#todiealive

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TOMORROW!! Thursday, June 16 at 6 PM, @rizzolibookstore presents photographer @mattelife in conversation with essayist @jack_parlett for the launch of 'To Die Alive.' Published by @damiani_books this 144-page hardcover collects 77 color photographs documenting Fire Island's gay communities in a nocturnal erotic fever-dream. Please register via linkinbio!⁠ ⁠ ABOUT THE BOOK: ⁠ Featuring 77 color photographs and a faux leather cover, 'To Die Alive' portrays Fire Island's world of desire and its layers of history: the Ice Palace bar's infamous underwear party, the men-only Belvedere Guesthouse, clandestine encounters in the Meat Rack, and landscapes in all seasons of the island's delicate maritime forest. The wide-ranging subjects of Matthew Leifheit's portraits reflect the intergenerational community who come to the island for refuge or employment, ranging from weekend visitors to sugar daddies to bartenders and sex workers. Tinged with sadness, the book's climax mixes feelings of pleasure with desperation and loss. As homosexuality gains mainstream acceptance, many queer Americans no longer need to go to geographic extremes like Fire Island, Provincetown, Palm Springs or Key West to express themselves. But what is the cost of assimilation? 'To Die Alive' is both romantic and grotesque, challenging the sun-bleached history of homoerotic representation on this fragile island, which itself is under constant threat of erosion by the sea.⁠ ⁠ To Die Alive Launch⁠ Rizzoli Bookstore⁠ Thursday, June 16: 6PM⁠ 1133 Broadway⁠ New York, NY 10010⁠ ⁠ #MatthewLeifheit #ToDieAlive #fireisland @jeremyoharris @elisabethbiondi ⁠ ⁠ https://www.instagram.com/p/Ce1dlw4Jn4d/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Gay Pride and then some! Featured images are from 'Matthew Leifheit: To Die Alive,' new release and Staff Pick for Pride Month 2022. ⁠ ⁠ Featuring 77 color photographs and a faux leather cover, 'To Die Alive' portrays Fire Island’s world of desire and its layers of history: the Ice Palace bar’s infamous underwear party; the men-only Belvedere Guesthouse; clandestine encounters in the Meat Rack; and landscapes in all seasons of the island’s delicate maritime forest. The wide-ranging subjects of Matthew Leifheit’s portraits reflect the intergenerational community who come to the island for refuge or employment, ranging from weekend visitors to sugar daddies to bartenders and sex workers. Tinged with sadness, the book's climax mixes feelings of pleasure with desperation and loss. As homosexuality gains mainstream acceptance, many queer Americans no longer need to go to geographic extremes like Fire Island, Provincetown, Palm Springs or Key West to express themselves. But what is the cost of assimilation? 'To Die Alive' is both romantic and grotesque, challenging the sun-bleached history of homoerotic representation on this fragile island, which itself is under constant threat of erosion by the sea.⁠ ⁠ Published by @damiani_books ⁠ ⁠ Edited by @elisabethbiondi ⁠ ⁠ Text by @jeremyoharris & @jack_parlett⁠ ⁠ Read more about the book via linkinbio.⁠ ⁠ #MatthewLeifheit #ToDieAlive #fireisland @mattelife #pride #gaypride #pridemonth #lgbtq #lgbtq+ https://www.instagram.com/p/CeY0rDwundo/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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"Featuring written contributions from @jeremyoharris and @jack_parlett the photobook 'Matthew Leifheit: To Die Alive' captures the spirit of the beach town and its enduring role in queer America."⁠ ⁠ A great review of the new release from @mattelife & @damiani_books is up now by @morganbeckeronline @documentjournal⁠ ⁠ "Queer America has many hubs, but Fire Island is essential to its history. The beach town, a mere 60 miles from New York City, served as a safe haven for members of the gay community years before Stonewall and the reform that followed. It was an isolated place—free from police surveillance, once the last boat departed each evening at midnight—allowing room to party, to cruise, and to simply exist in public with queer friends and lovers.