Christian Vagt

Spread in testcard Magazine #21

2011-12-18T10:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.testcard.de/

Photos in tip Magazine

2011-12-18T10:04:00.000-08:00

Article on gay.ru by Alexander Yastrebov

2010-09-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

Besides the commercialization of an already small gay scene, the low level of tolerance and the widespread corruption in Russia lead to little development of institutionalized alternative and freer forms of gay self-expression. They remain singled-out and up to chance. Alternative forms of appearance and ways of life do not become subcultures within subcultures and only fleetingly touch the mainstream. As long as there is opportunity for this, one is forced to - once again – direct one's gaze to the West.

Christian Vagt is a 40-year-old photographer from Berlin and social activist. He was one of the initiators of the Transgenialer CSD Berlin which was a reaction to the commercialization of the Berlin gay pride celebration, Christopher Street Day.

For over eight years he worked on a photo series committed to the legendary Berlin club, SO36. In the 1980s, the club was the main mouthpiece of punk and experimental music in Germany. Vagt's attention was focused on the party “Gayhane“ of Turkish, Arabian and Indian music which since 1998 is organized with the Turkish LGBT community. His photos show dancers, drag queens (before, during and after their performances) and visitors. He succeeds in capturing that magical atmosphere in clubs when the space looks as unreal as the visitors who, like ghosts of the night, appear in colored artificial light.

Another project of Vagt’s is the 'Skin/Punk' cycle which he started in 1997 and continues today. Last year a selection of it was exhibited in the Tallinn Art Hall in Estonia.

The “Skin/Punk” series shows friends and lovers – punks and skinheads – photographed in different situations, e.g. two boys with wounds tenderly embracing each other. They had returned from a rave and crashed their bikes in the street. The series could appear as a collection of short stories parallel to the fetish pornos of the Cazzo Studios where similar boys imaginatively fuck each other. But when you look closely there's no fetishism in these shots. They are touching, intimate stories that do not claim to be the "portrait of a generation". Here the simplest and most basic human emotions are sincerely shown - friendship and love.

Alexander Yastrebov, gay.ru, 2010

http://www.gay.ru/art/foto/revue/christian_vagt2010.html

Das geringe Toleranzniveau und die verbreitete Korruption in Russland führen neben der Kommerzialisierung der (sowieso kleinen) Schwulenszene dazu, dass sich kaum institutionalisierte alternative und freiere Formen schwulen Selbstausdrucks entwickeln. Sie bleiben vereinzelt und zufällig. Alternative Erscheinungsformen und Lebensstile werden nicht zu Subkulturen innerhalb der Subkulturen und streifen nur ephemer den Mainstream. Solange es keine Möglichkeit der Wahl gibt, ist man gezwungen – wieder einmal – den Blick gen Westen zu richten.

Christian Vagt ist ein 40-jähriger Berliner Fotograf und sozialer Aktivist. Er war einer der Initiatoren des Transgenialen CSDs Berlin, der als Antwort auf die Kommerzialisierung des Berliner Christopher Street Days ins Leben gerufen wurde.

Über 8 Jahre arbeitete er an einer seiner Fotoserien, die dem legendären Berliner Club „SO36“ gewidmet ist. Der Club war in den 80ern das wichtigste propagandistische Sprachrohr von Punk und experimenteller Musik in Deutschland. Vagts Aufmerksamkeit galt der Party „Gayhane“ mit türkischer, arabischer und indischer Musik, die seit 1997 mit der türkischen LGBT-community in Berlin organisiert wird. Seine Fotografien zeigen Tänzer, Drag Queens (vor, während und nach dem Auftritt) und Besucher. Es gelingt ihm jene magische Atmosphäre einzufangen, die manchmal in Clubs entsteht, wenn der Raum selbst genauso irreal wie die Besucher aussieht, die wie nächtliche Gespenster in farbigem künstlichen Licht erscheinen.

