Peter Berlin revolutionized the landscape of gay male eroticism in the tradition of Tom of Finland
Peter Berlin was a self-created icon. With his trademark pageboy haircut and his skin-tight costumes that put every detail of his anatomy on display (designed and tailored by Berlin himself to accentuate his already naturally defined physique), he became a gay sex symbol and a walking work of art.
Cruising was his career, and with a background in photography, Berlin began taking thousands of erotic self-portraits in the parks, train stations and streets of Berlin, Rome, Paris, New York and San Francisco, where he settled in the early 1970s. As Berlin put it, “One day I looked at a camera and said, ‘I have found my dream lover.’”
Berlin’s ’70s and ’80s self-portrait photography graced the covers of gay magazines, defining a look and a reimagined masculinity in a changing gay male culture. Spotlighting Berlin’s significant body of work, Peter Berlin: Icon, Artist, Photosexual pays tribute to the man who revolutionized the landscape of gay male eroticism and became an international sensation. The book is designed by Omar Sosa, Creative Director of Apartamento magazine, and is edited by Michael Bullock, writer and publisher of BUTT, Pin-Up, Fantastic Man and Gentlewoman magazines. In addition to essays by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jonathan David Katz, Ted Stansfield and Evan Moffitt, the book includes original quotes about Berlin by Jeremy O Harris, Kembra Pfahler, Andre Leon Talley, Armistead Maupin, John Waters, Arca, Silvia Prada, AA Bronson, Jack Pierson, Simon Foxton, Chris Moukarbel, Telfar Clemens, Paul Sepuya, Tim Blanks, Mariah Garnett and Rick Castro.
Artist, model and filmmaker Peter Berlin, nee Armin Hagen Freiherr von Hoyningen Huene (born 1942), created some of the most legendary erotic imagery of his day. What began as studies in self-portraiture and fashion design in the name of cruising, by the early 1970s had turned into a robust artistic practice that included the creation of two films—Nights in Black Leather (1973) and That Boy (1974)—and innumerable photographs, paintings and illustrations.
Hardcover
208 pages, illustrated throughout
22.9 x 30.5 cm
Published by Damiani 2019
PRAISE AND REVIEWS:
"Against the sotto voce background of current LGBTQ voices... comes this mostly forgotten statement of gay male libido, a violently subversive gesture. Promiscuity, even public sex, for the sake of sex alone, is currently the “dirty” unmentioned secret of today’s activists who continue their efforts to transform gay liberation into gay assimilation." -Bruce Benderson, GAYLETTER
"[Peter Berlin] has made his name as a notorious gay sex icon of the 1970s and 1980s – a man recognised for his self-portraiture, film and erotica that defies all norms of sexuality ...What he’s left behind is a legacy – an incredible archive of imagery that depicts the history and life of a young male navigating through his identity." - Ayla Angelos, It's Nice That
"Berlin’s cultural contributions were so many decades ahead of his time and so unique—not fitting cleanly into either the world of art or the world of pornography—that understanding their relevance and impact requires the invention of a new terminology. I propose the word photosexuality and aim to make the case that Berlin was the first acclaimed male photosexual and the leading pioneer of its practice." - Michael Bullock, Aperture
"For Berlin, photography was as pure and simple as sex: an act of freedom and an expression of self." - Sara Rosen, Document Journal
"[I]n the hazy, carefree dawn of the 70s, he pioneered the self-mythologising culture we all live in today. Before social media, before selfies, he was transforming himself in front of his camera into the star of his own fantasy narrative – and he did it all dressed in handcrafted weapons of mass arousal." - Ted Stansfield, Another Man
"He was a sex symbol, photographer, pornographer, clothing designer, illustrator and more...But long before being shot by the who’s-who of the 1970s queer art scene, Berlin simply took matters into his own hands: his images were, as we’d say today, selfies—creating an entirely new, joyfully narcissistic approach to self-portraiture." - Emily Gosling, Elephant
"The 1970s gave birth to Gay Pride, a sensibility beautifully echoed in the self-portraits of Peter Berlin. The licentious libertine possessed with thick blonde hair, chiseled good looks, and a body that just wouldn’t quit discovered photography and immediately in love with the image of himself. Like Narcissus, there was nothing Berlin loved so much as to gaze upon the character he constructed in the form of a gay porn star." - Miss Rosen, Blind