Tentacle Session #26: Charles Gatewood

Tentacle Session #26
Sunday, September 16, 2001

Charles Gatewood [with opening sound by DJ Tom Morgan]

When Charles Gatewood began photographing America's sexual underground in the mid-l960s, he was considered by many to be an obsessed eccentric whose concerns were extreme and marginal. Today, however, as public nudity, blatant exhibitionism, full body tattooing, piercing, and various forms of sadomasochistic excess have entered mainstream culture, Gatewood's photographs appear not only historically significant, but also uncannily prophetic.

At his Tentacle Session Gatewood showed slides from his books including SIDETRIPPING (1975, with text by William S. Burroughs; a new edition is due later this year from Last Gasp), FORBIDDEN PHOTOGRAPHS (1981), PRIMITIVES (1992), THE BODY AND BEYOND (1993), TRUE BLOOD (1997), and BADLANDS (2000) . He also described how his "deviant" reporting has not only delighted underground audiences, but helped change the face of mainstream culture.

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