ABOVE: Happy 73rd to James Daughton, such a snob on film, such a nice (gay) guy in real life.
BELOW: Keep reading for a groundbreaking photographer's first major retrospective, Trump dead to rights, GLAAD sticking up for trans safety and more ...
A master of light (Images by Van Leo courtesy of Hammer Museum)
HAMMER MUSEUM: I've never heard of Armenian-Egyptian photographer Van Leo (1921-2002), but the exhibition Becoming Van Leo looks to be an exhaustive tracing of his work, which seems to presage Cindy Sherman and others with its reliance on self-portraiture:
Born Levon Boyadjian to Armenian parents in Turkey in 1921, the artist moved to Egypt with his family as a child, eventually settling in Cairo. There he rose to prominence as one of the Arab world’s most celebrated studio photographers from the 1940s to the 1960s. The exhibition traces Van Leo’s career from his earliest encounters with the camera in the 1930s, in which he used friends and family as models, through his experiments in self-portraiture of the 1940s and 1950s, and onward to his studio work, which extended into the 1990s.
The show runs July 15-November 5, 2023, at the Hammer Museum (10899 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.)
CNN: Trump was caught on audio freely discussing top-secret material he stole. It is so disgusting that Trump used stolen top-secret documents just for bragging rights.
GLAAD: 250+ public figures sign GLAAD's letter to the major social media companies imploring the powers that be to protect trans people from the deluge of hate and the groomer trend, which has enriched the platforms immeasurably:
The celebrities, influencers, and prominent public figures include: Alan Cumming, ALOK, Amber Ruffin, Amy Landecker, Amy Schumer, Angelica Ross,
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