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Poster design by Mike Stasny
Word on the street: posters on Cherokee advertising this Friday's calendar release.
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Calendar cover design by Mike Stasny
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January is almost over, but there's a plethora of local options popping up if you still have a blank space on your wall where last year's dog or cat or flower (or Boris Vallejo) calendar used to hang. Schlafly's released its 2016 Beard Calendar, and Tenth Life has once again issued its adorable "Topcats" guys 'n' kitties calendar. And on Friday, January 29, you will have access to yet another option. The photos inside were captured with a lightning-in-a-bottle 20-minute photo shoot, choreographed to music by The Multiple Cat. But it's not a cat calendar.
The photographer was expat St. Louis artist, Mike Stasny, who's now based in Atlanta; he road-tripped here for the photo session. The subject was fort gondo and Granite City Art and Design District (G-CADD) founder Galen Gondolfi. Specifically, his rear end. Or...well, more accurately, his underwear.
"As you know, I have the propensity to collect, and this extends to clothing that I no longer fit into," Gondolfi explains, adding that this includes suitcases containing old Little League and Boy Scout uniforms, as well as adult clothing that's gotten a bit moth-eaten, including "briefs and long johns." (Both are featured in the calendar, or Galendar, as he and Stasny have dubbed it.) He wanted to photograph and document these personally historical, well-worn clothes in some way.
"Not that there will be an annual Galendar, but I mean I have T-shirts, I have sweaters, I have a lot of that stuff...I don't have much of a torso, so I didn't think T-shirts were going to fly," he says. "But I do have somewhat of a rump. You know? So it was like, let's go for it!"
He immediately thought of Stasny. "I knew if there was one person who would be game for this—not in St. Louis, but on the planet—it would be Mike. And of course, he responded with unabated enthusiasm."
Stasny says that for him, "if it’s not weird, it's not worth it. This is definitely weird, so it’s totally worth it." He also notes he was definitely qualified for the job because he "has a history of butts" (including co-penning that legendary, viral "What, What" song for Samwell).
"We had kind of a light show going, and I re-arranged the furniture in my living room for the photoshoot," Gondolfi says. "As a believer in material gods, the god for seasoned underwear compiled 13 examples—lucky 13—as that allowed us an editing margin of one!"
Both Gondolfi and Stasny admit that they did indulge in one or two little cheats in the name of art: for July, they used a brand-new pair of red-white-and-blue undies, because there wasn't a well-worn pair that was thematically appropriate. And March's green undies are not really green (they are Photoshopped). But the rest of the pairs are depicted in true documentary style. "I’ve already had two people ask me if it’s real, and I was really offended," Gondolfi says dryly. "Like I was taking them out and dragging them behind my car, or or letting my dog chew on them or something, you know?" (He says artist Kit Keith told him she didn't believe that it was indeed him on the cover, which also confused him; who else would it be?)
Laurencia Strauss, an artist who is partly based in St. Louis (and who has done work both at fort gondo and G-CADD), says the first thing she told Gondolfi after learning about the calendar was that "his ass was going to be famous." (That is: she's predicting this calendar may go viral.) She also sees multiple layers of meaning in the project. "It's about the passage of time," Strauss says, in all of its bittersweet glory. She was impressed because most people these days see clothing as almost disposable, especially underthings, to the point they never witness true wear and tear. "The long johns are really striking like that, cause they're like super-worn," she says. "I think pretty much every piece of clothing has a story in it about the things we hold onto. Like I have a couple shirts like that that I just love. I don't even wear them that often, 'cause I don't want them to get too frayed. I wonder if he has stories about every piece of underwear? Does he know where he got it? He probably does."
As we mention above, the official release for the Galendar happens this Friday. It's also a surprise birthday party for artist, musician and frequent Stasny/Gondolfi collaborator, Kevin Harris. (The trio have collaborated on quite a few People's Joy Parade floats, and may do so again this year.)
"I'll be DJing," Stasny says. "As far as what I do in Atlanta, I do a lot of what one could call 'party art,' or party performance art...so I'm going to be performance-art DJing, and we'll be having a performance art surprise party." He says a few of his friends in Atlanta were scratching their heads about the idea of bum-themed art. "And I'm like 'Yep, that's how Saint Louis rolls. We're gonna have a good time!' It makes me so filled with joy. It's awesome."
The release party for the "MSIF Presents: Galen's Butt," happens at Brea Photography, 2701 Cherokee, on Friday, January 29 at 7 p.m. The merch table will feature 50 free Galendars, first come, first serve. For more info, go to the event's Facebook page.
