MALE: from the collection of Vince Aletti

MALE features photographs and artifacts from the collection of the renowned photography critic, curator, and collector Vince Aletti. Amassed over the last 30 years, the collection features a blend of anonymous and iconic imagery from the present back into the 19th century. This visual cacophony distinguishes Aletti’s taste and appetite as a collector. He surrounds himself with his collection in his apartment, but for the first time, in February 2008, Aletti assembled a selection of images at White Columns in New York. A sampling from this public display is featured in MALE along with a gatefold documenting the collection as it is installed in his home.

Collier Schorr, contemporary artist and author, has contributed a 2,500-word essay on the history of homosexual imagery and the impact viewing Aletti’s collection had on her as an image maker. In “A Male is a Male as well as being a Male,” she states, “Aletti’s collection — as seen in his book, in his home and in an exhibition space — creates a Cosmos: at once a microcosm of gay male life, a personal fantasy, and the infinite, enveloping World. The collection is not concerned with the Unique. There is no sense of one-upmanship, each new picture is not there to be better than the last. There is no holy grail.”

PPP Editions, 2008
First edition; 1500 copies, the entire edition.

Folio; 300 black-and-white and color illustrations; illustrated, blind-stamped yellow wrappers; blind-stamped, cardboard slipcase.