Ein anderes Projekt Vagts ist der Zyklus „Skin/Punk“, den er 1997 begann und bis heute fortsetzt. Im letzten Jahr wurde ein Teil davon in der Tallin Art Hall in Estland ausgestellt.

Auf den Fotografien findet man seine Freunde und Liebhaber – Punks und Skinheads – fotografiert in verschiedenen Situationen (zum Beispiel zwei Jungs mit Blessuren, die sich zärtlich umarmen – sie waren von einem Rave zurückgekehrt und mit ihren Fahrrädern auf der Straße gestürzt). Die Serie könnte man für eine Sammlung von Kurzgeschichten parallel zu den Fetisch-Pornos des „Cazzo“ Studios halten, in denen ähnliche Jungs einfallsreich miteinander ficken. Aber wenn man genau hinsieht, gibt es in diesen Aufnahmen gar keinen Fetischismus. Es sind anrührende, intime Geschichten, die gar nicht beanspruchen, das „Porträt einer Generation“ zu sein. Hier werden aufrichtig die einfachsten und grundlegendsten menschlichen Gefühle gezeigt – Freundschaft und Liebe.

Alexander Yastrebov, gay.ru, 2010

http://www.gay.ru/art/foto/revue/christian_vagt2010.html

Низкий уровень толерантности и высокий уровень коррупции в стране, крайняя коммерциализация московской гей-сцены (пусть даже и не очень большой), приводят к тому, что разного рода "свободные" и альтернативные способы самовыражения не находят институализированных форм и пребывают в разобщенном случайном состоянии. Практически любой "альтернативный" внешний вид и образ жизни не превращается в субкультуру внутри субкультуры и лишь случайно касается мэйнстрима. И пока ситуации выбора не возникло, приходится - снова! - обращать свой взгляд на Запад.

Кристиан Вагт (Christian Vagt) - 40-летний житель Берлина, фотограф и социальный активист (среди прочего, он был одним из инициаторов фестиваля Transgenialer CSD Berlin, возникшего как реакция на коммерциализированный Berlin Pride Parade).

Одна из его фотосерий, которую он снимал на протяжении 8 лет, посвящена легендарному берлинскому клубу "SO36", известному тем, что в 1980-х он был главным пропагандистским рупором панка и экспериментальной музыки в Германии. Объектом внимания Вагта стали вечеринки Gayhane с турецкой, арабской и индийской музыкой, организуемые с 1997 года для турецкого ЛГБТ- комьюнити в Берлине. На его фотографиях запечатлены танцоры, трансвеститы (до, во время и после выступлений) и посетители. Ему удается передать ту магическую атмосферу, иногда случающуюся в клубах, когда и само пространство, и посещающие его люди выглядят одинаково нереально, как призраки, возникающие лишь ночью, при разноцветном искусственном освещении.

Другой проект Вагта - цикл фотографий "Skin/Punk", который он начал снимать с 1997го и продолжает до сих пор. В прошлом году его часть была показана в Tallinn Art Hall в Эстонии.

На фотографиях изображены его друзья и любовники - панки и скинхеды - снятые в различных ситуациях (вот, например, два парня весьма побитого вида, нежно обнимающие друг друга - они возвращались с рейва и закатились на своих велосипедах в овраг). Кому-то эта серия может показаться сборником новелл в духе фетишистских порнофильмов студии "Cazzo", в которых парни аналогичного вида изобретательно трахают друг друга. Но если присмотреться, то фетишизма, как такового, в этих снимках нет. Есть трогательные, интимные истории, лишенные амбиций стать "портретом поколения", в которых искренне показаны самые простые, базовые человеческие чувства - дружба и любовь.