⁠ ⁠ In his new book, 'To Die Alive,' brought to life by Damiani Publishing, photographer Matthew Leifheit captures the enduring legacy of Fire Island. The work is composed of 77 color portraits of the destination’s landscape, and of the intergenerational community that frequents it. The images are accompanied by text, in which playwright Jeremy O. Harris and professor Jack Parlett reflect on the heritage of the region. As a whole, the book is poignant and reflective, raising questions on the nature of assimilation, queer representation, and cultural preservation, as Fire Island faces literal destruction by way of erosion and rising sea levels as time wears on.…"⁠ ⁠ Read the full review via linkinbio.⁠ ⁠ Edited by @elisabethbiondi ⁠ ⁠ #MatthewLeifheit #ToDieAlive #fireisland⁠ ⁠ https://www.instagram.com/p/CeETrWcuRbe/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Forthcoming in May from @damiani_books 'Matthew Leifheit: To Die Alive' is featured this week @newyorkermag Exclusive new pictures from the book - in detail here - alongside a beautiful essay by @jack_parlett who writes, "Matthew Leifheit’s photos in 'To Die Alive' give arresting visual life to Fire Island’s layers of experience, to both its vitality and its morbidity, to the weight of its past and the immediacy of its present moment.… Fire Island is a stock figure for a certain kind of gay utopianism, but Leifheit is attuned to the variety of cultural meanings that have been inscribed on the place by those who have visited. Edmund White, for instance, has written that the rituals of gay men there, from afternoon tea dances to sex at dawn, 'rhymed' in his imagination 'with the rituals of medieval Japan or Versailles.' His comment invokes the grandeur of classicism and finds courtliness in camp.…" Read the full review via linkinbiol Edited by @elisabethbiondi Text by @jeremyoharris & @jack_parlett #MatthewLeifheit #ToDieAlive #fireisland @mattelife https://www.instagram.com/p/Ccaav7ROABe/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Forthcoming from @damiani_books 'Matthew Leifheit: To Die Alive' is definitely going to be the hot book of the summer. Read @missroseneditions @dazed⁠ ⁠ "…Half a century after Stonewall, Fire Island continues to provide sanctuary and escape from the rigid norms of cis-heterosexual society. In the new book, 'To Die Alive,' (forthcoming May 2022) @mattelife celebrates the people and places that give the community its edge, crafting a hypnotic portrait of queer life in the new millennium. Whether photographing sex workers, sugar daddies, bartenders, or models in the island’s lush landscape or discreet encounters at the Meat Rack, Leifheit creates a complex and compelling portrait of an intergenerational community in Fire Island today.⁠ ⁠ Drawing inspiration from the mid-20th century work of George Platt Lynes and the PaJaMa Collective, Leifheit began staging elegiac scenes of the endless night that quietly underscore the impact of AIDS on the community over the years. 'Most of the imagery I had seen about Fire Island was hot guys in the sun and this way of looking seemed a lot closer to my experience of sexuality, which has at times been fraught and dark,' Leifheit says.…⁠ ⁠ In Leifheit’s photographs, the landscape possesses a primordial beauty that mirrors this, acting as a Garden of Eden reclaimed for ‘Adam and Steve’. Here, nature is both sacred and profane, wild and unleashed yet profoundly spiritual in its purity. A heightened sense of theatricality, drama, and pathos pervades the work, much akin to the romantic sense of the sublime. In more recent photographs, the figure becomes indistinguishable from the landscape – the perfect metaphor for evolving notions of identity itself.…"⁠ ⁠ Read more via linkinbio.⁠ ⁠ Edited by @elisabethbiondi ⁠ Text by @jeremyoharris & @jack_parlett⁠ ⁠ #MatthewLeifheit #ToDieAlive #fireisland⁠ ⁠ https://www.instagram.com/p/CbspsgWppMI/?utm_medium=tumblr