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By: Isabel Dunstan
Date: 11th Jun 08
Medium: Photography
Drink: Dandy shandy
What:
Cake Boys, Drew Pettifer
Where:
Blindside, Lvl 7, Rm 14, 37 Swanston St, Melbourne
When:
Launching Thurs Jun 12, 6pm-8pm
Closing Sat Jun 28, 4pm-6pm
How much:
Free
When Sir Mix-a-lot told us about the boy with low cash flow (the one who ain't down to throw and shakes their girl-like body on the floor that makes the girls go BOINGGG!) he was referring to the blushed-up cake boys of the ‘90s. 'Cake Boy' is the lost term for well-manicured boys now being revived at Nicholas Building gallery space, Blindside.
Their latest exhibition, by Drew Pettifer, draws attention to the delicate and effeminate in a series of photographs. While unlikely to cause Henson-esque hysteria, these somehow heartbreaking images of exposed young men contemplate the balance between eroticism and virility.
For the Dorian Grays in the room, the photographs are printed onto...
Here the author begins to salivate...
...the icing of cakes, bringing Faustian ideas of beauty, hedonism and the inevitability of decay to the table. So, not only will the icing on the cake be literal, but also Pettifer has found a way to mix his puns with salacious art, and the result is delicious sponge.