Александр Ястребов, gay.ru, 2010

http://www.gay.ru/art/foto/revue/christian_vagt2010.html

Cheese Magazine Spread and Interview

2010-09-08T05:06:00.001-07:00

1. When did you start making pix of punks and skins (in Berlin)?

I can’t really say. I was taking portraits of my friends and lovers beginning in the early nineties - around 1992. It’s just that we happened to be punks or skins or squatters but we never thought in those categories. I was shooting in black and white and around 1997 I started using colour. The photos in the show are from different times between 1997 and this year.

2. How do you describe your identity as a skin? or punk? or just admirer of them?

This show consists of photos of my friends and lovers so it’s not meant as a social documentary representation of a whole movement. I’m interested in showing the people around me and the situation I’m in. Patti Smith said something like when she wrote a song it showed in what place in her life she was in at that moment. So to me it is like giving out coordinates, something almost geographical. And if showing that intimate situation transcends and it stands for more than just me and it means something to more people all the better but I can’t plan that.

When I thought of what photos to pick for the show, I didn’t want it to be a series of guys wearing Mohawks or having shaved heads, which would have been a too obvious thing to do. I preferred to show friends with a punk/skin/anarchist attitude but then in photography how do you show an attitude?

Punk gives you the opportunity to think and create for yourself, to question authority, to tell assholes to fuck off. All these things were possible before punk and they will be possible after punk has been sold off or has merged with other movements. All in all it’s about talking without fear, thinking, fighting, loving, or whatever, as opposed to being just a consumer.

One thing that always fascinated me about skins is not directly the fighting but the being ready for a fight. All your clothes are aimed at that, they show that you won’t shy away from a fight. And when you’re out with your lover, and someone gives you shit, one day that might happen.

3. How much consists or depends on the skin-punk attitude on fetish, like gear, boots, hair, behaviour, etc?

Fetish is one of those words I can’t relate to, so when we met up and you asked me what fetish I had, I said I didn’t have any, but I was into punks and skins. But I wouldn’t call it a punk and skin fetish, you know? And for me that makes a difference. Fetish for me has this connotation of being separated from the rest of my life, like stuff you wear on the weekend, stuff you can consume, but that doesn’t touch my life. I guess fetish sounds utterly capitalist to me.

Another word I don’t care so much for is portraits. Or dividing photos up in genres. Cause I could never do that. Cause to me they’re all photos and that division seems weird.

4. Is gay skin/punk subculture on a large scale typical only for certain metropolises like Berlin?

It’s hard being an outsider and no one there to share things with you. It’s not good for people to be by themselves all the time or to exist in a hostile environment where they have to wear a mask just to survive on a daily basis. If you read about someone having been an outsider or see it in a film it all seems so cool but when you live through it, it can be the loneliest thing in the world. So when you’re excluded or persecuted, be it because of your race or sexuality or whatever you’re likely to move to a bigger city and there you can find people you share stuff with.

With Berlin, it’s not just a question of the size of the city. There are larger cities that have no alternative movements to speak of. The advantage of Berlin is that it’s poor. If large amounts of money enter the city and people have to work all the time just to get by and shared spaces are being destroyed, then you soon have office buildings instead of a subculture. It’s being tried like in the rest of the world but it’s not quite there yet. So right now things are getting rougher but people still have enough time to put into the culture.

5. Gay skin/punk attitude as horny masculine sexual image - your opinion?

What all the best friends and lovers I hang out with have in common is that they are in touch with what might be considered their female side. And straight guys have that as well as gay guys. In reality of course, so called sides are impossible to tell apart. And why would you? And if somebody wants to be a hundred percent what is considered male in our society it soon gets pretty ridiculous and boring. The guys I am with are confident enough to play around with that and be what is considered feminine at times or what is considered masculine at other times or what fits neither category and that makes them more complete and real to me. Even more masculine, if you want.

Cheese Magazine, 2010. Interview with curator Harry Liivrand, Tallinn Art Hall, originally conducted in 2009, accompanying a spread of the 'Punk.Skin.' images in its current issue.

http://www.cheese.ee/

Press Punk.Skin.

