image by
Jeffrey Silverthorne
Boystown, The Perfume of Desire, USA – 2009
I probably got up on the wrong side of the bed today.
Looking at this work by Jeffrey Silverthorne I am again impressed by the quality of his photographs: they are somteimes raw and sometime smooth, they show the everyday and the extraordinary, the show compassion and respect and they have sometimes a touch of obscenity that I like.
But still I am being very ambivalent regarding this sequence. I am coming to a point, and it might be just this strange morning of mine, that I just don´t care anymore about images of prostitutes. As if I have been eating too much candy, feeling full and empty at the same time.
Jeffrey Silverthorne expresses some ambivalence himself towards the topic of his project:
My motivations for photographing are both specific and vague, honorable and defenseless. On a simplistic and juvenile level, a Boystown is a celebration of life, a candy store of flesh, with any psychological or medical consequences deferred. On an adult level, Boystown is a direct observation of a spiritual poverty and economic failure that both countries and cultures share.
I have got the impression that this ambiguity Jeffrey Silverthorne is expressing here marks the ground he is working on. It also puts its mark on the editing and sequencing of the images he has chosen to show. (As far as I can judge this by his internet representation.)
Garry Winogrand and Araki, in “Women are beautiful” and “Tokyo Luck Hole”, both have decided what they want to show. Their point of view is very clear. I like their clarity.
I guess I can understand Jeffrey Silverthorns ambiguity in this matter.
Nevertheless: I imagine having had sex to a woman I didn´t care for and who didn´t care for me. I paid some money and got some candy. Now, I guess, I will be even more in need than before.
