to crack you a smile. So do the ceramic condoms perfectly glazed by Levan & Ekka. Using the Delft style, each piece truly resembles the feeling of plastic and rubber all the while getting rid of the associated idea of rational and safe.

All around Go Gallery you will also find other ceramic pieces, this time in the shape of white underwear sporting a blue rim on the top. The duo named Nilsson van der Horst created a mohair version as well of Adidas briefs objectifying the desire, the very totem of all the men you can have or fantasize about.

Sex and laughter, what can be more human? What can be more intimate than that?
Maybe, a confession. Lisette de Zoete and her ‘My Goodbye’ is a confession. The most striking and emotional. This tiny little painting, comprised of a poem, a picture and a key carries her whole palette of feelings, from the bravest to the frailest. You have to relate, you have been there, whether accepting your nature or embracing the power of your weaknesses.

Bas Meerman’s drawings and watercolors can be aligned in this same sphere; at times delicate and fragile and then wild and bold, these early artworks represent all the first yearnings experienced by this critically acclaimed artist. Be it a gentle face with a baseball hat or the touch of two hips that want to be even closer to each other and to you.

Finally take these two pictures: Jan van Breda’s ‘Lad’, 2011 and Jasper Groen’s ‘Gabriel’.
You could say that both are just jocks, two hunky boys that are nothing more than muscles and a pretty face. Get closer, look at the differences and the contradictions. Sporting an erection with the lights dimmed and a timid gaze, the ‘lad’ here seems too much aware of the photographer, yet it’s for this reason that the portrait depicts the essence of intimacy. It’s like he’s presenting his body for you only, just like a lover before you get to love him.

So does ‘Gabriel’. A trick right before you possess him. No trace of shyness though, no hesitation. You can only get there after all the insecurities have been shed away, spoken of, displayed to be destroyed.
ArtPride at Go Gallery will be closing tomorrow, the 21st of August.

http://gogallery.nl/ 
http://www.reeffotografie.nl/ 
http://lisettedezoete.nl/ 
http://twitter.com/#!/LisettedeZoete 
http://www.basmeerman.com/Home.html 
http://www.janvanbreda.com/ 
http://twitter.com/#!/janvanbreda
http://www.jaspergroen.nl/
https://twitter.com/#!/ap4b

Dejacopis @TheC_Amsterdam
8 years ago in the city of Perth, Australia, a group of LGBT artists came together to set up a music and performance event celebrating the Pride week.
Not only a one-night feast, Homophonix became a label under which the main organizers Vinn Pitcher and Nat Ripepi gathered a strong collective of unique voices and allowed them the freedom to experiment and express themselves.
Fast forward to 2011: Vinn joins forces with Channa, Sexy Galexy, Brian Neubauer and BO & LO  to bring Homophonix to Paradiso and give back some light to a rather gloomy summer in Amsterdam.

 
The song opener is a cover of Wham’s ‘Careless Whisper’; accompanied only by the acoustic guitar, Vinn’s voice appears strong, deep and full bodied.
Tonight’s version features also a portion sang in Swedish, his adopted country for the past few years.
Vinn’s songs are stark, compelling. The nature of his lyrics is obscure; you don’t get to have a full open view to his heart but if you listen close enough you can have a peek into his most personal thoughts.
A song about missing summer may appear quite naive and simple, but that’s a cover up for an intense sense of longing and loneliness.
Vinn likes to guide us to the meaning of his words; he offers an explanation to the metaphors for ‘dry’, ‘wet’ and ‘sly’ associated to an Australian village where alcohol is forbidden, yet you cannot help but wonder the way the ‘paradise in your own mind’ truly looked like.
The rendition of this song at Homophonix got to be particularly striking: together with Lo on the saxophone, every guitar lick sounded richer, every note expanded to include all the shades of the desert and the icy night.

 
Channa is an open book instead. Her stage presence is powerful and laid-back at the same time.
She is capable of make you smile, laugh uproariously even, and a moment after, pour her tears in her words for you to hear.
Her music is, for a lack of better words, carefully balanced. You can find yourself tapping your feet, repeating the chorus immediately, getting sucked up in.
She might tell that all her songs are sad and about break-ups, but she should no longer ‘justify’ nor ‘apologise’: that is the stuff of Art and it does not only cure herself (or so she claimed), it soothes us all.
Using a simple loop pedal effect in the guise shown also by Ani DiFranco and Andrew Bird, her last song rolled as a call to arms: Breathe in, let go. Dance if you want to, but first and foremost do not stop falling in love over and over again, with yourself, with anybody else.

 
Mixing jokes, self deprecatory anecdotes and sharp witty remarks, Brian Neubauer’s lyrics come in the form of a statement, a political manifesto for men who are not afraid to fight a battle against misconceptions and stereotypes.
Brian’s music is pure folk, the kind that of folk that is born from discrimination and pain to accomplish freedom and forever seek for empowerment.
‘Pay the bill, bottoms up now don’t forget to wink’, tap along with the rhythm dictated by the harmonica and embrace all of your contradictions, simply ‘Go it Gay’

 
http://www.paradiso.nl/ 
http://www.channa.nl/ 
http://brianneubauer.com/
http://www.myspace.com/sexygalexy
http://www.djbomonde.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/djbomonde