2010-09-08T04:10:00.000-07:00

The exhibition is not a social documentary, but displays a line of emotional landscapes mixed with intimate psychological portraits and memories.

Eesti Ekspress, 2009

It is less social documentation than intimate psychological portraits and symbolic images based on rememberances. Without shying away from being sensitive, his models are captured beautifully, almost tenderly, and yet vulnerable by carefully choosing the most characteristic facial expressions, body parts, angles, light, and rhythm of the picture. In his images there is a lot of love, spontaneity and few stereotypical skinhead poses of the “tough guys“.

Postimees / Russian-language Postimees, 2009

The exhibition is made up of portraits of the friends and partners of the photographer, displayed is rather a line of figurative emotional landscapes, mixed with intimate psychological portraits and memories as a whole creating a social documentation. Certainly the social aspect is not missing, adding to that is a deeply personal and sexual layer.

German Embassy Tallinn, 2009

The young artist treats the controversial topic from a refreshing new angle. In a low-key and meditative way he gives insight into the concealed sides of the lives of homosexual skinheads and punks. Not only do Vagt‘s photos communicate with each other but with the spectator aswell. They don‘t run him off. They rather invite to look further than the shallow stereotypes.

Ragne Nukk, Äripäev, 2009

His photos aren't staged. In fact they are impressionist snapshots often resembling film clips. This effect is deepened by the seriality. In the relations between two men Vagt has captured very intimate moments. The closeness of two humans is shown, but also seperation and reconciliation. Characteristic for the work of this artist is a good sense of details, averted glances, close-ups of bodies resting tightly together etc. It's also commendable that Vagt‘s models are men of diverse nationalities. In this manner the exposition opposes the right-wing extremist movements and racism. How the Estonian public will react to this exhibition in such a renowned gallery we will see. With it's mild and sensitive use of form it should mediate tolerance towards people with a different sexual orientation.

Ants Juske, Eesti Päevaleht, 2009

Christian Vagt's exhibition does not highlight the fetish but shows human beings. The pictures radiate mild tenderness and emotions.

Ivar Sild, Sirp, 2009

They are photos of friends. In them there is no homo-eroticism or gay-camp. They are unadorned pictures of common guys getting a haircut or cooking. “Unadorned“ is a key word here. Relations of friends aren't easily depicted in a mute and static documentary form. Here Christian Vagt shows himself as an able photographer. Skilfully chosen situations and takes show the warmth and
closeness between the photographer and the photographed.

Aimar Ventsel, Eesti Ekspress, 2009

Artist's Statement Punk.Skin.

2010-08-31T17:37:00.000-07:00

This is a photo series of gay punks and skinheads in Berlin. I edited the work for an exhibition at the Tallinn Art Hall's City Gallery in Estonia in August 2009. The photos I chose were from different times between 1997 and that year. I did not just want to show a series of mohawks or shaved heads, but different situations between the people I'm close with and myself, and my feelings towards them. As it's a continuous work, it has grown bigger since.

I think work is more political or socially relevant when it avoids the trap of being propaganda, however worthy the cause might be. As German journalist and later terrorist Ulrike Meinhof noted, 'Private matters are political,' and I believe in taking something private and putting it in a public context. I cannot foresee the effect that may have. When I edit images, I try not to have the spectator in mind but choose a series of images that has a logic in itself and makes sense to me. Like photography itself, it's an intuitive process.

Photos serve as memory, sometimes altering my own memory. They bring order. Memory is not permanent, but permanently under construction, and that this version of my life and my friend's life is what it is, one version of the story. But seeing it all spread out on my computer screen, or as prints on the walls of the gallery, it feels mighty personal to me.

The Sprawl

2010-05-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

What is "The Sprawl" about?

It's a sequence of photos I took at a Sonic Youth concert in Central Park in 2002. I was standing at the side of the stage and watched Kim Gordon dance in a circle and shake her head against the evening sun.

