FOUND BOYS
BY DOUGLAS BLAIR TURNBAUGH

Slava Mogutin LOST BOYS
Cover

Slava Mogutin

Slava Mogutin

My faithful readers are, first of all, interested in homoerotic pictures I presume, as am I. So perhaps you already know Slava Mogutin, but if not it gives me great pleasure to introduce him and his stunning photographs to you.

I met him as Yaroslav Mogutin maybe ten years ago at a reading of his poetry at Paul Bridgewater’s gallery in SoHo. A stunning presence, Slava’s feral punk or better say sauvage aura was enhanced by emanations of a brilliant mind, sophistication, grace, wit, boyish charm, and all-purpose genius. His hard-on poetry (more explicit than either Ginsberg or Genet!), delivered in his seductive Russian voice, had the irresistible aphro-disatic effect of 200mm of Viagra with a shot of Caverject. Ever searching for visual images with an atomic erotic zap, I spotted the jacket photo on his book. After the reading, meeting admirers, he showed a convincing attitude of shy modesty—“my English not so good…,” etc. It was wonderful. I asked him if I could buy his book, which he was tucking away in his backpack. “Oh,” he sadly sighed, “no, sorry, it’s all in Russian.” I did not want to offend him by my prurient interest in the photo of his body (laugh here,) however, a collector hot on the scent of choice material will not be stopped by scruples, so I fibbed. “That’s fine, I read Russian,” quickly adding, “just read, can’t speak it.” And so I have the unread book with its precious portrait of the gorgeous Slava, lips parted, gazing down his long nose, past his tit rings and tattoo to his tumescent World Class cock (he uses the thumb and three fingers grasp, little finger over balls), an art star if ever you saw one.

Born in the industrial town of Kemerovo in Siberia, in 1974, as an adolescent he moved to Moscow where he began a flaming career as a journalist. He was the first openly gay personality in the Russian media and before he was 21 he was a celebrity through scandal. He was charged with various crimes, including “malicious hooliganism with exceptional cynicism and extreme insolence.” Facing a possible prison sentence of up to seven years, he fled to the USA. Supported by Amnesty International and PEN America he was miraculously admitted to the Homeland—perhaps a poetry lover in immigration came to his assistance? He gained TV attention when he tried to register his marriage with his American lover, Robert Filippini.

In the intervening years, he has continuted his prodigal life, as writer, poet, essayist, author of seven books, including America in my Trousers (I’ll bet!), and has won numerous poetry awards, and has been translated into six languages. He has appeared in a Bruce la Bruce porn film Skin Flick (1999) and Laura Colella’s Stay Until Tomorrow (2003). He began taking photographs to document his emigrant journey. His work has been published internationally by art and fashion magazines, from Playgirl to Stern. In 2005, with his partner-collaborator Brian Kenny, he formed a multi-media art team SPERM. And now, thanks to another gay prodigy (is there any other kind?), a book of Mogutin’s extraordinary photographs has been published and is already into its second printing. Lost Boys is a poetic and raunchy look at the obsessions and fetishes of cosmopolitan urban youth culture (brings to mind work by Amos Badertscher and Larry Clark), intimate portraits by someone who was there. Also some landscapes are included.

Nick Weist, a twenty-four year old on-the-scene dynamo, is
managing editor of the aptly named powerHouse Books, in Dumbo, where he oversees all the art house’s variety of titles as well as running its weekly-up- dated Web gallery of new and emerging work. He has recently been given his own imprint, which he named Aschenbach. How many Aschenbachs do you know? Yes, this name was chosen for the hero of Death in Venice, the man obsessed by beauty in the form of the adolescent Tadzio. This should be a flag to any literate person or Visconti movie fan that the imprint’s list of contemporary art books will be aimed at the picture-book buying gay audience (a big niche audience mostly ignored by American publishers). Weist’s regular job is to search out the trendiest of the trendy publicity and fashion world, but with his own imprint can now present gay-inspired work which is of a quality that elevates it to the realm of art. He also wants to exhibit artists whose work shows that there are alternative ways to be, which might help people shape their own individual worlds. His upcoming exhibition The Male Gaze featuring 25 artists will run Apr. 2–May 27 at powerHouse Arena, 37 Main St., Dumbo, Brooklyn. Weist has felt the vacuum and is starting to fill it with a brilliant debut. There certainly is no vacuum anywhere near Slava Mogutin.

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Douglas Blair Turnbaugh author, filmmaker, and artist is a frequent contributor to The Archive.