Puertas Españolas by Josemaria Mejorada and May Gañán

I’m so excited to announce the newest publication from bd-studios.com. Puertas Españolas is something a little different than anything else you’ll find in the bd Library. It’s a suite of short poems by Josemaria Mejorada and May Gañán paired with a set of photos I took of various doors while traveling in Spain. Doors are a very interesting part of buildings. I encountered so many unique doors wandering around the streets of Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, and Seville. I decided to publish the images as a set of postcards–but I wanted another voice to work with the images as a counterpoint. Josemaria and May’s poetry is the perfect accompaniment. The poems are not about the images, but, rather, they exist as another layer, providing a glimpse into another world. When we pass through doors, we enter new places, new spaces, and new environments. Josemaria and May have helped me transform these Spanish doors into portals to a realm of poetry. I hope that you will open each door to discover the worlds that await you. The set is very limited. Contact us if you are interested to obtain a copy.

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“Invocation” music video

Premiered yesterday on The Justin Wayne Show, my video for Michael Harren‘s Invocation (the second single from #TentativeArmor) features my “journey” meditation walk. I documented this performance art piece during my trip to Iceland last year, which is also when I created all the other footage that appears in the video. For me, Michael’s music and the visuals I paired with it are all meditative in nature and reflect the spiritual elements of the Tentative Armor project as a whole.

I’d love to hear what you think! Leave a comment on the video or drop both me and Michael Harren a line on Twitter (@lukekurtis and @MichaelHarren).

bad skin in Exposed: The Contemporary Nude

bad skin at 1650 Gallery

Saturday, 24 May marked two important milestones for me as an artist. It was both the exhibition debut of my bad skin series and also my Los Angels debut at large. Exposed: The Contemporary Nude opened at 1650 Gallery. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it out for the opening. But I’m glad to show work in LA. And it seems very appropriate that bad skin–a body of work about looking beyond the perceived imperfections of one’s body–had its exhibition debut in a city known for it’s superficiality.

If you’d like to see the full image, as well as all the other work in the show, you can do so on the gallery’s website. But remember that it is a show of artistic nude photography and therefore may be NSFW! They have included two additional photos of mine in the online annex (also NSFW). The limited edition giclée print in the show is available exclusively from 1650 Gallery. If you are interested in other prints from bad skin, you can contact me directly.

bad skin in Erotica and S/tick

S/tick cover with luke kurtis

Brian Centrone is one of my most frequent collaborators. But most of our collaborations are about the work of other people. We put endless hours in to publishing projects at New Lit Salon Press. When we decided to publish a collection of his collected gay erotic fiction, he asked if I’d like to contribute some art. He had seen some of my bad skin series and immediately asked for a specific image from that body of work. The composition, the tone, the mood–everything about the photo was a perfect match for his story “Boracay.” (I also made an original collage piece for “Mates” and collaborated with Brian on the cover design.)

Around the same time, S/tick published their “Managing” issue. The issue collects work created by men that explore the emotional impact a male-dominated society has on its male members. Sarah-Jean Krahn, the editor, liked my bad skin work and thought it perfectly expressed the emotional experiences of men. “I love the vulnerability–and luke’s courage in displaying that vulnerability–in these photos,” she said. You can find my work both on the cover and inside S/tick‘s “Managing” issue.

Erotica is available from ebook sellers everywhere. S/tick is available as a free download.

bd is the art and publishing studio by luke kurtis. we publish artist's books and exhibition catalogs, organize exhibitions and performances, and more. we perform creative experiments and transform them into bold works of art.

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