Dark Entries Editions – förlag

Poetry in celebration of homoerotic love from the legendary musician and Indoor Life frontmanHomoerotic poetry and art appear throughout the world’s civilizations for millennia. The Archaeology of Eros, the first collection of poems from cult music figure Jorge Socarras, taps into that continuum through the collaboration of acclaimed artist Mel Odom. Socarras’ intimate love poems and Odom’s evocative drawings are beautifully juxtaposed in this elegantly designed book. Straddling the sensual and the archetypal, the contemporary and the classical, poetry and art join forces in exploring the mystery and wonder of Eros, affirming that same-sex desire has lived before even as it flourishes now.Born to Cuban parents in New York City, Jorge Socarras (born 1952) is known for his 1970s collaboration with pioneering synthesizer musician Patrick Cowley as the duo Catholic, as singer-frontman of the 1980s avant-rock group Indoor Life and as half of the ongoing musical duo Fanatico X. He was also cofounder of the Silence=Death Collective, the AIDS activist group that in 1987 created the eponymous poster design and slogan.The award-winning art of Mel Odom (born 1950) has graced numerous book covers and magazines since the 1970s, has been the subject of two books, and has been exhibited in galleries and art institutions, including in collaboration with gay literary icon Edmund White.

Documenting the landscape and sexscape of popular spots for gay cruising in AmericaThe American artist Daniel Case (born 1979) works in the mediums of digital and film photography and bookmaking. He practices documentary landscape and unconventional portrait photography that often involves surveillance, documentation and the archiving of queer people and spaces through intimate examinations of interiors and site-specific landscapes.Daniel Case: Outside Sex provides exactly what the title promises: candid photographs of gay men having sex outdoors in cruising grounds scattered throughout California. Says Case, "The energy and history of each carved-out space felt like spiritual ruins. I wanted to evoke the beauty and magic of these spaces, the history of what's formed them and the reality that like ruins they are fading, but they stand as monuments to their purpose and the intimate experiences shared."

More than 70 photographs documenting the “end of an era” for queer cruising culture on Manhattan’s West Side piers Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, the abandoned piers running along New York’s West Side Highway served as a hotbed of gay cruising activity as well as a haven for the broader LGBT community. By the mid-1990s, abutting neighborhoods were undergoing intense transformation through gentrification, with many dilapidated buildings and structures being demolished. The remaining piers were a gathering spot beyond the boundaries of daily life, where gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people found a place to be openly themselves. For some, the piers were a place for hustlers and sex workers to meet with their patrons. For others, the piers were a place to simply “be” in the sunshine, relaxing, free of scorn, fear or judgment, in ways not possible elsewhere at that time. The series likewise documents a New York that doesn’t exist anymore: the World Trade Center stands proud in the background of many of these photos. The surrounding habitat of the piers themselves have since been replaced with luxury apartments and a family-friendly city park. The West Side Highway Pier series depicts that, even in New York City, people had to go to extremes—to the end of a pier, at the edge of a continent, treading on unsafe structures—to be free to be their authentic selves. This series documents the final days of this once-infamous gay playground, with reverence to the historical context in which it once existed.William Howell is a Brooklyn-based photographer and artist who earned his BFA in photography from Pratt Institute and currently resides in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

An homage to the legacy of matchbooks—a staple giveaway at gay bars and nightclubs—and a celebration of queer pleasureBefore the days of cell phones and social media, nearly every gay bar and club offered free matchbooks to their patrons. The custom matchbooks served not only as a means for lighting one's cigarette, but also to collect names and phone numbers on the matchbook’s inside cover while cruising. A love letter to a lost art, Cruising: Gay Matchbooks is an archive of 200 matchbooks from gay bars and bathhouses. The publication includes matchbooks from iconic institutions, such as the Saint (New York), Florent (New York), the Stud (San Francisco), St. Marks Baths (New York) and the Eagle (New York), as well as lesser-known spots across the country. The archive is brought to life with 12 essays from leading voices on gay culture including Peter Berlin, Rick Castro, AA Bronson and Michael Bullock, who share their stories of love, loss, lust and possibility.Cruising is both a design book and a time capsule. The matchbooks reflect a time when queer spaces had their own distinct visual identities—designed by and for the people who gathered there. Each unique matchbook delights and surprises with bespoke typography and imagery tailor-made for the bars and baths. Design for marginalized communities is so often focused on protest, but this collection of matchbooks exudes pleasure—the pleasure of being out and going out, the pleasure of lighting a cigarette, the pleasure of getting a stranger’s number with the promise of fun.