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Iuvenis


Thursday, December 6, 2018

It drawn me to it. The cobalt blue colour emphasised the youthfulness of the imagery. The face was almost life sized, as if it wanted me to adore it and venerate the look in the eyes that told an enigmatic, coming to age story. A portrait of a working class, white, young man was gazing at me with his presumably blue eyes, covering almost the entire cover of the magazine. The image was beautifully screen printed with a raster. In a very strong looking font ‘’WERKER’’ was written above the flat cap of the lad. Immediately my mind started working – adolescent, masculine, boyish, Adonis. It was a very obvious attraction for me, as if the cover invited the spectator to get this aroused feeling of the sexualisation of a worker class lad.
As I’m browsing through the pages, the the layout comes across very nineties. It has a playful way of displaying titles, articles, text and images. But above all, it is a very smart moves that lies immediately the focus of the context of the magazine: young man. The structural slogans that are prominently coming back in the magazine, combined with the grainy images of young men and their body parts it gives the layout a feel of protest, anarchy but also youthfulness that keeps coming back as a theme. This combination is of the archiving layout and the strong images that are yet quite sexually intended are making everything stronger. It captures the underlying beauty of vital lads back in the day. It also reminds the spectator, by pulling the archiving trick, that now we can see them as more than just the middle class. It let my mind fantasize about these adolescent boys in a non embarrassing way. The mystery and subtle beauty, packed in something strong and masculine, let my eyes legitimize the scanning and the browsing at the photos. I wish I had a worker class boy by my side.

 

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