Not currently on display at the V&A

Mr. Gorgeous onstage at Duane Park, New York City, USA, 2013

Photograph
2016 (printed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Eric Gorsuch (b.1984) acquired his stage name Mr. Gorgeous by accident when pupils to whom he taught art mis-pronounced his name. He likes to adapt older female burlesque acts like chair numbers, and is seen here performing with a shadow puppet at Duane Park, the burlesque venue in New York's East Village which shares its space with the Bowery Poetry Club and where audiences can get a dinner and a show.

This is one of a series of offstage photographs documenting the international scene of male performers taken by the Danish photographer Magnus Arrevad (b.1981) who is based in Berlin and London. Shot over a five-year period in cities ranging from New York to London, Copenhagen, Berlin and Paris, they feature the personal transformations of cabaret performers, drag queens, strippers and go-go dancers, capturing them bringing, as Magnus Arrevad has said: 'the dream of oneself into being'. Using a Mamiya 7 camera instead of a digital camera, gave Magnus: 'a sense of occasion to every shot, made each click of the shutter an event.' Many of the resulting photographs, that formed part of the 2015 exhibition and book Boy Story: A Picture Book for Boys,are imbued with the haunting sense of melancholy that the performers experience in the creation and exhibition of their 'other selves'. Arrevad shows how donning the makeup and costume was for the performers part of the process of removing a mask, not putting it on, and has said that working with them changed him from: 'a sheltered Danish photographer into a fully-immersed participant in the world of "Boylesque"'.







Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleMr. Gorgeous onstage at Duane Park, New York City, USA, 2013 (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Silver gelatin print on archival fibre paper
Brief description
Mr. Gorgeous onstage at Duane Park, New York City, USA, 2013. Silver gelatin print on archival fibre paper by Magnus Arrevad
Physical description
Black and white photograph of Mr. Gorgeous performing onstage with a shadow puppet at Duane Park, New York City, with the audience sitting at tables
Dimensions
  • Height: 65.0cm
Marks and inscriptions
Magnus Arrevad 5/12
Credit line
Given by Adam Donen
Summary
Eric Gorsuch (b.1984) acquired his stage name Mr. Gorgeous by accident when pupils to whom he taught art mis-pronounced his name. He likes to adapt older female burlesque acts like chair numbers, and is seen here performing with a shadow puppet at Duane Park, the burlesque venue in New York's East Village which shares its space with the Bowery Poetry Club and where audiences can get a dinner and a show.

This is one of a series of offstage photographs documenting the international scene of male performers taken by the Danish photographer Magnus Arrevad (b.1981) who is based in Berlin and London. Shot over a five-year period in cities ranging from New York to London, Copenhagen, Berlin and Paris, they feature the personal transformations of cabaret performers, drag queens, strippers and go-go dancers, capturing them bringing, as Magnus Arrevad has said: 'the dream of oneself into being'. Using a Mamiya 7 camera instead of a digital camera, gave Magnus: 'a sense of occasion to every shot, made each click of the shutter an event.' Many of the resulting photographs, that formed part of the 2015 exhibition and book Boy Story: A Picture Book for Boys,are imbued with the haunting sense of melancholy that the performers experience in the creation and exhibition of their 'other selves'. Arrevad shows how donning the makeup and costume was for the performers part of the process of removing a mask, not putting it on, and has said that working with them changed him from: 'a sheltered Danish photographer into a fully-immersed participant in the world of "Boylesque"'.





Bibliographic reference
page 57 Reproduced in Boy Story: a Picture Book for Boys by Magnus Arrevad, 2015, with the text: 'In this performance a shadow puppet excreted real shit upon him.'
Collection
Accession number
S.464-2017

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Record createdFebruary 27, 2017
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