Another unearthing — of photo sets (or photosets) from two male photography studios in the 1990s: Colt Studio (American, the work of Jim French / Rip Colt) and Marco Studio (Brazilian). Details on the studios in an AZBlogX posting “Colt and Marco”, along with samples of the photography: four shots of three models from Colt, three shots from Marco, plus a more recent Marco shot of pornstar Rafael Alencar.
All of this is X-rated, all of it is created for the sexual pleasure of a gay male audience, and all of it is carefully, artfully composed photography (in the case of the Colt photos, of high quality). That is, these are artworks and also works serving a non-artistic function — like drawings or paintings meant to excite laughter or to advance social or political criticism, like scientific illustrations, like photograpy (including fashion photography) meant to advertise or market products, like visual art or music mean to praise a deity and excite devotion in followers.
In the case of male art (including male photography), there is a range of work according to intention: artworks with purely aesthetic aims, whose makers choose to take the male body as their subject; artworks depicting male subjects with a homoerotic eye; artworks frankly intended to arouse sexual desire. From an aesthetic point of view, all can be done well, or routinely, or shabbily and awkwardly. Just like, say, hymns.
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