GYMNASIUM by Smalley, Luke - 2001

Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms Publiashers, 2001. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine / Near Fine. Quarto, 11 in. x 8.25 in., Unpaginated. Gray cloth boards with black title to front and spine. Dustjacket protected in mylar. From the publisher: The teenage athletes in Luke Smalley's pictures seem inhabitants of some time or place other than the northwestern Pennsylvania towns where the photographer recently found and photographed them. The sensuality of these young athletes seems familiar, their gaze immediate and direct, yet their otherworldly quality remains a product of the artist's unique vision. No telephone or television seems possible in this not-quite-familiar landscape. For the past ten years the photographer has painstakingly coordinated the creation of these works, often making his own athletic equipment, props, and costumes.

Luke Smalley (1955 - 2009) was an American photographer known for capturing boys in adolescence and as a talented art director famous for creating "playful images that explored the intersections between fashion and masculinity". His work, which pairs a coolly minimalist aesthetic with a retro nostalgia, centers around his tongue-in-cheek take on the journey for truth inside the lives of small town youth, especially athletic, all-American, young men. Many of the photographs are homoerotic, yet sexually ambivalent and never perverse.