How does this exhibition relate to your previous work?

Although a photo is taken in a fraction of a second, the photos you put in an exhibition will usually be from different points in time. The Punk and Skin exhibition, which is an open and continuous project, covers moments from 1997 up to now. I wanted to see if I could make an exhibition of something that only took seconds. The photos being fragments of seconds, display a moment that was over in seconds.

Where does the title come from?

“The Sprawl” is a song on Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation album. It is named after the massive scale urban-sprawl environment in William Gibson's book Neuromancer and the books that followed it.¹ Although the second verse alludes to the sprawl of the books, it was the first verse that stuck with me over the years. It goes, "To the extent that I wear skirts and cheap nylon slips I've gone native. I wanted to know the exact dimension of hell. Does this sound simple? Fuck you! Are you for sale? Does 'Fuck you' sound simple enough? This was the only part that turned me on but he was candy all over." According to Sonic Youth's biography the lyrics come from a conversation between prostitutes on Eldridge Street in New York that Kim Gordon overheard.² During concerts in 1988, Kim Gordon introduced "The Sprawl" as a song "about shopping..."³ I thought the song, these lines, might give a structure to an exhibition but I soon dropped the idea for fear of just making it an illustration. According to the dictionary, a sprawl is, "The act or an instance of sprawling, of spreading out, and a sprawling posture or arrangement of items."⁴ I thought it a fitting title for the movements displayed in the photos.

Why did you not include the other photos you took of them?

The other photos were taken standing in front of the stage at various concerts during the first three songs, as is the policy. I did the same during this show. As I had to leave after three songs I was standing backstage, which was at the side of the stage, found another angle, and thought, "This is much better!" The shots I had taken before were just of the band with guitars. They were what they were. But they weren't more than that. When I edit I go for something that is more than what it is, has another level to it. I have to betray my original theme. The photo has at the same time to be about something else. I want to not be able to read the photo in its entirety, to not understand it; something must remain hidden, even to me.

These photos are much lighter than the photos you took before.

Many artists, not that I would call myself one, work with emptiness. Sometimes it's a device to isolate the subject, the figure in this case, to make it stand out, to heighten its impact. In Yves Klein's work, one of the few abstract artists that interest me, emptiness itself is the subject. Here I find a bit of both: the isolated figure - Kim Gordon - dissolving in emptiness.

What is emptiness to you?

Gerhard Richter, whose Candle image was used for Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation album cover, tired of figurative painting, let his images run empty, so to speak, and produced a series of grey images. More than the actual work, I like the gesture of ceasing to be figurative, of not wanting to see anymore, of not wanting to show specific people and objects anymore. Painting nothing might give you a break from painting something, like photographing nothing might give you a break from photographing something.

Then there's the figure dissolving in its surrounding, that emptiness, that white sky, which, in correlation with its movements gives it an air of ecstasy. "Beauty will be convulsive or not at all," as Patti Smith once cited André Breton.⁵

And emptiness is connected with what Patti Smith, in her song about Kurt Cobain, calls "the great emptiness", death. In a book on Francis Bacon, I read, “When we represent the living body, or bodily experiences, death is always lurking. I do not simply mean to say that death is always implicated in the representation of a living body (that is, that this body will soon be dead; it is going to die.) Rather, I mean that the intense, concentrated representation of bodily experiences evokes simultaneously the situation of death. Death, then, is not an event which comes after life; it is a situation which lurks within the experience of the body.”⁶

http://www.christianvagt.com/sprawl.html

1 William Gibson: Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Ace, 1984, 1986, 1988
2 David Browne: Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth, Da Capo Press, 2008
3 Matthew Stearns: Daydream Nation, Continuum, 2007
4 Collins English Dictionary, HarperCollins Publishers, 1991-2003
5 Patti Smith: Early Work, Norton, 1994
6 Ernst van Alphen: Francis Bacon and the Loss of Self, Reaktion Books, 1992